Tattoo enthusiasts must visit Triangle Tattoo & Museum in Fort Bragg on the Mendocino County coast of California. Madame Chinchilla and Mr G, tattoo artists, industry historians, and life partners, founded this space in 1986. Both had trained under Bert Rodriguez, a Mexican-American tattoo artist who started a Santa Rosa studio in 1978 and the Tattoos & Blues convention in 1992, one of the longest-running tattoo conventions in the world. And Madame Chinchilla is a renowned author whose works include “Stewed, Screwed & Tattooed,” “Electric Tattooing by Women,” “Electric Tattooing by Men,” and “Captain Don Leslie–Sword Swallower–Circus Sideshow Attraction.” The Captain Don Leslie book by Chinchilla contains information and never-before-seen photographs (such as his last portrait before he died in 2007). Chinchilla and Mr G had befriended Don Leslie and Lyle Tuttle, who donated a significant amount of the Captain’s memorabilia to the Fort Bragg museum. And there are numerous Lyle Tuttle treasures on their walls, from the original 1974 Tattooed Body Shirt to the machines he built. Even though the museum is small, it is so jam-packed with artifacts that you could easily spend a week exploring everything. Due to security concerns, photography is prohibited in some regions of the museum, and everything is sectioned by Maori, Native American tribes, sailors and the military, circus performers, motorcycle clubs, and more.

Photos © Scene360