Miya Bailey Talks “Back To Life” — City of Ink’s 16th Year Annual Anniversary Art Exhibit With Think Before You Ink
By Sidra Lackey
Miya Bailey is maybe the most celebrated and sought-after Black tattoo artist in the tattoo industry, having over 25+ years of tattooing expertise. He is the owner of the thriving Atlanta, Georgia tattoo studio and art gallery, City of Ink (co-founded with prominent tattoo artist Tuki Carter in 2006). Bailey is also a gifted visual artist — an illustrator and painter — who has made art since childhood. He has combined art with tattoos to create: City of Ink’s Annual Anniversary Art Exhibit, which is in its 16th year in 2023. Think Before You Ink was graced with getting a sneak peek into “Coi16” from the man himself. Think Before You Ink was also privy to some very exciting news, regarding a forthcoming part two of the powerful 2013 tattoo documentary conceived and produced by Bailey on top Black tattoo artists — Color Outside the Lines. And just when Think Before You Ink’s interview with Bailey on Martin Luther King Jr. Day couldn’t get any better, Bailey dropped some hush-hush information on an art series he is currently working on.
“I’ve been working on some new pieces right now. I’m working on actually two pieces now. This is a series I’ve been working on. Paint work. Colors. Inkwork. That’s what I’m working on right now,” Miya Bailey graciously shares with Think Before You Ink. But the more pressing project Bailey is working on, is the return of City of Ink’s Annual Anniversary Art Exhibit, which begins on February 24. Because of COVID-19 over the last couple of years, the annual Atlanta art event had to take an unfortunate hiatus. “We haven’t done the anniversary because of COVID so this was our first time back. It’s to celebrate the lives of people who are not here with us anymore and celebrate the lives of people who went through a lot of stuff while we were holed down two years from COVID,” Bailey discusses. He says on the vibe that he wants Coi16 to have, “We want the vibe to be house, dance music, afrobeat music, music to make people dance, have a good vibe, bring the frequency up. But celebrate life. Have people have a good time and dance again.”
Coi16’s theme is entitled, “Back To Life.” The meaning can be reduced to: resurgence, revival or renaissance. But it also holds a more personal reason to Bailey naming it “Back To Life.” He tells Think Before You Ink, “Corey Davis, my brother, almost lost his life to a brain injury. So now he’s here, living. We’re thankful he’s not on the other side. He’s alive. We want to celebrate his life. It’s really about really celebrating life. Bringing life back. Being thankful and grateful.” Corey Davis is a talented tattoo artist that works alongside Bailey at City of Ink. Davis started out as his apprentice and is a co-owner of City of Ink as well.
Bailey shares more with Think Before You Ink on how Coi16 will be different from prior years of the big art exhibition, “We’re way more experienced, more organized. I got a couple of surprises to make it a little different. People always show up so we always have different people performing. We’re gonna have a large jam session where we have all the musicians that come through on Wednesday night. We’re gonna fine tune them and have them ready for the anniversary show. So it’s gonna be a big jam session going on. Right now we have a list of 17 DJs. Also we’re trying to bring it out, do a little bit more like a block party.” And since the very first City of Ink annual anniversary art exhibit, Bailey points out it has expanded in that there are, “more locations. When we first started, it started off with one building. So now it’s a big block long. Now it’s a whole entire block. So it’s pretty dope, it’s pretty dope. All our locations are open up at the same time.” Those locations are: City of Ink, Peters Street Station, Miya’s Loft and closette — all owned by Bailey.
On the process of creating such a large event, which spans almost 60 days total for displaying all the artwork that is to be showcased by various artists, Bailey admits, “Yeah this one right here was different because I didn’t know if I was going to put it together or not. I wasn’t sure but I was like, damn, you can’t not do it for three years. The world is back open.” He explains that he got a lot of “big name artists” to help out and that really helped with “last minute marketing.” He shares however, that despite the big names involved in Coi16, “We don’t really make any big money off of it. We do this for the community to give back and say, ‘Thank you’ for supporting City of Ink for all these years. So we don’t do it to make any money from the show. The majority of sales go directly back to the artists.”
