Check Out Armando Placaso’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Armando Placaso.

Armando, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I been drawing since I was a kid. Being Chicano I always felt connected to the lowrider culture. My tios had tattoos growing up and I remeber seeing them on other homies older than me. I remember thinking about tattoos wow you can have art on skin. At the age of 17 after a friend from school showed me how to tattoo with a needle and thread I went home and tatted myself. But I knew my dad didn’t like tattoos so I had to hide it the whole summer wearing sweaters around him. When he seen it he asked me what it was. I said “ it’s our last name” he said “why would u do that? what are you going to forget it?”after that I started tatting everyone around me. It took too long to do them hand poke so decided to get a homemade machine. From there I advanced allot quicker. Eventually the internet started selling machines and needles online so decided to make an investment and quit my job and decided to start tatting full time. That was back in 2003. Then I got a job at a tattoo shop Lowrider tattoo and from there went to allot of conventions around the county. Started building clients from all over. Since leaving the shop I’ve been doing referral only. So limiting the possibly of getting tatted unless you know someone who’s gotten tatted by me has been how I’ve been doing it the last 20 yrs. I’m live in Bellflower California southeast La but do mobile tattoos so I could be in the south central or a 5 star hotel. I’ve been around it all and seen it all. From criminals to pastors. I’ve had the privilege of tattin all kinds of different walks of life

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Doing it by referral only has made it hard at times. I’m limiting my clientele by not letting new clients in unless they know someone I’ve tatted already. Then they would have to give them a referral. So it’s limited my work at times but I believe good work will sell itself.
Being a tattoo artist is a hard industry to be in when you’re married and have a family as well. I know allot of homies that have lost their wives or families due to the lifestyle. I e had to limit who I tat to make things better at home to secure my wife and kids from that happening to me

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I believe we are all creative because we were created. Everything around us is inspiration of how we could mimic what has already been done. So it’s really not too hard Being an artist on canvas made of skin I’ve taking my years of knowledge in drawing and put to it tattooing. I remember tattooing at the shops I was often doing flash art from other artist. In southern Cali it’s known for Chicano style clowns. From teen angels to lowrider arte and allot of known tattoo artist at that time were mister cartoon,Jose Lopez, Freddy Negrete, franco vescovi, Steve Soto, and boog to name a few. I was doing allot of their flash and one day realized I was getting their art know from doing them so many times and wondered how I could make my art unique. After praying the idea came into my head to do my face as a clown. So I freehanded it on the next person to ask for it using a mirror to get a reference. He caught me looking at the mirror and wondering if I was tatting myself on him. I said yes I was and he responded back “ I don’t want u on me. So I said “ then you tell em what guy do you want on you.” He didn’t have an answer so we went with my face. Since then I started drawing freehand tattoos on almost everyone who wanted something custom. Not allot of other artist will do that since there’s a good chance you can mess it up

What were you like growing up?
I was funny. I liked to make people laugh. I was a clown. Everything Was a joke to me. Also very proud to be chicano. My parents slip up when I was 15 so then it became all about runnin the streets and trouble until Jesus came and rescued me from all of that and my whole way of life changed. Since then I met the love of my life Isabel, married her and had 3 kids with her Alejandro Adriana and Cruzito. We just recently had our first grandson
Interests are learning about spiritual matters, being challenged in my beliefs and challenging those around me with their beliefs. Creating things that have meaning using my art to tell stories that relate to those around me

Contact Info:

• Website: placasotattoos@gmail.com
• Instagram: Placasotattoo
• Facebook: Placasotattoo

Image Credits
Placaso