“A place for the oddballs:” Tattoo community mourns victims of Denver-Lakewood shootings

A makeshift altar spills retired the beforehand doorway of Sol Tribe Custom Tattoo and Body Piercing.

Bouquets of flowers rustle successful the wind. Candle flames flicker, their wax pooling connected the sidewalk. Offerings of fruit, photographs, crystals, and feathers are presided implicit by a representation hanging connected the storefront door: A depiction of Alicia Cardenas, the store proprietor and elephantine successful the tattoo and assemblage modification community, and among the victims killed successful a Monday nighttime shooting spree crossed the city that began astatine the Broadway tattoo shop.

The sacredness of the memorial fits the hallowed statement Denver’s assemblage creation assemblage discussed erstwhile commemorating the victims, the store and the household created retired of a reverence for ink connected skin.

The assemblage — comprised of walking canvasses and the artists who pierce and overgarment them — is successful mourning aft aggregate tattoo artists were targeted this week successful a shooting rampage spanning Denver and Lakewood that near six radical dormant including the gunman.

The tattoo shop, mourners said, is simply a temple wherever the oddballs stitchery to heal.

“It’s going to instrumentality a batch of clip arsenic a assemblage to heal from this,” said Madison Lauterbach, a Denverite with 8 facial piercings and respective tattoos who frequented the archetypal determination of the shooting spree, Sol Tribe Custom Tattoo and Body Piercing. “My anticipation is we proceed to dainty our location shops arsenic the temples they are and we proceed to dainty our modification artists arsenic the healers they are.”

“A spot for the oddballs”

Among those healers killed successful the shooting: Danny Scofield, an creator astatine Lucky 13 Tattoo and Piercing; Alyssa Gun Maldonado, the jewelry manager astatine Sol Tribe Custom Tattoo and Body Piercing; and Cardenas, Sol Tribe proprietor and a matriarch successful the industry, said Kacy Jonez, a tattoo apprentice who worked alongside Cardenas astatine Sol Tribe.

Sol Tribe and the shop’s archetypal iteration, Twisted Sol, did things differently, Jonez said.

In a antheral dominated industry, Sol Tribe and its unit of employees, customers and fans made abstraction for women, non-binary people, the LGBTQ community, radical of colour and anyone who felt a small different, Jonez said.

“Alicia and Alyssa were this matriarchal unit the tattoo assemblage needs desperately,” Jonez said. “She took maine connected to thatch maine however to tattoo, but she was besides teaching maine however to instrumentality a stand. It was a harmless place. I could beryllium brown. I wasn’t a toilet scrubber. I was an equal.”

The Sol Tribe unit would clasp meetings astir however to alteration the manufacture for the amended and combat patriarchal attitudes that persisted, Jonez said.

Hyoung Chang, The Denver Post

Flowers and messages are placed astatine the Sol Tribe tattoo store connected Broadway successful Denver connected Tuesday, Dec. 28, 2021, 1 time aft 2 radical were changeable and killed determination successful a spree that continued crossed 2 cities, Denver and Lakewood.

“We didn’t request to dominate,” Jonez said. “We conscionable needed a place, and that’s what the store is. A spot for the oddballs and the radical who didn’t acceptable in.”

Lauterbach, a 26-year-old Denverite, grew up fascinated by assemblage modification. She felt retired of spot until uncovering a location successful the tattoo and assemblage modification assemblage with a location basal of Sol Tribe wherever she received her forehead dermal — a piercing she begged Cardenas to administer due to the fact that she was lone 17-years-old but accompanied by her mother.

“It’s go a defining diagnostic of who I am,” Lauterbach said. “Alicia impacted maine truthful profoundly with conscionable that 1 piercing.”

For Lauterbach, the tattoos and piercings are creation that marque her consciousness beautiful.

“I utilized to hatred my thighs erstwhile I was a teenager,” Lauterbach said. “I retrieve being successful the bathtub astatine 15 and calling my ma successful and sobbing and begging her to fto maine get liposuction connected my thighs.”

Instead, Lauterbach’s thighs became the backdrop to respective tattoos — a rainbow trout, a pistillate wearing a cervid headpiece, a bosom surrounding the connection “no” and more.

“It’s go truly hard to hatred my assemblage due to the fact that it’s covered successful creation that I love,” Lauterbach said.

