Carolina Tattoos and Arts Gathering takes over Lenoir

Last weekend, The Harper Room buzzed with the chatter of dozens of tattoo guns, hammering lifelong images into the sides, arms, and thighs of anyone brave enough to endure the pain.

The Carolina Tattoo and Arts Gathering, which lasted from Sept. 4-6, attracts about 2,000 visitors annually, according to organizer Chris Hollifield. Most of them are there to peruse the rows of booths set up inside the venue, dotted with ring lights and tattoo inks and artists who came with pre-drawn designs called flash or tattoos they created upon request.

“It’s a pretty sweet show, man,” said Andy Cagle, one of more than 60 artists, as he prepped a stencil drawing of his fourth tattoo of the weekend — a lion’s face peering through what would eventually be ripped-looking skin. “This little old mountain town loves it.”

Across the room, clients chatted with passersby as artists worked. Jennifer Snyder sat like a stone underneath the needle as tattoo artist Jason Toombs leaned attentively into his art, working through the colors of a phoenix bursting from its ashes.

When asked why a phoenix, Snyder pointed to a tattoo higher up on her arm that showed the silhouette of a couple and their pets.

“Up here is my memorial,” she said. “I was in a really bad car accident. I lost my husband and my dogs, and a phoenix is a new beginning, new rising.”

Toombs has tattooed for 24 years and came up from Fayetteville. Like several other artists, he pre-scheduled some clients but also left room for walk-ups.

Along his table lay saws and frames with hand-painted images of horror movie icons, moths, and flowers. He was quiet and didn’t seem to want to be distracted much from his work.

In the back of The Harper Room sat an older man in a gray and black starter cap, a white T-shirt, and blue jean overalls. Next to him was a table of signs, many hand-painted to resemble traditional, old-school tattoos.

Cliff James started tattooing in the late 1970s but has since retired. He surveyed the crowd as he spoke, explaining that a lot of his signs generally go to tattoo shops and tattoo fans.

“This event is like they all used to be many years ago,” James said, leaning in like he was sharing a secret. “Now, it’s a lot different. It’s very cold — tattooers wearing headphones. They can’t be bothered to talk to customers. … This is a nice, friendly event. Watch tattooers talking to the customers. Have you heard so much talking to people? It’s unbelievable!”

James came all the way from Oklahoma, and his reason for setting up shop in Lenoir over the weekend echoed every other artist interviewed: Hollifield.

Hollifield is the owner of Golden Cardinal Gallery, the tattoo shop that shares the building with The Harper Room. He’s been tattooing since 1996, and he explained that he’d been hosting a tattoo gathering in Lenoir every Memorial Day weekend for the last 16 years.

He begins working with city departments for permits and inviting tattoo artists around March each year, leading up to what he calls “Hell Week” — the week before the event where artists are arriving, the venue is being set up, and all of the final pieces fall into place.

“It’s a tremendous amount of work, but it keeps our core group of people alive,” Hollifield said over the phone as he took a few minutes from breaking down booths and cleaning up the venue. “We have older artists. We have young artists. … It’s just a really good thing for all of us to get together and have a good time.”

What began as “Booze and Tattoos” for the first five years, where Hollifield invited some artists to get together and hang out, has grown into the Carolina Tattoo and Arts Gathering, with dozens of tattooers hand-picked by Hollifield as he’s traveled across the country for other similar events.

He explained that each morning all the artists eat breakfast together, and each evening they have dinner together. His hope is to recapture the magic of the old-school gatherings, where the artists had a sense of camaraderie.

“We don’t do it for the money,” he said. “Anybody that puts on a convention will tell you, you don’t do it for the money, unless you’re one of these big, massive ones. You just do it because it’s what you do. It’s kind of a labor of love.”