Whether he’s tattooing, building robots from random found objects, or painting a Japanese-inspired “foo dog,” Eddie Garcia has never stopped creating art.
Garcia has spent decades using a variety of mediums to bring his inspirations to life. His canvases range from skin, scrap wood and old furniture, to discarded metal, and even cardboard robots from when he was a kid.
Last week, Garcia, who spends his days as a tattoo artist at Main Street Tattoo, was one of more than 80 artists and creatives participating in the inaugural Merced Arts Festival, a week-long celebration of art, murals, music and community held throughout downtown Merced.
“I’ve been doing art for about, as far as I could tell, about 47 years now –my whole life,” Garcia said.
Born in Santa Clara, Garcia moved to Merced at age 2. He doesn’t know exactly what brought his family to town, he said, only that they came to work at a restaurant.
At the festival, Garcia spent hours painting a Japanese-style foo dog, also known as a Shishi, a protective figure in Japanese mythology. The piece, Garcia said, will be on display at a nearby downtown business after the event.
“It’s for protection,” Garcia said. “Good omen.”
His work stretches across multiple media – Skin for his bold tattoos, paints on scrap pieces of wood and robots out of discarded materials he finds around town, at flea markets and hardware stores.
“I make model kit bash robots out of found materials,” said Garcia. “I like to paint on wood that I find.”
Garcia described his style as “bold and confident art, imperfect and expressive and colorful.”
That creativity spills into nearly every part of his life, according to his wife, Jessica Garcia, who first met him after going to him for a tattoo. The couple has been married for 14 years.
“We have a very creative home,” Jessica said. “There’s always handmade art hanging on the walls.”
She described Garcia’s work as heavily inspired by found and reused objects.
“He likes to take apart old furniture and use pieces of wood from it,” she said. “He also likes to find little pieces of metal and whatnot to create robots.”
Garcia said his love for building robots dates back to childhood, when he made cardboard Transformers in second grade.
“I used to always try to make a Soundwave,” Garcia said with a laugh.
Before tattooing, Garcia spent years painting murals and graffiti around Merced, often in overlooked spaces beneath bridges and in downtown areas.
“That’s what got me into tattooing,” Garcia said. “I was spray painting (a friend’s) tattoo shop. And I apprenticed under her.”
Garcia began tattooing around 2010.
“Once I started apprenticing in tattooing, it kind of absorbed my lifestyle,” Garcia said. “Now I just eat, sleep, breathe tattooing.”
Still, Garcia said there is little separation between his job and his art.
“There’s no difference between my job and my art,” he said. “Doing art all the time.”
