Athena Lynn Ink is 8 now but she started tattooing at 6.

Athena got started because her grandmother, Diane Castillo, owns Nite Owl Tattoo here in San Antonio.

The Nite Owl website has Athena listed with the other artists.

On the site it says of Athena “She was born into the tattoo industry which then developed into a passion for this art form. Her talents of design and artistic creativity began the first day she picked up a crayon. When she’s not in school or playing with her cousins, she spends most of her free time coloring, painting and drawing. For this, tattooing has become a very natural part of her life. She follows the talented instruction of her mentors who share their insight of black and grey, cursive and colored work. Athena also understands and respects the importance of health safety protocols set forth by the Texas Department of Health Services. Although she prefers to tattoo her custom drawings, she’s always ready to challenge herself to anything her clients desire. We are confident that Athena and her talents will become the next benchmark in the tattoo industry.”

We recently caught up with Athena, her grandmother and Athena’s mentor D.J. Ramirez via Zoom, after Athena got out of school, took a nap and grabbed something to eat.

We spoke about her first tattoo at 6 years old, her pink case for her machine (which you can see below) and more.

We asked D.J. what he saw in Athena before mentoring her.

You can actually see the first collaboration they did here.

Being Diane says “This is family” it made me ask, do they see Athena running the place one day?

The answer, she already runs the place.

I can’t argue about that.

Watch our conversation below and then maybe consider getting Athena to do your next tattoo.

But don’t wait too long to decide, she’s booked out over a month right now.

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