There’s over 150 artists that will have their artwork displayed (and up for sale) within the four locations associated with City of Ink’s 16th Year Annual Anniversary Art Exhibit. Think Before You Ink had to know the criteria it took for so many artists to be chosen by Bailey and Tuki Carter (who is curating the show with Bailey). Bailey explains: “Between Tuki's list of people that he goes through, he’ll go and get people. I’ll look at people from my side. We just go by who’s consistent. We look at the artists to see if they’re consistent. How much work they do in the community, how much artwork did they put out for the last two years. And really about, who didn’t fall off for two years. During COVID a lot of artists made a lot of money because people bought a lot of art. But a lot of artists didn’t make a lot of money. A lot of artists stopped creating during COVID. Some artists had to create a lot more during COVID. So I try to pick artists who are consistent. Whoever’s consistent, who’s really community based, who's out to support the artists. And a lot of times the artists who were supporting us, we supported them back by putting them in the show.”
Think Before You Ink asked Bailey if he had any tips for tattoo artists who are also artists who create art, on how to balance out their artwork and tattooing like he is successfully doing. Bailey says he balances out his tattoo work and artwork by only doing four tattoos a week. “I try to set a certain quota of paintings because I gotta make a living. I might say, hey I’m gonna do maybe two to three full illustrations a week, four tattoos a week and then I try to knock out maybe a painting or two a month,” Bailey divulges. For fellow tattoo artists / artists Bailey advises, “The goal is to maybe merge the two clientele. That’s what I’d be working on. When you’re a painter or illustrator and you’re selling artwork, you get way more money than with tattoos. You know what I’m saying? People pay you way more when you’re a painter or you draw. They’ll pay you more for the tattoo. So it’s like how can the artist balance out all these forms of art equally in the best way they can, you know? With a tattoo, charge the same as you charge for your painting or illustration work.” He cautions, “Don’t lowball yourself.”
Besides being a renowned tattoo artist, Bailey also is a film producer. In 2013 Bailey produced the outstanding and well-received tattoo documentary Color Outside the Lines with director Artemus Jenkins. Color Outside the Lines delved into the history and lives of some of the world’s leading Black tattoo artists. Think Before You Ink was ecstatic to find out a sequel is in the works to it. Bailey reveals, “Me and Artemus, we’re actually in the process of working on it. We’re writing a lot, writing right now on the direction of what the new film would be about. We got it down now. I’m in the writing stages now, probably around 50% finished with the writing part. Then we’ll get back to filming.” He further discloses, “The last time it took us years to film all that stuff. Now of course the money changed, we got a little bit I can work with now, work with more resources, wiser, in filming. It’s gonna be easier the second time around. Really easier the second time around.” He speaks on the tattoo artists who were highlighted in Color Outside the Lines, “A lot of artists people last seen have grown so much from Made Rich to Ryan Henry. All these artists, man you got so many artists that they came up. So much growth and change over the last 10 years. It’s gonna be interesting to see everybody’s growth again. Also update everybody with what the artists are doing now and showcase some new artists that we didn’t get to cover in the first film.”
Think Before You Ink asked Bailey if he believes the second part to Color Outside the Lines will reach an even larger audience, because of the influx of Black tattoo artists working within the tattoo industry today and being seen in mainstream culture more than ever before. Bailey says surprisingly, “That was never the intent though. The intent was always just to make sure the history was documented so people would know who Jacci is, who these legends are. If the door opens to another market, that’s beautiful. But that’s never the intent. We gotta tell the story. If we don’t tell our story, somebody else will try to tell it later.” Bailey sounded enthusiastic as he wrapped up speaking about Color Outside the Lines, “Just freeze time a little bit and then you know, go back 10 years later and see the story again. That’ll be really crazy you know?”
It was a real pleasure to have Miya Bailey interview with Think Before You Ink. He is jovial, kind, a man of the people and clearly accomplished. We look forward to following his artistic and tattooing journey in 2023 and beyond.
To stay updated on City of Ink’s 16th Year Annual Anniversary Art Exhibit coming up in February, follow Miya Bailey’s IG @miyabailey and City of Ink’s IG @cityofink
To watch Miya Bailey’s must-see tattoo documentary Color Outside the Lines click here