The Wizard of AAAHHS
Cristina Williams ’23 will happily use your body as a canvas, designing a sure-to-get-noticed tattoo as unique as you are.
From Kaufmann Hall classrooms, Kerckhoff patio and Gayley Avenue fraternity houses, Cristina Williams ’23 has left her mark all over UCLA. You won’t find her art hanging in the Hammer or the Fowler, but you might just find it on the arm, wrist or ankle of someone wandering through them. Today, Williams is one of Southern California’s most in-demand tattoo artists, working in private studios for clients who sometimes drive hours for an appointment. She is one of the brightest new faces in a very old craft.
She didn’t actively seek tattooing through apprenticeships or finding mentors to shadow in studios; tattoos sort of found her, during her sophomore year. “During quarantine I started exploring and making my art. And my peers would say, ‘I would get that tattooed on me,’” she says. “After that, I became a ‘kitchen wizard’: that’s when you tattoo out of your own home. When I went back to campus in 2021, I continued that kitchen wizard thing in my college apartment.” She laughs. “My roommates,” she says, “were very nice about it.”
Williams even brought her newfound love of tattooing into her UCLA curriculum, bridging gaps between body art and her academic pursuits, which included a major in world arts and cultures and minors in global health and visual and performing arts education. While tattoos aren’t always accepted or respected as a higher art form, Williams remained dedicated and undaunted, often using presentations, essays and even her senior project to celebrate the art of permanent ink. “My peers were probably sick of me. But my professors loved and supported it,” she says. “There were so many conversations about art therapy and using art to heal individuals and community spaces.”
Now living in Calimesa, Williams continues to tattoo alumni, among many other clients. Ever evolving, she sees the future of her tattooing as much more than what she physically creates. “With every tattoo, there’s always a new identity, a new design,” she says. “Making all of these designs reminds me how important art is to translating life experience.” –Fiona Ruane
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Skin-Deep
Ira Cohen sells thousands of tattoos blaring a message of UCLA pride — without the pain of a needle.
Inked body art is no longer the taboo than it used to be. (Remember when people said, “You’ll never get hired with a tattoo!”?) Still, for some, the thought of needles and a permanent marking on the body is still a bit too much to handle, no matter how much pride they want to show. Luckily, Ira Cohen has an answer: temporary Bruin tattoos.
Since 2006, Cohen, the chief executive of Fantastic Sports in Long Island, New York, has shipped hundreds of UCLA-authorized temporary tattoo sheets to Bruin faithful across the nation. He sells what he calls his “sport stick-ons,” representing some 160 U.S. colleges, through his shop on Etsy. UCLA represents one of his most passionate customer fan bases.
“There are Bruin families everywhere,” he says. “People of all ages who maybe don’t want to go the whole needle route but on special occasions, like a graduation or big game, want to shout their UCLA pride with a Bruin bear.”
Cohen estimates he’s sold more than 1,500 UCLA tattoos — in the shapes of blue and gold logos and happy bears, among others — to Bruins around the world. “You can be UCLA in Tokyo or London, do the eight-clap for a night,” he says. Then, “they peel off pretty quickly the next morning.” –John Harlow
Read more from UCLA Magazine’s Fall 2024 issue.
