The Brag

[Sydney 2011 Tattoo & Body Art Expo] Ruthless
Just On The Floor
By Alasdair Duncan

LA-based tattoo artist Ruth ‘Ruthless’ Pineda may be slight of stature, but she’s one tough cookie. Every nickname has a story to go along with it, and Ruth ‘Ruthless’ Pineda’s is a corker. She was working one of her earliest jobs at a tattoo parlour when, as she tells it, “a prostitute came into our shop after getting ink, claiming we took her money – although she hadn’t even paid us yet! She started yelling profanities at my co-workers and, being the only girl there, I knew I had to take charge.”

Take charge she did – and then some. “She threatened me,” Ruthless says, “so I ran to the back, clocked out from work, jumped over the counter and beat her up pretty bad in front of her pimp. I told her to never come back or else I’d knock her teeth out and put her face to the curb. When I went back inside, everyone had their jaws on the floor and started calling me Ruthless instead of Ruth.” The prostitute? Funnily enough, she never came back…

Ruthless, who was featured on Season 4 of the popular reality show LA Ink, has worked in tattoo shops across the United States, but got her start with an artist called Tattoo Joe, in Bridgeport, Connecticut. “I got my first tattoo at the age of 19, from Joe,” she tells me. “He taught me how to tattoo and basically put me on the path to where I am now, for which I am very grateful.”

Though her style draws on her Filipino roots as well as classic American iconography, Ruthless says that she doesn’t have any specific influences, but instead lets true beauty and life inspire her. “I’m influenced by the subtle things in life that seems small to most people but are big to me,” she says. She’s done some ambitious work for clients, but says each new tattoo presents its own challenges. “Tattoos are permanent, so you want the client to absolutely love them,” she says. “Portraits are the biggest, because it means so much to me to get it right for them.”

I ask Ruthless if she has any advice for people contemplating getting their first ink. “Think it through,” she says. “A lot of people are impulsive and just get pieces of art without thinking it all the way through, and they end up hating what they got years later. Think of your body as a body of work that you’re collecting. You want to collect only the best art.” She also advises people to save their money to get ink from a serious artist. “If you go to a cheap artist, you will get cheap work and it will cost you more money in the long run,” she says.

“Also,” she adds, “tip your artist! He or she works very hard and has spent years and years not making much money to get to the point they are – and they’re doing something to make you look good.”

Ruthless will head to Australia for the first time in March to show off her style and do some ink at the Sydney Tattoo & Body Art Expo. “I’m really looking forward to seeing Australia in general,” she says. “It’s been one of my bucket list things to come here, and the fact that it’s happening way sooner than I ever imagined makes this very surreal! I’ve joked that I want to wrestle a great white shark and eat vegemite sandwiches with kangaroos and find that dingo that stole the baby,” she laughs, “but in all seriousness, I am just honoured to see your country and meet the locals.”

Who: Ruthless appears at the Sydney Tattoo & Body Art Expo
When: March 11-13
Where: Sydney Showground
More: tattooexpo.com.au / ruthlesstattoo.com