_JPG.jpg)
THE STORY OF LARA
Before I could draw...
Before I could walk, I could draw.
While most children were learning balance,
I was learning creation. Crayons replaced toys; walls replaced sketchbooks. My parents saw only destruction — scribbles over photographs, colors staining the furniture — but I was trying to communicate in the only language I knew: art.
As I grew older, my fascination with expression became all-consuming. I explored everything I could touch: oils, acrylics, graphite, charcoal. Each medium offered a new way to translate the chaos inside of me. Every canvas became a conversation between emotion and control. And then — music.
It found me the way storms find the sea — violently, completely, without asking permission.
As I grew older, my fascination with expression became all-consuming. I explored everything I could touch: oils, acrylics, graphite, charcoal. Each medium offered a new way to translate the chaos inside of me. Every canvas became a conversation between emotion and control. And then — music.
It found me the way storms find the sea — violently, completely, without asking permission.
Music became my escape, my religion, my rebellion.
I joined bands, wrote songs, toured cities, lived the dream so many chase and never catch. I was on stages that shook beneath lights and sound, and yet, every night, after the crowd disappeared, I felt hollow. The applause faded faster than the silence that followed it. Something was missing — something I couldn’t name yet.
It was during one of those tours that destiny changed direction.
Somewhere between the blur of miles and noise, I stepped into a tour bus and saw a man tattooing another musician. The buzzing of the machine cut through everything — louder than the music, sharper than the chaos. There was focus, intimacy, permanence.
For the first time in years, I felt still.
That sound — that vibration — awakened something primal. I didn’t know it yet, but in that moment, my future shifted forever.
When the tour ended, I returned home restless.
I sought apprenticeships, guidance, mentorship — and met nothing but rejection. Every door I knocked on was slammed shut. Every “no” felt heavier than the last. I was told I’d never make it, that it was too late, that there was no room for another artist in this world.
But I’ve never known how to quit.
I had no backup plan.
No support.
No one believed this was possible.
So I stopped waiting for permission.
I used every dollar I had to buy my first tattoo machine — an FK Irons Spektra Halo. I didn’t want to risk someone else’s skin, so I used my own. My left arm became my canvas, my classroom, my punishment, and my proof.
Every crooked line, every mistake, every drop of blood taught me something.
That arm — now blacked out — is not a cover-up; it’s a monument to becoming.
Two weeks later, I understood the rhythm of the machine, the whisper of the needle, the patience of the craft.
I walked into the roughest shop I could find and refused to leave until they gave me a chance.
I started doing $50 half-sleeves, sitting for hours, perfecting every motion, studying every needle configuration, every taper, every drop of ink. I wasn’t chasing money — I was chasing mastery.
Six months later, I was sent to another shop — a new environment, the same hunger.
I watched egos clash, artists gossip, mentors manipulate. I realized this industry could be just as toxic as it was beautiful.
But I didn’t let the noise infect me.
I stayed silent, I stayed working.
Then came the moment that defined everything.
I walked away.
From the shops. From the politics. From the envy that rotted the heart of what art was meant to be.
Everyone said it would be my end — that without a crew, without a banner, without a name above me, I’d vanish.
But solitude was my sanctuary.
I chose to stand alone — and that’s when I rose.
I built The Pantheon — not a shop, but a temple.
A place where tattooing is treated as sacred ritual. Where obsession is respected. Where creation is worshipped, not commodified.
Every corner of it carries my energy — marble tones, divine light, the hum of machines like quiet thunder.
From there, I began to conquer the stages they said I’d never reach.
Competitions. Conventions. Countries.
First-place awards. Best of Show titles.
Every victory whispered the same truth:
You can’t cage obsession.
I turned down Ink Master when the call came.
Not out of arrogance — but because I wasn’t chasing cameras.
I was chasing evolution.
Fame fades; legacy doesn’t.
My style? It was never about trends. It was born from feeling.
From the heartbreaks, betrayals, love, rage, guilt, redemption — all the colors the soul bleeds that paint can’t capture. My art lives between realism and emotion; between beauty and agony.
Every piece I tattoo carries a heartbeat, a memory, a ghost of who I was when I created it.
I learned that love is not enough.
It’s obsession that forges greatness.
I’ve built everything with my hands, and when those hands were empty, I built with my will.
When no one believed, I kept believing.
When they shut the doors, I built my own.
I am an artist, yes.
But also a musician, an educator, and a father — all stitched together by the same pulse that once kept me alive when nothing else could.
Respected by many, resented by some — but never ignored.
Because when purpose burns this bright, it doesn’t beg to be seen — it commands it.
