West End Ink has been tattooing its long list of local clientele for the past two years.
The shop located on West Andrew Johnson Highway is owned by local tattoo artist Jose Aguilar.
Aguliar started his tattooing journey in 2007 after he began his apprenticeship with the late Johnny Walker.
“I started my apprenticeship in 2007 with a tattoo artist Johnny Walker,” he said. “He was a great artist from Pennsylvania and lived the area and so I worked with him until I started tattooing in 2008. Sadly Johnny passed away in 2011.”
“After my apprenticeship I worked at Backstage Gifts in Downtown Morristown for around two years and then I decided to work with Jessica Parrish at Ink Dreams.”
Although Aguliar started tattooing later in life he had always been infatuated with the art.
“I like to say I always loved drawing and when I was a little kid I saw this guy with a cool tattoo and that got me interested in it,” he said. “So when I turned 14 I got my own tattoo and I watched how it was down and I went and did myself.”
“I made my own homemade machine and did a tattoo on myself but at the time I didn’t know that tattooing was a career so I never took it seriously, but I kept drawing and working on my art.”
“When I came to the U.S. I noticed there was more access to art, so I started looking into more and practicing more; and when I got married my wife told me to look into tattooing and I did and here I am now.”
Aguliar spent those year learning and growing his talents before he decided to open his own shop in September of 2020.
“I wanted to really work on my art and grow as an artist before I opened my own shop and finally I felt like I was ready and so I opened my shop that I’m in now,” he said.
“It was really scary at first but business has been great. I started working in the area a long time ago so I had built relationships and had a clientele base so when I opened my shop I had a lot of regulars.”
At West End Ink Aguliar usually works with black and grey and realistic tattoos but also works with new school coloring.
“My clients usually request black and grey and kind of realistic but in my own way,” he said. “I also do a lot of color and that usually is new school coloring.”
However, Agulair has three other tattoo artist at his shop that can seemingly complete any type of tattoo desired.
Javier Pineda, Pedro Rodriguez, and Isiah Solomon are the other artist that work at the shop
“My guys at the shop are very talented and work with different styles and we are very versatile. Anything that comes through the door we can tackle.”
Agulair tattoos based on appointments and he is currently booked until April 2023, however he encourages the community to check out the other artists in the shop.
“I am currently booked all the way to April 2023, but the guys in my shop are just as talented and may have availability sooner than April.”
Agulair wants the community to know that anyone is welcome to West End Ink.
“We are a friendly shop that works with many different types of people and we like to do the best work and art on our clients.”
West End Ink is located at 3763 West Andrew Johnson Highway in Morristown and is open Tuesday through Friday noon to 9 p.m. and Saturday 3 p.m. to 9 p.m.
For more information go to its Facebook page or call 423-839-0141.
Support Wink
Wink Magazine remains a free online and print publication that provides local stories about local people every month. If you find joy in reading about local people in our community, please consider a one-time donation of your choosing to help us defray a small portion of our increasing production cost.
