Continued from Page 6
“‘It’s about my time to do this’ was the feel-
ing I got during the pandemic as a person in my
own head. It’s time to make something cool,”
Robbie said about opening Signal.
Candela started tattooing seven years ago.
After being inspired by one of his friends
who is a tattoo artist, Candela enrolled in tat-
too school. Though their backgrounds dif-
fer, Robbie and Candela learned that they have
a lot in common while working together at
Shanghaied.
“We found through working together at
Shanghaied that we have a lot of the same feel-
ings about tattooing as a job, about being tattoo-
ers as an identity, and about the kind of attitude
and atmosphere that we want to bring to our cli-
ents,” Robbie said. “It’s all about them having a
good, positive experience.”
The pair hopes to contribute to Astoria’s col-
lection of shops that show people “you don’t
need to leave the coast or go to a bigger city to
get a certain quality of tattoo or a certain tattoo
experience,” Robbie said. They don’t intend to
be in direct competition with other local shops.
‘Putting your weird stink on it’
Photos by Alyssa Evans
ABOVE: Flash tattoo designs. BELOW: Some of Robbie’s work.
Both Robbie and Candela are inspired by
older, classic tattoos.
“In tattooing, you see a lot of those classic
flash designs and they’re all an evolution of a
root design,” Robbie said. “Sometimes when
you’re going through vintage Victorian adver-
tisement catalogs or other collections of copy-
right free images, you can find source images
that you’ve seen famous tattooers through the
late 30s through modern times doing their own
version of that design. It’s like a visual game of
telephone.”
Trying to make images better is where Rob-
bie and Caldera have fun with the process.
“It’s like tipping the hat and then taking it
somewhere new. That’s always the field that
you’re playing with tattooing because there’s so
much history and it’s so rich and it’s so recog-
nizable,” Robbie said.
“Yeah, you’re putting your weird stink on
it,” Candela added.
Though they’re inspired by classic tattoos,
both Robbie and Candela delve into other tat-
tooing styles and will work with clients to make
their ideas come together. For example, Can-
dela recently created a watercolor turtle tattoo
for a client.
“We’ll let (clients) in and just show them
our home, the artwork and talk to them about
whatever they want to talk about. Our books are
always open. I want it to feel like a secret club
without it being a secret club … I want people
to come up and feel special, like they’ve discov-
ered something,” Robbie said.
Robbie and Caldera will participate in the
Pacific Northwest Tattoo Expo at Spirit Moun-
tain Casino in November.
The Franklin
Apartments
Providing Elegance & Efficiency to
Downtown Astoria for Over 100 Years
1432 Franklin Avenue
Community Property Management
503-325-5678
THURSDAY, JULY 22, 2021 // 7