Creative Baguio: Eros Gamueda Preserves Literature And Culture As A Hand Poke Tattoo Artist In Baguio

“For me, just like the art and the stories that I’m trying to preserve, it’s my roots that I’m trying to preserve. If none of us would come back here, then we would lose our roots from Baguio City. I don’t want that to disappear.” – Eros Gamueda

Eros is originally from Baguio, born into a family of artists and musicians. He did not really start out as an artist. He was a professional, on his way to having a full-time career as a teacher, but then art started calling him. After twenty years in Manila, home called him back. So in time, he did come back to where he was “made and born,” only his time, he came back as a hand poke tattoo artist in Baguio City.

Eros Gamueda: Literature Preserved in Hand Poke Tattoo Art

When he was asked what made him start with this art form, he simply said that it is because of his obsession with literature, both world and local literature. “I think this generation and the following generation are not that into literature anymore and they are not that interested in the tales of our ancestors, ” he says. “I really want to bring back the interest in those tales. Since tattooing was becoming more of a thing nowadays, I think this is a great medium for me to do that.”

He recalled his childhood where he did not have many friends so he was into a lot of reading. He got fascinated with Norse mythology, culture, and history. He wanted to get a Norse tattoo on himself and that was the beginning. That was when he met his mentor who introduced him to tattooing.

Everything he does is based on literature.  He likes to make designs based on stories and tales because of the interest in literature that he wants to bring back. More to that, he says that his work is also based on who his client is as a person. He has a number of ancient symbols that he uses which mean a lot of things. So what he does is, he mixes and matches these symbols to the person who is going to wear his ink. From Icelandic magic symbols, Skoll, and Hati, to Odin, Eros’ designs are intricate and personal to him.

He calls a tattoo session a “tattoo pilgrimage” because getting a tattoo from him takes a lot of commitment –  both time and patience. A session can take about two to five hours depending on the design. If the tattoo is even more intricate, it will take three to four sessions with each session taking four hours each. The longest tattoo he did was a full sleeve tattoo taking 24 hours in total in a period of three 8-hour days. Here we see that art is a process that both the artist and client goes through.

The creative process of Eros is pretty much a lot of coffee in the morning and getting inspiration through the work of artists from Iceland, Norway, and Denmark. He started hand poking with designs based on Norse mythology because hand poking started with the Norse.

But now that he is ready to transition to Filipino literature and history pieces, Eros has projects lined up that will honor his people’s own material. New designs based on Filipino mythology and folktales are on their way. A few of those he mentioned are Tilin, the rice bird; Balitok, the demigod; and art based on the legend of how the crow, the serpent eagle, and the lizards came to be. That is what people have to watch out for, Cordilleran literature. In time, he will explore tales of the Visayan and Mindanaoan regions.

Eros says that as a Creative City, “Baguio is a responsibility of Baguio.” As a Creative City, Baguio has to be an inspiration to artists and aspiring artists all over the Philippines. Adding to that, he said that it is not really the artists that have to change, but it is the clients. He thinks that the clients should respect the artistry of the artists because if that is taken away from them, that title as an artist, then it is similar to “taking a piece of their soul away.”

Take the tattoo community nowadays. Clients think of them as a service industry where they enter and ask the tattoo artist to put a tattoo on them from some printed paper or stencil. There is no identity of the artist. Eros expresses that he would want to be known for the art he makes. “Just one look will tell you that it’s from me. I want to have that for all the artists in Baguio City, especially tattoo artists.”

Eros on artistry: It’s about habits. Eros feels that the phrase, “break out of your comfort zone” does not apply on every aspect of being an artists. When it comes to your style as an artist, you need to be in your comfort zone because if you are not, you cannot improve. You need to work on something you want and you like, something you are comfortable with. But it is the habit that you need to break out of. “Patience, discipline, determination – these are what is outside of the comfort zone that you need to reach. It is about habits, really.”

The best advice Eros can give to those who are starting out with any kind of art is to believe in what you are doing, never stopping to improve. Frustrations and disappointments are part of it but these should not stop you from doing what you love. For those who get discouraged because of other people’s opinions, he says that they should let that go. They need to just keep doing what they love and believe in it.

He also adds to respect other artists’ work, just the way you want others to respect your work. If you start disrespecting other people’s work and start minding what other people say negatively about your work, that puts a stop to things. It will stop you from improving and it will fill you up with hate and insecurities. This is not a healthy environment for an artist. People should let go of judgement. “I think it is up to us as the people who want to be different, to be pure and originally us. That we shouldn’t really care that much what other people say. We should be who we are and who we want to be,” Eros said without hesitation at all.

Like any other artist, he explains that he does his best to make his work aesthetically pleasing, but more particularly, he wants to be more accurate with the meanings of what he puts into his art. Because of this, recently, one of the clients asked him for his signature. They wanted him to get his signature on their skin. This got him thinking. He wanted a signature inspired by Norse literature so he went with a simple line with a dot in the middle. This symbolizes the letter “E” in Norse, which is also “E” for Eros. It was that request that got him signing his signature on his art. You can tell by how he described this experience to the detail that there is nothing like being respected for your art and your identity as an artist, a signet like no other.

If you’re looking into a meaningful tattoo pilgrimage, contact the artist himself. Hit him up on Facebook at Sinauna. Enough getting butterflies, get a tattoo that actually means something.