Victoria was clean, quiet and full of nice people. It was everything a rebellious private school youth named Voodoo didn’t want. So, to the dismay of his doctor parents, he ran off to Spain to become a tattoo artist.
That was then and this is now.
A Queen’s University psychology graduate, Voodoo waxes philosophical about everything from life to art and why, at age 50, he’s back with a shop in — of all places — the heart of Oak Bay.
His plan is to leave an indelible mark on the city he rejected, and now embraces for its beauty.
“At 25, I didn’t want to live in [Greater] Victoria. It was too quiet and people were too nice,” Voodoo said. “When you’re young, you don’t want happy, smiley people. But when you’re 50, that’s exactly what you want.
“So what drove me away at 25 is what’s brought me running back at 50,” he said.
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Voodoo Tattoo opened in Monterey Mews at 2250 Oak Bay Ave., in June 2013. Business is going well with mostly adult clients. Word-of-mouth about his shop continues to spread, he said.
Called Voodoo by family and friends for the better part of his life — for reasons best left untold — Voodoo surprised his Oxford University educated parents (Anne, a family doctor now deceased, and Derek, a general surgeon) when he left Victoria for Spain in 1991.
Voodoo arrived on his motorbike in Barcelona late at night with nowhere to stay. Unable to speak Spanish but able to draw — he had studied fine arts throughout school and had dabbled in some graphic design-type work — he decided upon tattoo art as a way to earn a living.
Soon, he met his wife, Francina Carandell, and before long built a business.
His parents hoped it was a passing interest. “They weren’t very happy about it, but they weren’t angry,” Voodoo said. “I think they thought, ‘When are you going to get a real job?’ ” (His brother sells real estate in Oak Bay.)
Instead, for close to 20 years, the business thrived.
“We saw a niche,” Voodoo said. “There were no tattoo shops that normal people felt like going into. They were all biker dives or drug havens or whatever. So we opened the first studio in Barcelona that looked very clinical.”
The shop was out of the downtown centre and, at its height, operated 12 hours a day with a two- to three-month waiting list, he said. Tattoos cost from $50 to $4,000 based on the coverage area.
After the economy faltered in 2008, the tattoo business suffered very little, but the Barcelona that Voodoo had found so exciting in his youth became depressing and stressful in his older years.
Meanwhile, each time he came home to visit his parents in Oak Bay, he became increasingly aware of the quality of life here.
“We marvelled at just how good a life it is — how happy people are, how relaxed, how pleasant, how polite. And as you get older, those things start to become important — and the time of night that the bars close starts to become not so important.”
But why would a tattoo artist tuck himself away in an Oak Bay enclave rather than battle it out in Victoria, where tattoo shops are thriving? One of Victoria’s oldest has been in operation for more than three decades. Voodoo said he wants the kind of clientele willing to travel to find him. “Those people are usually really serious about their tattoos,” said Voodoo.
On the main strip of any downtown, it’s almost impossible to turn down walk-by clients who want a tattoo on a whim, he said. And once you start accepting that clientele, there’s no going back, he said.
Voodoo winces at the soul-crushing times when customers came in demanding bad drawings, symbols or text. “I felt I was [frightening] people with things I thought were horrendously ugly and really bad ideas and it really made me uncomfortable, sad.”
After almost 20 years of tattooing, Voodoo said he has a good grip on what kind of tattoo art people will like for a long time and what kind of tattoos can tire quickly.
The best tattoos are good art and last a lifetime, Voodoo said.
The worst are often those that are based on trends or a misguided idea of what is meaningful at the time.
“Our sense of esthetics doesn’t change that much, but our sense of what’s important or significant to us does.”
Voodoo said the idea for any tattoo comes from clients, but he reserves the right to discuss ways to make the tatto look more attractive.
Voodoo’s art is born from those collaborations.
Tattoo you
Do you want to share your story about your tattoo? Do the ink and art have a special meaning? The Times Colonist wants to start a regular feature — Tattoo You — showing tattoos and the stories behind them. Email your comments and photos to localnews@timescolonist.com. Include "tattoo" in the subject line.