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The Tattoos I've Always Wanted

A Makeup Artist and Tattoo Designer's Inspiration Beyond His Sleeves

By Andrew SotomayorPublished 4 years ago 10 min read
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I am not cool enough to have a tattoo. Well, to clarify, I am not cool enough to already have a tattoo. I’m cool enough to want tattoos, but not cool enough to have gotten them the day I turned 18. Or 30.

I was a socially awkward dork until somewhere in high school when I blossomed into full musical theater nerd. In contrast, my sister got tattoos as soon as she was able. She was the little kid who went to sleepovers with our girl cousins and came home with a pitch perfect 80’s makeover including side ponytail, jean jacket, and grin from ear to ear. I was the kid who stayed with our boy cousins and was beside myself over fart jokes and the few moments of “The Terminator 2” that I was brave enough to keep my eyes open for. I cautiously approached certain uncles knowing full well they’d shake my hands too hard or rub their knuckles into my skull. I was a whimp with no tolerance for pain, and fortunately we weren’t much of a tattoo family.

One exception was my grandfather. All I really recall is the faded green ink and how the edges of it blurred ever so slightly into his aging golden skin. He had been a rancher, and once got gored by a bull. I was told a Texas Longhorn steer got my grandfather by the leg and threw into the air. That guy could obviously deal with a tattoo gun if he could handle an angry bull. Meanwhile, to say that I’ve been playing it safe is an understatement. I have no tattoos, and I’m seven years a vegan. After all, I don’t want any beef with a raging steer (see what I did there?).

As a makeup artist and makeup tattoo designer, the last thing I want to do is to sit in a tattoo artist’s chair and ask them to copy something I’ve drawn or that a visual artist painted. Some tattoo artists will totally adapt an existing design, but I’m admittedly nervous about squashing someone’s creativity, or having someone else’s creativity on my body forever.

When I first decided to get tattoos, it was when I was realizing that I was giving up my dream of being an actor, to instead become a makeup artist. No longer having to be conservative with my appearance meant punk rock hair colors, and perhaps a little ink that could be hidden under a wristwatch. I eventually decided to have the words confidence and humility written in Spanish. “Confianza” on my right inner wrist, reminding me to make bold choices, and “humilidad” on the left, reminding me to operate from the heart. Every moment I’ve messed up in my life has somehow included an imbalance of confidence and humility. They keep each other in check, but too much of either and the ego has a field day with me as either a total jerk or a doormat.

Tattoos are fun to look at whatever reason you choose to get them, but I’ve always loved the stories behind the ones that carry a deeper meaning. As someone who has always said I want tattoos, I’ve spent A LOT of time thinking about why someone gets a tattoo…even a temporary tattoo.

In 2019, I designed the makeup and tattoos for “West Side Story” on Broadway. The Jets and the Sharks wear a total of 100 tattoos in the modern production of the show. My associate designer, Michael Clifton, and I only repeated a few symbols which help identify which gang the actors are a part of. Besides that, everyone has their own collection of original body art. Some characters have crude tattoos that look like a fellow teen was practicing on them. Others look like a bad joke made out of boredom. Some are more cultured, like on one actor who has tattoos representing the ancient artwork of the Taíno people, who were native to his character’s homeland, Puerto Rico.

Ricky Ubeda and Yesenia Ayala from West Side Story on Broadway (Temporary Tattoos and Makeup by Andrew Sotomayor and Michael Clifton) (Instagram)

Every actor’s tattoo collection tells you about their character. The fiercest fighters have the most ink, exaggerating their ferocity, and the leaders of each rival gang have the most ornate or avant garde tattoos, suggesting they have either money or local influence and therefore access to better skilled artists. Before having them mass printed by Tattly, my associate designer Michael Clifton and I created the tattoos in a range of styles using every fine art medium we could come up with from fine tipped pens, charcoal, watercolor paint, watercolor pencils, spray mists, reverse transfers, gestural abstraction, graffiti, and an array of techniques done in ProCreate on a tablet, all to help tell the story of what it’s like “to be in America” as an American, versus what it’s like for a Latino immigrant.

After a project like this, I was more excited to get my own tattoos finally, but (until COVID-19) we New Yorkers aren’t known for having a lot of free time. Right as “West Side Story” was opening, I was asked to design fake tattoos for Bobby Conte Thornton in the Broadway revival of “Company”, and right as that was finishing, four characters on a television show where I run the makeup department…you guessed it…needed fake tattoos. Once it’s safe to resume filming, I’ll have a whole bunch more temporary ink to design.

Dharon Jones as "Riff" in West Side Story on Broadway. Temporary tattoos by Andrew Sotomayor and Michael Clifton. (Instagram)

In the meantime, being one of the 40 million Americans out of work from the coronavirus pandemic, and the thousands from the entertainment industry, I’ve got time on my hands now. In terms of health and safety, tattoo shops have meticulous hygiene standards, but with an economy, an election, and a career surrounded by uncertainty, spending money for a great tattoo has me even more nervous than the needles.

