Tattoo enthusiasts gather to kickstart the first national tattoo museum in Long Beach

In April of 1973, Jack Rudy met Charlie Cartwright, or Good Time Charlie, for the first time at The Pike in Long Beach. The two changed the course of tattoo history, specifically black and gray fine line tattooing, in the six-and-a-half-year span that they worked together in East Los Angeles. 

Almost 50 years later, they are once again making tattoo history and permanently cementing Long Beach as a worldwide tattoo destination. 

Over 600 enthusiasts, collectors and fellow artists congregated at the Long Beach Expo Arts Center Saturday night to fuel Rudy and Cartwright’s new mission: starting the first national tattoo museum in the United States. Attendees lined up at the building’s entrance and down the street for a chance to purchase over 250 drawings, paintings, ceramic pieces and a single barbed wire throne—pieces submitted from artists all over the world. 

“I just thought it was one of the greatest ideas I’ve ever heard,” Rudy said about Cartwright’s idea to build the museum. “Because Long Beach has the oldest history of tattooing [in the U.S.] and we want to try and be the best tattoo museum in the United States and we think Long Beach is the place for it because it really all started here.”

Although most of the tattoo shops that once called The Pike home are now gone, Outer Limits Tattoo & Museum is still going strong. Owned by Kari Barba, board member for the Tattoo Heritage Project, the shop is a relic in both Long Beach and tattooing history. 

Cartwright announced his plans to create the museum in 2021, and was immediately met with resounding support. He founded the Tattoo Heritage Project to get more people involved, and began meeting with City officials to discuss plans for the museum. 

When Cartwright announced that the Tattoo Heritage Project was seeking artist submissions, their goal of 100 pieces was quickly surpassed. They were forced to move the date for the show, originally planned for Sept. 10, in order to find a bigger location. 

Pieces from artists such as Ed Hardy, Chuey Quintanar, Rudy and Cartwright, which would usually cost anywhere in the thousands, were being sold at a maximum price of $300, giving people the chance to attain one-of-a-kind pieces from tattooing legends. Roughly $59,000 was raised Saturday, all of which will go towards starting the museum. 

The Tattoo Heritage Project received a donation of $20,000 from O&G Healthcare Consulting owner Victor Martinez. Martinez is a tattoo collector—someone who collects tattoos on his body as a way of honoring the craft—and has had most of his work done by Quintanar, one of the Heritage Project’s board members. 

Rudy reminisced on Cartwright and his journey—from The Pike in Long Beach to Tattooland in East Los Angeles, before Rudy found him home in Anaheim and Cartwright in Kansas—as he walked through the Expo Arts Center, seeing the donated pieces for the first time. After about 20 minutes, he had a long list of numbers written on his hand in black ink; drawings and paintings he and his wife planned on purchasing. 

“The reason we started doing fine line single needle was because our clientele, many of these guys had just got work in the joint or they got work off the street from some guy who learned in the joint and they wanted that style,” Rudy said. “We started doing it because we already loved black and white work, we called it then, and that later turned to black and gray work. We figured it out and we started doing it and that was that. We never looked back.”

Once attendees were allowed to enter, art was sold on a first-come, first-served basis. As admirers quickly shuffled from wall to wall surveying which pieces they wanted, Ryan Smith, co-owner of Sullen Clothing, took in the event and its impact. 

“You are now a part of a historic night in tattoo history,” Smith said into the microphone as a line to purchase art formed within minutes of the fundraiser. Of the 251 pieces submitted, only 20 were left unpurchased. The remaining  pieces will either be sold online through the Tattoo Heritage Project’s website or returned to the artist if they wanted them back. 

The historic nature of the night was not lost on the attendees who roamed from wall to wall taking in the art. Artists who submitted their own original work showed up to support Good Time Charlie and the museum’s inception by buying whatever pieces spoke to them.

Paul Barrientos from Divine Tattoo in Stanton was able to get his hands on one of two painted ceramic plates from Chuey Quintanar. He was one of the first people to arrive, and had donated a green hand-painted ceramic bottle to the show. 

“Something like this, we had to be a part of it,” Barrientos said. “It’s so much history with Charlie and Jack and the whole Tattooland, we’re actually experiencing tattoo history and black and gray history as we speak right now so it’s surreal. If you’re not here you’re missing out. 

These are like The Doors, these are the Hendrix, the Led Zeppelins of art and they’re still around so I’m aware of that and it’s cool to take pictures with them and save it for the grandkids one day.”

A large barbed wire throne created and donated by Daniel Hatfield of Hatfield Kustoms sat near the entrance of the show, enticing attendees as they stepped through the front doors. Minutes after it was announced that the throne was indeed part of the show and included in the $300 minimum, one lucky tattooer got her hands on it. 

“It’s so insane,” Isabella Biller said. “I walked in and I was like, ‘That is wild.’ I did not think it would be a part of the show.”

Biller, an apprentice at Classic Touch Tattoos in Venice, said the throne will find its new home at the tattoo shop, where she and her fellow artists have been talking about the art show for weeks and imagining the kinds of pieces they would get their hands on. 

The next project from Tattoo Heritage Project has not been announced yet, but Rudy said the City has shown enthusiasm to get the museum started. Following the success of the art show and fundraiser, it’s clear the community is eager to support. 

“I like the idea of [the museum] and no one better than Good Time Charlie, who pioneered—he mentored Jack Rudy and Jack Rudy is important to the history of black and gray tattooing, he was like the front man with the torch,” Barrientos said.