Helen H. Richardson, The Denver Post

Members of the Colorado Danza Azteca assemblage clasp what they telephone a Prayer Velacion during a candlelight ceremonial extracurricular Sol Tribe Custom Tattoo and Body Piercing store connected Broadway for its proprietor Alicia Cardenas connected Dec. 28, 2021, successful Denver.

“More than conscionable a shop”

The tight-knit tattooing assemblage is made up of artists and customers who person worked and played unneurotic for years, members said.

“The monolithic assemblage that we person has conscionable been rocked,” said James Clarke, a tattoo creator who utilized to enactment with Scofield. “Our assemblage is devastated.”

Krisha Jeannoutot, who owns Phantom 8 Tattoo & Piercing successful Englewood with her husband, Chris, started piercing successful the 1990s astir the aforesaid clip arsenic Cardenas who she considered an manufacture peer.

Jeannoutot said Monday’s nonaccomplishment was personal.

“It’s household beyond family,” Jeannoutot said.

Tattooing has heavy roots successful past artistry and Indigenous practices, Jeannoutot said, which Cardenas and Sol Tribe were adamant connected preserving and celebrating.

“It’s a deeper connection,” Jeannoutot said. “It’s Indigenous people. It’s tribal.”

Alicia “Bruce” Trujillo, a Chicana moving successful Denver’s arts and euphony scene, said the Denver assemblage modification assemblage has abstraction for everyone but that she peculiarly loved the situation Sol Tribe created.

Trujillo, who partook successful Indigenous sweat lodge ceremonies with Gunn Maldonado, recounted Sol Tribe unit burning sweetgrass arsenic Cardenas tattooed Trujillo’s thenar with ancestral artwork.

“It was special,” Trujillo said. “Sol Tribe is an acquisition space. A abstraction of ritual. It’s much than conscionable a shop.”

Jher Clark, co-owner of Denver’s Landmark Tattoo, said Monday’s calamity brought unneurotic colleagues crossed the manufacture arsenic erstwhile coworkers gathered extracurricular Sol Tribe to mourn.

Kathryn Scott, Special to The Denver Post

Julia Torres says she feels blessed that she volition ever transportation the artistry of Alicia Cardenas successful the signifier of a tattoo connected her forearm arsenic she poses for a representation astatine her location connected Dec. 30, 2021, successful Brighton.

Old friends hugged, traded memories, wept and were reminded of the passionateness for creation that drove them into the manufacture successful the archetypal place.

“There’s decidedly a feeling of family,” said Clark, who worked astatine Twisted Sol — Cardenas archetypal tattoo store she opened successful 1997.

Holidays were often spent astatine Cardenas house, Clark said. Big gatherings — birthdays, barbecues, manufacture conferences and camping trips — bonded coworkers crossed shops and created lasting ties and chosen families for those whose household lives weren’t arsenic bright, Clark said.

Cardenas was a unit astatine the forefront of pushing the tattoo manufacture to beryllium much inclusive, Clark said, which rubbed disconnected connected artists crossed the country. Landmark Tattoo holds meetings educating its unit astir topics specified arsenic asking and utilizing people’s due pronouns and being much conscious of the connection they usage erstwhile speaking to people.

“So overmuch of that is due to the fact that of Alicia,” Clark said. “She taught maine and truthful galore others.”

Continuing the work

Julia Torres lone has to look astatine her limb to beryllium reminded of the value of the tattooing assemblage successful her beingness and Cardenas’ magical touch.

Cardenas inked a memorial portion extending on Torres’ limb and precocious backmost honoring Torres’ dormant stepfather who designed stained glass. The portion — bursting with vibrant colors — managed to lucifer stained solid with airy bouncing done it, which Torres said is particularly awesome connected her Black skin.

“Alicia was 1 of the fewer artists successful the authorities who truly understood tattooing melanated skin,” Torres said.

The nonaccomplishment to the tattooing assemblage is simply a wake-up telephone to Torres. She thought astir each the communities the victims belonged to, fought for and loved — the artists, the poor, the Indigenous, the women, the queer — and felt called to prime up the combat wherever they near off.

“We who emotion them person an ongoing committedness to proceed their enactment and the champion happening radical tin bash is probe each the causes they were passionate astir and find artists either successful Denver oregon elsewhere who bash Indigenous enactment and assemblage modification and tattooing who request your help, uplifting, resources,” Torres said. “Alicia supported the stateless community, the queer community, truthful many. The champion mode we tin grant her beingness is continuing that work, and that’s what I program to do.”