Today we’d like to introduce you to Charly Reynoso.
Charly, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I was always drawing as a kid, art fascinated me. I was that kid who would draw on my friends at school when they’d let me and it eventually turned into wanting to tattoo. So at a young I learned how to tattoo and would take any influence I could get to learn more. I finished my regular schooling because it was the path my mom required of me, high school and then college because if you didn’t get a degree my family believed you would end up on the streets with no future, it was common belief back then that tattooing was for criminals in the underground life. Despite the beliefs and discouragement, I took every opportunity to learn more because I really liked it. I got a degree in architecture and began teaching classes at the same university I graduated from, while at the same time tattooing on the side trying to figure out where my future was headed.
I moved to Los Angeles in my early 20s as I had made several friends tattooing and was asked to join them and tattoo alongside them. I met a lot of people coming up in the industry at the time and worked really hard to establish myself. I started off working in Venice on the boardwalk, which if you’re a solid tattooer in LA you know that’s not really where you want to be but for me not being from LA it was a foot in the door. From there I opened a tattoo shop in Hollywood with the same friend I moved to LA with, at the time we kind of had this rockstar mentality as a lot of tattooers do, partying late night tattooing during the day, looking back it was exhausting but that’s all I knew. We had a shop on Melrose then Hollywood Blvd before I left the Hollywood chapter and moved to West LA after having a son. I ended up back in Venice working at a new tattoo shop where I knew the owners from years before, it seemed like a good setup working and helping them establish the new shop. It was in that shop that I met my partner Bree, and not even a year later we were opening Black Diamond Tattoo.
Has it been a smooth road?
NO! haha There’s no such thing as a smooth road, what’s the point? We’ve had so many struggles it’s crazy, but that’s what makes us who we are. I remember one year we had a huge disruption with someone working in the shop. This person did some really awful things to us and it caused a lot of problems for everyone, once we removed them it was like a huge sigh of relief from everyone. Neither Bree or myself had realized what a negative impact that person had on the business. The month after they were gone we saw our biggest month ever and it just continued to grow from there. There have been challenged since then, staff changes, a location change which was huge and insane, but for the most part it’s been pretty stable since.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Black Diamond Tattoo story. Tell us more about the business.
We opened in 2008, we specialize in really great tattoos. It sounds simple because it is, doing good work shouldn’t be a ridiculous thing and it shouldn’t be a bad experience, it should be the standard. Good work from good people giving a good experience. That’s our model and it’s worked really well for us. I’m really proud of the team we have, we have such a low turn over rate everyone who comes to work with us stays and it makes me feel really good that we’ve managed to build something that people want to not only be apart of but also stick around in. I think that really sets us apart from others, we care about who’s working with us like they’re part of our family, we help each other and look out for one another. Not every shop can say that.
How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
I think the industry is like the rest of the world, ever-changing. I know for sure that this is one industry that can’t become automated, half of the pride in getting a tattoo is where and who you got it from. So in a world of new innovation and automated production lines and experiences where it’s removing the service provided by people, this is one service industry that will remain because it’s about who’s doing the artwork and that’s unique to the person. I think we’ll continue to see the tattoo trends as a huge part of society and more and more common, it’s becoming less and less taboo no matter where you go.
Pricing:
- We charge $200 per hour.
- The shop has a $100 minimum.
Contact Info:
- Address: Venice: 1809 Lincoln Blvd Venice, CA 90291
Mar Vista: 12206 Venice Blvd Los Angeles, CA 90066 - Website: www.blackdiamondtattoo.com
- Phone: 310-399-1177
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: blackdiamondcharly
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/black-diamond-tattoo-venice-3
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