We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Manny Lorenzana a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Manny thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. When did you first know you wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally?
When I was a kid, maybe 13 years old-ish I woke up at 5 in the morning to meet a neighbor of mine. He had this amazing looking 1962 Chevy suburban he had fixed up. He could shoot flames out of the exhaust and make it moo like a cow by pressing the horn. He packed up his sons and took me along to my first car show. I don’t know what year this was but it was definitely one of the Mooneyes shows from back in the day. I remember us coming across a booth with artwork and large prints of girl heads and skulls and super cool looking stuff. He said that, that booth belonged to Jack Rudy. They had a quick conversation because my neighbor would get tattooed by him. I was a child then, but just seeing their interaction and seeing how cool all the images and cars were made me fall in love with the idea of being a tattooer and artist. I came from a very traditional 1st generation Mexican family and living that kind of lifestyle for some reason just seemed out of the question. But I just had fallen in love with the idea of making a living through art and tattooing. I felt like I had absolutely nothing, but seeing all this made get goals of old cars, cool music, and making images on paper and skin. I honestly never thought u was going to get a chance to do it. I had signed up to go to UTI in Arizona and learn how to build cars. I was sneaking my way into getting tattooed. I say sneaking because well I hadn’t turned 18 yet. I had maybe 3 tattoos before I befriended a tattooer outside on a tattoo shop in the valley while I was getting tacos at the taco truck that was parked out front of it. He ended up tattooing me and becoming a great friend to me for some time. That interaction snowballed into me not going to UTI and staying in the San Fernando Valley to learn how to make tattoos.
Manny, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
Once is got a chance to hang out in a tattoo shop I was automatically hooked. Everyone was funny and free. Free of a care of what others think of them. Free to be anyone they wanted to be. Sometimes not the best people, but always true to themselves in the moment. It was most definite debaucherous at times, but I wouldn’t change a thing if I could. I’ve been in a tattoo shop now for 18 years and I’ve gotten to learn a lot. I hope I never stop learning. Back then I mostly worked from flash. Drawing and redrawing classic designs. These days I’m asked to do a lot more intricate tattoos. I do all sorts of tattooing but lately I’ve been doing a lot of nature inspired tattoos. Flowers, scenes with the occasional dragon and skull. I try to take the ideas that are given to me and make them as dynamic and form fitting as possible. These larger tattoos are not something that happens in a couple sessions. It’s something that for me takes some time and some layering. I’ll do most anything if asked nicely, but I’m always going to take everything in account and try to pick the best route to get through it.
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
When I got the chance to start learning how to tattoo when I was 17 I was still in high school. I had already gotten tattooed a couple time and I was going into my local shop to get tattooed without them knowing my real age. I would sketch out some ideas and an artist in there, who later became a really close friend, would tattoo cleaned up versions on me. Another artist at the same studio had taken notice of my drawings and after visiting the shop a couple times told me that if I found a job he would teach me some stuff here and there. I immediately started looking for a job and found one at the fry’s in Woodland Hills in the computer department there. As soon as I got that job I went back to the tattoo shop and let him know that i had found a job. He took me under his wing for a little but mostly he’d yell at me for changing the music and tried to get me to send him tattoos when he wasn’t there. I found out later that he had a massive pill and alcohol addiction. Everyone in that studio I guess really liked me because they sent me up to Northern California to a sister studio there with my friend that had started tattooing me. While I was away the guy that had started my career in that studio was fired. Normally when an artist gets fired their apprentice goes with them, but i don’t think anyone else really believed I was his apprentice. They kept me around and everyone at that studio took me under their collective wing and started to teach me. This is in my senior year if high school. I would wake up for school at 7am, get to school by 8am, go to an upholstery class at 12:30pm which would sometimes let me leave early to go to the tattoo shop. I would stay there till about 5pm to work and stay there til 1am. Obviously this wasn’t every day but most. And the other days I was at the tattoo shop as much as possible. I would stay up tracing designs and trying to draw. I was 17 so my actual drawing skill were unpolished to say the least. I just keep trying. Over and over and over again. Constantly trying to get better. Most of the time I feel like I still have a lot to learn. Mostly about myself I think. Knowing where to put my energy and when. I’m 35 now. I’ve spent about half of my life now trying to make nice tattoos. Finding the balance between family, work, art, health, mental health, and nutrition is the goal now. While constantly trying to improve. Most of the time I spend wishing there were more hours in the day.
Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?
As I said in the previous question. My goal at the moment is to find and maintain the balance between taking care of my family, taking care of myself, and taking care of my clients. I’m very lucky to have some amazing clients and I want to be able to give all to making the nicest tattoos possible. I spread myself thin sometimes and I have to learn to chill and make other kind of art when I can. I wish I could say something more charitable or tell you that I have these grand dreams, but honestly life is already so much. I only have so much energy and I want to give it all to what’s in front of me. I’m lucky to have some great people around me and I just want to rock that till the wheels fall off. I try to help others as much as I can and I have organized some charitable tattoo events in the past, but at the moment I am unable to. I do hope to be able to do it again one day.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.lorenzanatattoos.com
- Instagram: mannylore13
- Yelp: Ten Thousand Waves Tattoo Gallery
Image Credits
First picture of me tattooing is a picture by Adriana de Barros @tattoojournalist and the picture of me drawing was taken by my brother Adrian Lorenzana @smallicedcoffee