My journey to Ing Tattoo
by Lucy Argaez
When I went searching for Ing Tattoo I had gotten lost. I was searching for a shop that would allow me into their shop and their world. I called, emailed, texted and set up appointments with 25 shops before I found the place that felt meant to be. I drove up and down Foothill Boulevard in Arcadia twice before I realized I had passed the shop. A small unassuming sign that says “Tattoo” hung over the shop’s entrance. However, it was overpowered by the surrounding signs of other building occupants. The tattoo shop was under a music school and next to a baseball card shop and strangely enough, this made sense to me.
When I walked into the shop it felt like I had stepped into a different world. The shop was bigger than I had expected it to be from the outside. The front of the shop was covered in paintings and awards for men’s physique and tattooing. In the waiting area, artist portfolios filled the coffee table in front of the couch. Walking through a curtain of painted KOI fish, I found the tattoo and design area.
After getting through some of the hardest months in my life, struggling with taking care of my brother and now my grandfather, dealing with my general education courses, losing my job and stressing about money, I felt like that struggle that I went through trying to figure it all out should be celebrated. I felt brand new, like the person that I was in April 2020 had melted away and left the person I had always wanted to become. I wanted to get a tattoo in celebration that represented growth. I wanted it to represent all the changes I went through and the strength that it took to change.
“A lot of people treat tattoo like a healing process; more than one person has told me that this is (their) therapy during our tattoo session,” Esther Zhao, an artist at Ing Tattoo, said in a phone interview. “This is something I really treasure, providing a safe space for people to express themselves o listen to them and be a part of that healing process.”
This spoke to me because it was exactly how I felt about the tattoo that I wanted to get. I felt like I had found the people that would be able to make that idea possible.
Jude Guo said that the shop started out in his garage after two years of apprenticeship at other shops. Guo decorated his garage and turned it into a mini studio. He tattooed friends and others referred to him. After saving what he had earned tattooing, he had enough to open the first Ing tattoo shop in El Monte in 2015.
The shop grew from a job to a passion for tattooing; and just like his passion, his business grew from something Guo had done in his garage to his own shop in Arcadia.
The first artist to work with Jude was Esther Zhao, who had met him when the first shop opened. Zhao met Guo through a friend who had previously gotten a tattoo from him.
“It’s funny— she (Zhao’s friend) said, ‘You should check this guy out. He’s really good, and he’s also very cute,’” Esther Zhao said to me.
She kept Guo’s contact information and decided to go to his shop. Esther Zhao had originally gone to the shop for an internship as a business major and intended to help out with the accounts, but after being at the shop for a while she fell in love with tattooing. She has worked with Guo ever since.
The other artist who worked with Guo since the first shop opening in El Monte is Logan Zhao. They were friends before Zhao had begun tattooing. Elaine Gong is a current apprentice at the shop.
“Jude was the person who had gotten Logan into tattooing; they had started tattooing their friends and people they knew in the beginning, and they are still tattooing together today,” Gong said to me, translating for Logan Zhao.
The current artists residing in the shop along with Esther Zhao and Logan Zhao are Eva Liu, Jesse Sun, Jimi Huang and Lingnzi. The artists at the shop have helped each other’s skill set grow. The artists competed in several tattoo expos, and even competed in New York at the NYC Empire State Tattoo Expo in 2019.
“Everyone in the shop gets along pretty well,” Gong said to me. “We are all friends, so this shop is like a family.”
Guo said he has been a professional tattoo artist for six years. He also said that in his spare time he is an actor, model, fitness icon and singer. He was also named among the top ten tattoo artists and TikTok influencers in Los Angeles in 2020 by inBeat.
“I originally started the TikTok for fun,” Guo said to me. “I post a lot of the tattoos I do, tattoo removals and bodybuilding stuff on there.”
Guo said that his hobbies are all the things he has grown to be passionate about. It was only fitting that a person who has so many hobbies and so many versions of themselves would be the person I would want to design my tattoo.
The process of getting a tattoo at their shop is to first call or reach out to an artist depending on the work you want done. Then, they will design an original tattoo catered to what you are looking for. All that would need to be done next would be to set up an appointment or appointments and begin placing and tattooing the design.
The shop stayed closed during the first three months of the outbreak in 2020, only allowing friends to come into the shop for tattoos. The shop is not currently accepting walk-in appointments. They are only tattooing returning customers and friends.
The shop will open up to more tattoo lovers when COVID-19 guidelines allow for it. Guo says that as the tiers of COVID-19 change, so will the admittance of walk-in customers.
“The process of tattooing has not really changed; we still sanitize the same way and are very careful with our machinery,” Guo said to me.
Another shop in the area, Blackbird Tattoo, is also not taking walk-in appointments. They agree that the process of getting a tattoo with the restrictions and guidelines has not changed from before the pandemic.
“It’s been easier to have all of the work for a tattoo figured out ahead of time; the only thing that has changed about the way we tattoo has been wearing a mask while working,” Blackbird Tattoo owner Brandon Swartz said.
After visiting Ing Tattoo, I decided to wait until I can be tattooed by artists at the shop. I want to get a tattoo from the people who pride themselves on designing tattoos their customers would love and cherish. I want to get a tattoo that is representative of the struggles I have gone through, and I believe these are the artists that can make it happen.
“Making a permanent mark on human skin and watching it heal and watching it go through the different phases of a persons’ life, how the skin ages or changes, the tattoo changes as well,” Esther Zhao said. “That is what makes tattooing so special: it is a healing process.”
