A Tuscon, Arizona, USA tattoo shop has broken a record that has left quite a mark!
On 13 October, Spark Project Collective inked 841 tattoos, breaking the record for the most tattoos in 12 hours by a team of artists.
Johnny Vasquez wanted to attempt the record through his non-profit tattoo shop because he has spent the last five years at Spark Project Collective training individuals to tattoo who may have never had an opportunity to learn otherwise.
“My main purpose with the training is to give my apprentices an opportunity to have a place to grow in life skills and self-confidence,” he said.
“Most of the time when an apprentice starts with us, they are unsure with where they want to go in life, are struggling mentally, or have had an adolescence filled with being bullied.”
Johnny felt confident that his team of apprentices was talented and could hold a world record someday.
“The random statement became a genuine thought because I meant what I said and completely believe in their abilities,” he said.
We were considering holding a community event at the same time that this thought came up and I decided to propose the idea to the artists to tie it to a Guinness World Records attempt.
The team of artists began to prepare for the event 12 weeks before the record attempt, meeting every Monday for an eight-hour period to go over the tattoo designs and the process they would need to achieve faster speeds without losing quality.
They also spent a lot of time going over the proper mental state that they would need to be in going into the record attempt so they would not defeat themselves before they got started.
Each week, they would count and document their times as they tattooed clients to see their progression.
Unfortunately, two artists dropped out and one artist couldn’t participate due to a car accident, so Johnny’s team attempted the record with a different lineup of artists than they originally started with.
Still confident that they could achieve the record, Johnny took his team and set up a tattooing event at the Tucson Expo Center in Tucson, Arizona, and got straight to work.
A mix of walk-in clients and those who had set up appointments participated in the event, offering a hand - or another body part - to tattoo on.
The pressure was high as the team worked to ink as many tattoos as possible, allowing clients to select any of the 37 designated tattoo designs available.
Johnny says the tattoos that were available were difficult tattoos to complete in the time that was allotted but he wanted to make sure that if they were to beat the previous record, they wouldn’t leave any doubt that the tattoos were not oversimplified just to meet the qualifications.
“We got about two hours into the attempt and were severely under pace to make the number of tattoos we needed to get done,” said Johnny.
“I went through the tattoo floor and tried to give words of encouragement to the artists but also wanted to be honest with them about the pace that we were on.”
Halfway into the tattooing event, Johnny knew his team was at the point where fatigue would start to set in.
Still behind schedule, he took a few minutes to consider if he wanted to continue pushing the team knowing that they were in the toughest stretch of the event.
“At the pace that we would have to keep for the remainder of the time, injuries were a high possibility,” said Johnny.
I wasn’t sure if I could do that to the team, but I also knew that if we were able to pull this off it would be a story that they would have for the rest of their lives.
Over the next two hours, the team began to pick up the pace significantly.
They began pushing themselves harder and finally set themselves back on track to achieve the record title.
Unfortunately, Johnny and his apprentices began to run into some problems.
Between a tattoo machine breaking, another being stolen, and an apprentice’s hand swelling up, the team started to panic.
With 10 minutes left on the clock and 24 tattoos to go, tension was high, and Spark Project Collective wasn’t sure whether they’d make it.
“We knew it was going to come down to the last seconds to make the goal to break the record,” said Johnny.
“At 9:59 p.m. we logged in the final person who had gotten seven tattoos.”
Spark Project Collective achieved the record, beating the former title holders by five tattoos.
Despite the close call and all the frantic moments leading up to the achievement, Johnny says the most enjoyable part of the attempt was seeing the comradery of the team come together.
“We are a very close group as is, but the record attempt showed a new aspect of the team for me,” he said.
“Everyone had to work together like they never had to do before otherwise it all would have fallen apart.”
Johnny says earning a Guinness World Records title was a feeling of euphoria.
“The feelings of relief, pride, and joy were so immense that it felt like I stepped outside of myself for a moment,” he said.
It felt like we were on top of the world.
Spark Project Collective intends to open a larger facility in 2025 and hopes to break additional records.
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