Meet Arlene Salinas

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Arlene Salinas. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Arlene below.

Arlene, thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?

Being a female and a Latina has a lot to do with my resilience. Tattooing for 17 years has also contributed to my resilience. Naturally, I believe that most people with indigenous lineage have a genetic disposition to being resilient. Coming from a mexican background and growing up around other strong women has made me who I am. My career as a tattooer has also made me the person I am today. Tattooing can be tough, it used to be more of a boy’s club when I came into it. Back then, and even now, you have to be resilient and not easily shaken to make it. Tattooing takes a lot of guts, heart, blood, sweat and tears. Not to mention, patience. If you work hard for anything in life it will pay off.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

I am a tattooer of 17 years. I’ve tattooed in Los Angeles my entire career. Right now, I own Hand In Glove Tattoo in Norwalk, CA. My shop has been open since 2022. I love tattooing, it’s part of who I am and it’s the reason I have the life I have. I like to focus on traditional tattoo imagery but I’m also a portrait artist at heart so I do a lot of black and gray portrait tattoos. My ultimate goal is to keep tattooing until I can’t anymore. I love it that much. As long as i can keep doing tattoos that make people happy and continue to support my family, I’m good. It’s what everyone wants, right? That’s why I’m so thankful for tattooing. It’s always provided me with everything I need, and not just talking about money. I mean, tattooing has made me a better person. I have plans to expand my shop and I have future business plans rolling for my shop in the next few years. I guess you’ll have to wait and see what’s next!

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

Looking back, I would say being resilient, willing to work hard and constant drawing have been the most impactful things in my journey. My advice to anyone who wants to tattoo is, don’t! It takes the right person, the right kind of work ethic and drive to make it. Tattooing isn’t like any other job/career. It really is special and unique. I don’t believe in gate keeping, but tattooing is becoming more diluted. If you want to tattoo, be real, be compassionate, be hard working, nice and work hard at your craft. I would advise people to take it more seriously and actually care about the history of tattooing. It’s important and you can’t put a price on the value of knowledge.

Tell us what your ideal client would be like?

The ideal client is someone who has a solid idea and lets me do the rest based on their requests. Tattooing takes both the tattooer and the customer to agree on how to move through the process. Someone who is open to ideas and placement is ideal.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.handinglovela.com www.arlenesalinastattoo.com
• Instagram: @arlenesalinas_m
• Other: @handnglovetattoo