ALEXIS ARRIAGA

When I look back at my life, it’s especially fulfilling and fortunate that I do the work I am gifted in. I’ve always been very driven and creative so it’s perfect that I’ve found an entrepreneurial path based on my art. Growing up I loved to draw and even as a little kid I remember selling the pictures I made to my friends at school. My mom was a single parent and raised us in San Pablo close to her family and it was there that I learned the power of community and supporting each other in all aspects of life.  As a young man, I was seeking to find my own way and at times got lost in the parties and drinking but I always had an internal compass that helped to get me back on track. Around the time I was graduating high school, I gravitated towards the idea of a fun and creative career with cars (this was the era of West Coast Customs). So in 2006, I began at WyoTech to study street rod and custom fabrication but quickly realized that I didn’t have a passion for being a mechanic and that if you're going to do something you have to have passion behind it. While at Wyotech, however, I learned a lot about people and life and I also took a real liking to airbrush work which led to my first business, Al Turf Teez, an airbrush clothing company. I loved the work because I was getting to be creative with custom and wearable art for people that often meant something deep and personal to them. A lot of my clients were friends and family members of loved ones who’d passed and the portrait tee was a way to honor and memorialize them.  Somewhere in my success a friend kept encouraging me to try tattooing and bring that love of working with people to a new canvas. In 2008 I decided to give it a try and ordered my first tattoo kit and I've been tattooing ever since, opening my second business, Unda Ink, in 2009.  Since then, I have changed location and business names a few times, always seeking a space and name that reflects my unique approach to tattooing. A lot of shops and artists approach tattooing from a strictly artistic lens with clients as a blank or distant canvas but to me it’s also about the whole person and the journey to the image and the meaning behind it. Authentic Black & Grey came to me as a play on my expertise in realism combined with my values of authenticity and connection, seeing people beyond black and white into the grey.  I currently find myself exploring the integration of life, carefully curating moments with clients, friends and family as I've shifted towards growth and personal development. Becoming a father of two has definitely helped me holistically. My kids are their own people, with their own personalities, experiences and paths. They are not a piece of art I can paint exactly how I see fit but rather two souls who I can hand the brushes to and watch their canvases unfold. They remind me that we are a product of our decisions, we aren’t graded or rewarded on our situations but how we react and handle them. The energy and intention you put out into the universe definitely comes back around.