Our series, Permanent Behavior: Getting Tatted in the Bay, starts with tattoo artist Miguel "Bounce" Perez.
Perez has vivid childhood memories of art created by his family: His mother drew “chola-style” portraits of women with feathered hair and sharp brows, while his uncles created lettering in Cali-Chicano Old English script. His father was part of a car club in his West Berkeley community, a neighborhood that was also home to a number of aerosol graffiti murals.
All of this poured into Perez, and laid the foundation for what he does today.
He's a versatile artist, who sees collaboration with his clients as central to his work. He's done touch-ups for people who've been incarcerated, and even inked a team of mathletes. His art is detailed and graphic, ranging from Mayan Goddesses to anime characters.
Perez says he doesn't have a "specialty," but he often does cover-ups of older tattoos; a community service of sorts. He's also part of the art collective Trust Your Struggle, which paints murals in countries for historically colonized and under-resourced communities.
Given Perez's experiences with both impermanent aerosol and indelible ink, we figured he'd be the best person to start this exploration into the culture of tattooing in the Bay Area, and what it feels like to create permanent artwork-- if such a thing exists.
Read the transcript here.
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