These tattoo legends are teaming up to start the first national tattoo art museum in Long Beach

After over 65 years of tattooing, legend “Good Time Charlie” Cartwright is worried about the preservation of the craft. To do something about it, the father of black and gray tattooing has rounded up a group of artists in the industry to create the first ever national American tattoo art history museum in downtown Long Beach.  

Cartwright founded The Heritage Project  in 2021 in hopes to “create a space solely dedicated to archiving and displaying American tattoo art,” according to a press release from the nonprofit. 

“In eight different states in the U.S., there are 22 tattoo museums connected with shops, but there is no national place to go … the big one like the Smithsonian of tattooing or something like that,” Cartwright said. “I’m a retired man anyway and have been for several years, so you know, why shouldn’t I contribute my energies towards something meaningful like that?”

The past year and a half has consisted of Cartwright and board members—Kari Barba, JD Crowe, Corey Miller, Chuey Quintanar and Jack Rudy—diving into various points of tattoo history, contacting people who own personal collections throughout the country and meeting with prominent members of the city to discuss a timeline and location for the museum. 

“The history of tattoo is kind of going to be a little bit lost if we don’t do this museum.”

Kari Barba, tattoo artist and owner of Outer Limits Tattoo

Long Beach was the obvious location for the museum, Cartwright explained, due to its connection to the tattoo community. The Pike has been home to a vast number of tattoo legends since the 1800s, including Bert Grimm, Charles “Red” Gibbons, Dorothy “Dainty Dotty” Jensen, Jack Julian and many, many more. 

The museum will delve into the rich history of tattooing in America and around the world, from its roots in ancient Japan to the transformation of American traditional to Chicano-style black and gray and realism. It will also teach attendees about legendary tattoo artists who have their hands—and ink—all over the art form. 

An inkling about “Good Time Charlie” Cartwright

“Good Time Charlie” Cartwright lives up to his name. Over a phone call and 350 miles of distance, Cartwright is laughing about whiny customers who leave bad Yelp reviews, reminiscing on old projects he worked on and contemplating the future of the tattoo industry. 

“Well, I’m afraid it’s gonna be … I almost want to say mechanical,” Cartwright said. “I think the human element will be completely gone. Except for maybe a few diehards that want to stay primitive, but I’m pretty sure it’s all gonna be done.”

Cartwright was 15 years old when he started tattooing out of the backseat of his car in Texas. He practiced the hand poke method, where a tattoo artist uses his hands to deposit ink pigments into someone’s skin rather than a machine, for five years without the use of any stencils or tracings. 

“I was always a custom tattooer, I didn’t even know what stencils were and so forth as a kid, because I just drew directly on people,” Cartwright said. “I avoided the professional tattoo world for so many years for that reason, because I thought, ‘Well, those guys don’t draw, they just trace everything.’ So that was a turnoff to me.”

Like any respectable tattoo artist in that time, he traveled to the Pike in downtown Long Beach, where the American traditional style was flourishing. It was not common practice to walk into a tattoo shop and request anything different than the flash on the wall.

“They all gave me the cold shoulder so you know I had a hard time even respecting these guys because they were just so corny and flippant about that and I thought, ‘Well I want to put good art on people I don’t want to just give them a wham bam thank you ma’am type thing.’” 

Cartwright also had a natural affinity towards black and grey tattooing, a style made popular by Chicano artists in California prisons in the ‘70s. To create different shades of black and grey convicts would use ash, ink from a pen—as well as guitar strings for needles and deconstructed tape recorders for motors. 

The varied shades of black and gray gave tattoos more dimension than the American traditional style. Cartwright and fellow board member Jack Rudy are credited for taking the Chicano style to a national level by opening up their shop Goodtime Charlie’s in East LA in 1975. 

Decades later, Cartwright is once again reaching out to the tattoo community in hopes of changing it for the better. He said he has “grand ideas” for the museum once it opens, including docuseries covering different points in tattoo history, an open marketplace where artists can sell their work, a rotating exhibit from private on-loan collections and the opportunity to preserve the culture. 

