MURKADO

When did you decide to start up River Valley Printing Company? Can you describe the company's history a little bit?

• I started RVPC in 2011. I had been living in Edmonton for a few years with nothing on my walls and tattoo art was pretty hard to come by back then, since only a couple websites offered it. When my friend Ollie, a tattooer from Montreal, had moved out here, he had noticed that I had nothing hanging up and offered to give me a flash drive full of his old paintings.

• I was so stoked that I took it to Staples and got back the worst copies you have ever seen. Ollie told me that they looked like shit and that I could probably do a better job.

• The next day, I found an old Epson printer on Kijiji, drove to Cold Lake to pick it up and the rest as they say is history, really. I worked off of that little printer in my spare bedroom until I made a big life change and went full time, offering prints, stickers, banners and pins.

• It’s 2021 now and we just got our first full time employee Tanis! Looking forward to another 10 years!

  
  How has the pandemic affected your business?

• It’s been a very strange year for sure. 99% of our clients are tattooers and when I learned they would be shutting down tattoo shops and cancelling conventions, I panicked. I figured the ship was going down, but wanted to try and help the people who have supported me for years, so I opened the website up to every tattooer in lock down, to offer their prints through us. It boomed and we managed to stay afloat during some turbulent times. We’ve since moved into a new shop and are expanding a little more everyday.
  

What motivated you to get tattooed in the first place?

• I’ve always thought tattoos were fascinating. I think the first time I really realized I wanted to get tattooed was seeing those laser tattoos in Starship Troopers. They were skulls that said “Death From Above” and I thought it was the most bad ass thing haha.

Do you remember what your first tattoo was?

• The first tattoo I ever got was when I was 15 years old. It’s of a flower from the album “Kerplunk” by Green Day on my thigh (hidden where my parents couldn’t see it).

How many tattoos do you currently have? Which one was the most recent?

• I think I lost count after my ninth tattoo. The most recent tattoo that I got was my entire back by Lucas Ford and we did it in a 12 month period. No plans for tattoos in the foreseeable future haha.

What have been some of the inspirations behind the tattoos that you have? Do you typically have an idea in mind before reaching out to a tattoo artist?

• That’s how I used to go about getting tattooed. Now it mostly comes up in conversations with friends who tattoo. It usually goes like this: we’re just chatting and then someone says “it’d be fun to do an old 80’s biker styled skull” and I’ll reply with “I got a spot here, want to do that?” My favourite tattoos are the most spontaneous ones I find.

What type of tattoo styles have you gotten done? What do you like about those styles?

• My favourites are American Traditional, Traditional Japanese and Neo traditional Japanese. That they last on you the span of your life, representing a past a day and time.

Do any of your tattoos hold any personal meaning to you that you’d like to share?

• Nothing really, I just like what looks good and what’s going to look good for years to come.

What were some of the most painful spots to get tattooed for you?

• My belly, which has a cover on it, the back of my neck and the side of my head. All of those spots are beyond awful.

Has having tattoos had any impact in your personal life?

• Sometimes, but that’s what I like about having tattoos. When I got my hands tattooed, tattooing was still looked down upon, so getting loans at the bank or buying a car was never been super easy until now.

Do you have any favourite tattoos?

• I’d say my back by Lucas Ford.

Who are some of the artists that you've gotten tattooed by?

• OllieXXX, Lucas Ford, Chris David and Ryan Gagne.