Q&A: Building Community at the Rail City Tattoo Festival

At the second annual Rail City Tattoo Festival earlier this month, 48 tattoo artists from Vermont and beyond gathered to share expertise and showcase their art. More than 1,000 people showed up at St. Albans City Hall for the two-day fest; many of them left with fresh ink. The convention was organized by Jhon and Jodi Rodriguez of 100 Candles Tattoo, a studio just down the street. A well-known tattoo artist originally from Colombia, Jhon brought to the event some friends from his home country who currently live in New York. Throughout the weekend, the hum of tattoo machines blended with loud music as dozens of people offered up various parts of their bodies for inking.

In her latest episode of “Stuck in Vermont,” Seven Days senior multimedia producer Eva Sollberger visited the family-friendly fest and met some artists and visitors. She even got a temporary tat, thanks to two young aspiring artists.

Sollberger spoke with Seven Days about filming the episode.

The drawings are so intimate and colorful, spanning a huge range of styles.

Why did you feature this festival?

I had never been to a tattoo convention before, but I have featured a few tattoo artists in my videos over the years. I thought it would be interesting to see a lot of people being tattooed at once, and it really was. There were dozens of people sitting and lying down in different positions while tattoo artists hunched over them. The drawings are so intimate and colorful, spanning a huge range of styles. And these tattoos will be on these people’s bodies forever. There was something very primal about it.

How have tattoos changed over the years?

Tattoos date back thousands of years and have a variety of meanings in different cultures around the globe. I am amazed by how much people’s perception of tattoos has changed in my lifetime in the U.S. When I was a kid in the 1980s, I didn’t know anyone with tattoos in rural Vermont. It was something that was very fringe and associated with sailors and freak shows. By the 1990s, when I was living in Northern California, more of my friends started to get tattoos, but it was still considered pretty risqué.

Fast-forward to today, and they are ubiquitous. According to the Pew Research Center, 32 percent of Americans have at least one tattoo. Now you see them on everyone, including celebrities, police officers and politicians.

And yet you don’t have one.

True, I don’t have any tattoos, and when I admitted this at the convention, a record scratched and everyone turned to stare at me. Just kidding! I felt welcome there despite my lack of ink. It was a chill, friendly vibe with a diverse crowd.

I may get one someday — never say never. And I was grateful to youngsters Rosie and Arlo for giving me a temporary feather tattoo that stuck around for a few days. They already know what tattoos they will get when they are old enough. Like Rosie, maybe I will get a cat tattoo someday.

This was a family affair for some of the people you met.

For sure. Rosie is Jodi and Jhon Rodriguez’s daughter. One reason the couple founded the fest was to bring people to downtown St. Albans to support local businesses, including their tattoo shop, and make connections between local artists.

The Brown family were both getting and giving tattoos. Anne Marie Brown, from New Hampshire, started at age 51. Since then, she has gotten elaborate tattoos on her arms and legs. “Bald Bill” Henshaw of Burlington’s Yankee Tattoo was adding a peony to her shoulder. Behind them, her son Neil Brown of Tattoos by Nine was putting a tattoo of a Japanese snake lady on his older brother’s thigh. Next to it was Neil’s first work of tattoo art, which he made two years ago when he started in the profession.

Neil works at Monster Mash Ink in Essex Junction with his mentor, Jim DuVal. DuVal trained years ago with Henshaw, who has been tattooing for 46 years and was one of the pioneers in our state. So it was neat that Neil and Henshaw were working side by side on the Brown family, with DuVal across the room. Talk about an impressive tattoo lineage.

What sort of tattoos were people getting?

Everything under the sun: a spider lady, imaginary creatures, demons, frogs, foliage, bugs, skulls. I made a montage of tattoos at the end of the video from photos people published to Instagram. The tattoo art form has really progressed and become more popular. There were so many wildly different styles on display, and it was a great opportunity for locals and out-of-towners alike to get ink from a variety of skilled artists in one location. There was only one hitch: You have to be 18 years old to get a tattoo, so Arlo and Rosie will have to wait a bit for their permanent tats.

The original print version of this article was headlined “Ink Spots | Tattoo artists gather in St. Albans for an annual convention”