Long Beach’s tattoo history

Boardmember Kari Barba, herself a tattoo history enthusiast, shared a similar reason for wanting to create a national tattoo museum. She owns Outer Limits Tattoo, the oldest operating tattoo shop in America, and the second oldest in the world, at—you guessed it, The Pike.

The Pike was the premiere tattoo destination on the West Coast since the early 1900s, as it used to be home to a dozen different shops owned by various legends of the craft. 

Each tattooer was adamant about keeping the culture pure—for decades only American traditional pieces were offered: thick black lines and vibrant reds that made up anchors, hearts with arrows or knives piercing them, roses and red-lipped women, popular with the U.S. Navy sailors on ship leave. 

Since then, all but one shop has closed its doors as the tattoo world moves on at light speed.

“There’s tattoo artists all over the nation who are housing huge collections that nobody sees. It might be in their garage, it might be in the back of their tattoo shop and some of it is displayed but not much,” Barba said.

Barba has done her part in preserving tattoo history. After purchasing the oldest tattoo shop in America, she uncovered panels and found perfectly preserved tattoo flash stencils, machines, stained windows and an unopened safe.

She echoed Cartwright’s fear about the future of tattooing losing its personal touch, and said she hopes the museum will help preserve the communal aspect of the art.

“The idea of what a tattoo shop is, is going to kind of become historical in itself. Tattoo shops where you walk in and see flash on the wall, or you walk in and can get a walk-in, I think in 20 years, [it] will be very individual and the majority of tattoo shops won’t be like that,” Barba said. “And so the history of tattoo is kind of going to be a little bit lost if we don’t do this museum.”

Tattoo community responds with support

The board is currently in its fundraising stage, trying to get the word out to the tattoo community. According to Barba, the city has voiced its support for the museum’s creation through the three Zoom meetings they’ve had with councilmembers and city developers. 

The first official fundraising effort began in June 2021 through an online art exhibition which is still ongoing. Tattoo lovers can purchase exclusive T-shirts designed by Jack Rudy and Kari Barba as well as $40 mugs, $,1000 plaques for a “contribution wall” donning the donor’s name and a founding donor plaque for $2,500. 

There has been one fundraiser so far for the Heritage Project in Texas of May 2022. Over 25 artists from around Houston tattooed traditional art and sold their flashes, with most of the proceeds going to the museum’s creation. 

Southern California tattoo lovers can congregate to Long Beach on Nov. 5 to participate in a fundraiser hosted by Jeremy Hanna and Ryan Smith’s company Sullen Clothing. The company put out a call to artists on social media to its more than one million followers, asking them to donate original pieces of artwork following the theme, “What does tattooing mean to you?” 

So far, almost 100 pieces of original art have been sent to the Seal Beach headquarters, from tattoo artists all over the world. The works submitted have a maximum price of $300, a vast difference from the thousands of dollars people usually pay for some of the participating artists. 

The fundraiser was originally planned for a smaller scale on Sept. 10, but the “big response” from the community forced the board to search for a larger location. All sales from the art will go to the Heritage Project.

Sullen’s connection to the tattoo community has spanned around the world in its 20 years of operation, regularly collaborating with artists and raising funds for causes that speak to them. Hanna heard about the project through small social media posts on Instagram for months before realizing he had to be a part of it. 

“To be a part of this legacy, to be a part of this tattoo museum excites me the most,” Hanna said. “I know this Tattoo Heritage Project is going to be Charlie’s legacy. You know, he’s 83 years old and this is going to be you know what he’s leaving behind for the tattoo community.”

Their call to action has put the Heritage Project on a global scale, and Hanna predicted a “line down the street” the night of the fundraiser. 

The location for Sullen’s fundraiser is yet to be announced. For updates on the fundraiser, follow @sullenclothing on Instagram. For updates on the Heritage Project’s progress on creating the first ever national American tattoo history museum, visit https://www.tattooheritageproject.org/.