Dillon Forte, a big draw in the ‘small tat world,’ is bringing his sacred geometry tattoos to San Diego

During his career as a tattoo artist, Dillon Forte has worked everywhere, from mountaintops to pyramids to the bottom of the sea.

Compared to that, his upcoming stint in San Diego is likely to be a piece of cake.

Forte, one of the more well-known and respected American tattoo artists, is coming to San Diego for a special guest residency at Guru Tattoo in Little Italy from May 28 through June 4.

Forte is friends with Guru Tattoo owner Aaron Della Vedova – who also has a studio in Pacific Beach – and has previously appeared on Della Vedova’s podcast, “Chats and Tatts.”

In an exclusive interview, Forte, a California native who now lives outside Austin, Texas, said
he’s looking forward to spending time at the shop and in America’s Finest City.

“I did a guest spot there before. Yeah, I’ve been there a bunch,” he said. “Honestly, I feel like
San Diego is pretty similar to Austin, actually, just with a beautiful ocean and the best weather.

“I got tattooed there actually, a pretty long time ago,” Forte said of Guru Tattoo. “It’s a fairly
small tat world.”

He said that artist residencies – also known as guest spots – are pretty common in the tattoo
industry. Yet they can be extraordinary too.

“I’ve worked in like, five or six shops in New York. I’ve tattooed on Mount Everest and
underwater in the Maldives. They built an underwater restaurant and hotel in the Maldives and we had them clear it out and made it an underwater tattoo shop. That was for sure the craziest residency for sure. I tattooed in the pyramids in Egypt, that was pretty crazy. I’ve tattooed in some weird places.”

His experiences also include doing tattoos at minus-40 degrees at a frozen waterfall in an
Alaska glacier. He said he had to put heat pads in his gloves to keep his hands from shaking
while working.

“The ink would freeze, but there’s not a lot of alcohol in it, so it didn’t (affect much),” he said.
“We were using battery-powered machines and the battery would drain almost instantly,
because negative-40 is insane.

“I did the coldest tattoo, the highest tattoo technically, the lowest tattoo underwater and the
hottest tattoo in Texas,” he said, adding that the heat in the Lone Star State is one of the
reasons why he’s looking forward to spending some time in Southern California.

“I’m trying to figure out a summer vacation home – maybe out in good old San Diego. That
might be a good spot,” he said. “In June, July and August it gets savage out here (in Texas);
August especially is rough.”

Forte, who has inked a number of well-known artists and celebrities – including actor
Chris Hemsworth and R&B singers Usher and Kehlani – is known for his sacred geometry
images, which incorporate symbolic meanings in certain shapes and geometric
proportions.

“I’ve been into sacred geometry as a subject for as long as I can remember,” he explained. “I
just got really enamored by the concept of (Leonardo) Da Vinci and how a lot of these famous old painters and sculptors would base all their paintings on all the mathematics of nature, you
know, the divine proportion and the golden ratio.

“I have an app, a sacred geometry app, that’s pretty cool. It allows you to participate in
creating sacred geometry,” he said, adding that if people not only want to know more about it, but “to actually be a part of the process of creating sacred geometry,” they can find the iPad app in Apple’s App Store.

Forte, who said he’s been tattooed over 100 times, remarked that he frequently gets asked
by customers for sacred geometric shapes.

“One of my favorite ones (to tattoo) is the Sri Yantra,” he said. “It’s a balance of masculine-
and feminine-type thing. It’s a meditative tool to focus on your highest aspirations and help you realize and achieve your goals. It’s a cool one.

“It’s a visual interpretation of a mantra, essentially,” he explained. “It’s a predominantly Hindu
symbol that is thought to be the most powerful of all the symbols.”

Anyone interested in a tattoo from Forte during his residency can make an appointment on the shop’s website. Appointments also can be made by calling Guru Tattoo Little Italy at (619) 232-1011.

The shop is located at 2504 State St., San Diego. Hours are from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. seven days a week.