I’m from Romania, and I have been in New York almost 13 years. I met some friends who were living in Astoria, and they invited me to live with them. I really liked Astoria. I found places to work and live. I started drawing when I was three years old. Then when I was ten, my parent’s friends realized that I was very good with drawings and paintings, and told my parents to send me to an art school, which they did. I finished the art high school and then went to the art academy for six years. I started with graphic design, and in the end wound up studying set and costume design for theaters. In the meantime I was painting. I went through many influences. From Egon Schiele to Lucien Freud, and then I went back to Caravaggio and Vermeer. I went through many artists. I am still impressed by all kinds of artists, but I don’t think they influence me anymore. I am influenced now by my days, the weather—I don’t know exactly—my kids or even the amount of coffee that I am drinking. 26 | BOROMAG.COM | APRIL 2014 I have always been working on art, even when I was waiting on tables. Then waiting on tables wears you out, and I decided to do something that was more appropriate to what I wanted to do. I started doing tattoos. I did an apprenticeship at Supernova in Astoria. The Queens Ink came about when my good friend Evan Roumeliotis decided to open a tattoo shop. He likes to open things, to build things. It’s his tattoo shop, and I am running it for him. It’s not typical in the tattoo business, for the shop not to be owned by a tattoo artist. We decided to open up a shop that doesn’t look like a typical tattoo shop. We decided to build this as if it were an old shop that went through many stages over the years, at least a couple of hundred years. The idea and the image of Queens Ink were created by Evan. The tattoo shop will have been open two years in August. I have some of my old clients, and a lot of new ones from the neighborhood in Astoria. The neighborhood is amazing, they are all friends— people from Sparrow, they BBQ together! I have never seen this anywhere else in New York City. It’s always good not to have your own boss, even if the boss is a good boss. As an artist I have always worked like that—you create your own schedule. I always tell clients that I’m going to alter the idea that they come in with—that I’m going to make it my version of their idea. We do only custom designs. People cannot choose from generic books here; they can choose from our designs. If you are happy with your life, you are good wherever you are. I am very happy. I have time to paint, I love what I am doing, and I can pay my bills. I don’t have to work a daytime job to pay the bills to do whatever I like. So, I’m really happy. http://www.thequeensink.com 2401 29th Street, Astoria NY 11102 (718) 204-7600 THE ARTS point Cristian Zink is a Tattoo Artist the getting to
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