It’s probably for the best that I’ve waited. I’m admittedly a control freak and a perfectionist, but with so many excuses, you’d think I’d just say “enough already” and throw caution to the wind. I have tried to schedule them, but some of the most outstanding tattoo artists like Amanda Wachob and Ondrash, have deservedly busy schedules that haven’t yet lined up with mine. I’d totally trust them to create tattoos that would colorful, artistic, and representing my life until this point.

If I were to finally get some long-delayed tattoos, I wouldn’t go with words (perhaps from all the hours, conversely, having to cover lettering tattoos which are notoriously the most difficult to hide), but I would still put tattoos on my wrists and inner forearms.

Why there? Of course I’d like to see my tattoos easily, and come to think of it, clients in my chair would have a great view of them while getting their makeup done. This area of your arms is truly prime real estate for a makeup artist. In behind-the-scenes photos from music videos or New York Fashion Week, I can recognize the tattooed hands of makeup artists like Billy B and Erin Parsons. I remember working on “Project Runway” where Scott Patric and I figured out how to alluringly hold the products next to the models’ faces so the makeup sponsor, and my hands, would get some air time.

Hands and wrists also seem kind of elegant. I remember my college ballet teacher focusing a lot on arms and hands, or after class when the Grace Adler to my Will Truman went on about the poetic movement of Billy Crudup’s hands in “Stage Beauty”. Perhaps most notably, and niche, I’ll always remember the moment from the 80s movie “Mystic Pizza” when Lily Taylor’s character talks about her hot boyfriend’s strong and thick wrists. I very briefly dated a former soap opera actor, but in-spite of his perfect face, his wrists were the sexiest thing about him. I digress.

West Side Story superfan, Jamie Gustis, with one of the shows' temporary tattoo designs freshly and permanently inked.

Whether drawing, painting a face, or just lugging heavy bags around town, tattoos near my hands would be an easy reminder of the hard working Mexican immigrants and Mexican-Americans who raised me. Many worked with their hands as construction workers, farmers, nurses, and teachers. My parents are both journalists by trade, but having developed arthritis in his wrists in his mid-30s from the repetitive motion of typing, I am very well aware that my father has worked with his hands all his life. As a makeup artist, I try to have the same dedication, if not the same physical demands.

As far as working in the home, I remember how my grandmothers worked with their hands. They each raised four and ten kids, respectively, and they fed them on tamales, flautas, tacos, posole, and arroz con leche, all from scratch, plus some of the typical American food. I remember my uncles building an outdoor grill for my grandmother, and her teaching me how to make flour tortillas by hand. I don’t think she even used a press. Just tossing the dough back and forth rhythmically until they were the size of dinner plates, perfectly round, and ready to be tossed on the hot metal slab.

Today, more than ever, I think of my father’s mother. Not just this spring when TV and Broadway first paused and I had time to practice my grandmother’s tortilla lessons, and not just now as I prepare to launch a fragrance line inspired by the summers I spent in her Tucson desert home, but also now as I think about my first tattoos. I finally decided my tattoos would be a pair of watercolor hummingbirds. One on each forearm. No outlines, just shading and organic splashes of saturated color, reminiscent of the Crayola markers stains I had on my fingers for most of my childhood. If you imagine these tattoos, fully healed, and dabbed with my hand made perfume inspired by the desert after it rains, you’ll know what serenity feels like.

I imagine my grandmother similarly at peace when she used to hang red plastic feeders for the hummingbirds. She loved the birds, and by default was teaching her kids and grandkids to have appreciation for nature. I remember the vibrant green, orange, and white colors of these small birds who would zip to the windows, move to each side of the feeder, and zip off again. Someone would always point them out so you wouldn’t miss the moment.

My grandmother fed the quails, roadrunners, and cottontail bunnies, all of whom are skittish creatures, but were perfectly calm around only her. They were confident enough to eat bird seed near her feet and lay eggs in the planters by her kitchen door. So while I actually don’t know what my grandmother would say about the hummingbird tattoos I hope to finally get, I do think she’d look at them with their sweeps of color, and call them “purrty”.

Far from the Arizona desert, on almost any moment in New York, whether making sure not to get makeup on my cuffs, or typing an essay as I am right now, my sleeves are always rolled up to at least mid-forearm. There are no tattoos seen here yet, but maybe that’s okay too. Everything my long-awaited tattoos are supposed to mean has to live inside me anyway.

So for now, my arms are blank canvases and I look like a guy who’s somewhere between the shy loner that childhood (and a pandemic) have made me, but still several years away from becoming the aging-in-reverse, crazy athletic, tatted-up, gay, daddy-type, much like Bob Harper from “The Biggest Loser”, a 90s punk rocker who’s now got kids, or any celebrity hair stylist in Los Angeles.

Sounds hot thought right?

Andrew Sotomayor is an Emmy winning makeup artist, on-air host, and writer. His first ever perfume line debuts this fall.

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About the Creator

Andrew Sotomayor

Emmy winning celebrity makeup artist Andrew Sotomayor has worked with Glamour.com, Covergirl, La Mer, L'Occitane, and eight Academy Award winning actors. He's the host of "Masters of Makeup" and founder of Oracle Jayne Station fragrances.

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