Bay Area Tattoo Convention #15

Bay Area Tattoo Convention 2019

The Bay Area Tattoo Convention is an annual, invitation-only event co-organized by Taki Kitamura and Roman Enriquez, foregrounding a community-building approach within the industry and ethics that strives to keep the tattoo world for tattooists. In addition to our attendance at the Convention, where you can find a booth offering our entire line of publications, each year TTTISM offers exclusive photographs, video content, and interviews taken over the three-day event. In anticipation of the 2019 convention, we are pleased to present a retrospective of our Bay Area features to date.

We get the origin story of the convention from Takahiro “Taki” Kitamura who, along with Roman Enriquez, co-organizes the Bay Area Tattoo Convention. The 2017 convention was shot by photographer Jake Ricker. We also offer exclusive interviews with participating tattooists at the event each year, in both text and video formats. Some of the artists interviewed include font and lettering specialist, Big Meas; American traditional expert, Matt Arriola; and experimental tattooist Nomi Chi. Of note as well is a short video profile on Don Ed Hardy, a founding father of contemporary tattooing and dedicated participant at the Convention.