Now I teach — not for validation, but to give what was once denied to me.
I don’t teach shortcuts. I don’t teach imitation.
I teach obsession — the relentless pursuit of excellence, the refusal to settle, the discipline of creation.
Because I know what it’s like to start with nothing.
To be laughed at.
To be doubted.
To have your name whispered like a warning — and to rise anyway.
Every time I pick up a machine, I carry everything I’ve lived —
the silence, the noise, the heartbreaks, the victories, the loneliness, the faith.
And I turn it all into something permanent.
That’s what tattooing is to me — not decoration, but translation.
A translation of pain into permanence.
Of chaos into clarity.
Of everything I am into everything I leave behind.
‘’I am the product of rejection and obsession.
I am proof that creation cannot be contained.
I am Anthony Lara Q.
Lara still here.
I will remain.
And I will ascend.”
_JPG.jpg)
THE STORY OF LARA
Before I could draw...
While most children were learning balance, I was learning creation. Crayons replaced toys; walls replaced sketchbooks.
My parents saw only destruction — scribbles over photographs, colors staining the furniture — but I was trying to communicate in the only language I knew: art.
Those scribbles were the earliest form of my signature — evidence that I was never meant to live a quiet life.
As I grew older, my fascination with expression became all-consuming. I explored everything I could touch: oils, acrylics, graphite, charcoal.
Each medium offered a new way to translate the chaos inside of me. Every canvas became a conversation between emotion and control. And then — music.
It found me the way storms find the sea — violently, completely, without asking permission.
I joined bands, wrote songs, toured cities, lived the dream so many chase and never catch. I was on stages that shook beneath lights and sound, and yet, every night, after the crowd disappeared, I felt hollow.
The applause faded faster than the silence that followed it. Something was missing — something I couldn’t name yet.
“MUSIC BECAME
MY ESCAPE, MY RELIGION,
MY REBELLION.”
It was during one of those tours that destiny changed direction.
I joined bands, wrote songs, toured cities, lived the dream so many chase and never catch. I was on stages that shook beneath lights and sound, and yet, every night, after the crowd disappeared, I felt hollow.
The applause faded faster than the silence that followed it. Something was missing — something I couldn’t name yet.
"That sound — that vibration — awakened something primal. I didn’t know it yet, but in that moment, my future shifted forever..."
When the tour ended, I returned home restless.
I sought apprenticeships, guidance, mentorship — and met nothing but rejection. Every door I knocked on was slammed shut. Every “no” felt heavier than the last. I was told I’d never make it, that it was too late, that there was no room for another artist in this world.
But I’ve never known how to quit.
I had no backup plan.
No support.
No one believed this was possible.
So I stopped waiting for permission.
I used every dollar I had to buy my first tattoo machine — an FK Irons Spektra Halo. I didn’t want to risk someone else’s skin, so I used my own. My left arm became my canvas, my classroom, my punishment, and my proof.
Every crooked line, every mistake, every drop of blood taught me something.
That arm — now blacked out — is not a cover-up; it’s a monument to becoming.
"Every crooked line, every mistake, every drop of blood taught me something."
Two weeks later, I understood the rhythm of the machine, the whisper of the needle, the patience of
Two weeks later, I understood the rhythm of the machine, the whisper of the needle, the patience of the craft.
I walked into the roughest shop I could find and refused to leave until they gave me a chance.
I started doing $50 half-sleeves, sitting for hours, perfecting every motion, studying every needle configuration, every taper, every drop of ink. I wasn’t chasing money — I was chasing mastery.
Six months later, I was sent to another shop — a new environment, the same hunger.
I watched egos clash, artists gossip, mentors manipulate. I realized this industry could be just as toxic as it was beautiful. But I didn’t let the noise infect me.
I stayed silent, I stayed working.
"Then came the moment that defined everything..."
I walked AWAY.
From the shops. From the politics. From the envy that rotted the heart of what art was meant to be.
Everyone said it would be my end — that without a crew, without a banner, without a name above me, I’d vanish.
But solitude was my sanctuary.
I chose to stand alone — and that’s when I rose.
I built The Pantheon — not a shop, but a temple.
A place where tattooing is treated as sacred ritual. Where obsession is respected. Where creation is worshipped, not commodified.
Every corner of it carries my energy — marble tones, divine light, the hum of machines like quiet thunder.
From there, I began to conquer the stages they said I’d never reach.
Competitions. Conventions. Countries.
First-place awards. Best of Show titles.
Every victory whispered the same truth:
You can’t cage obsession.
I turned down Ink Master when the call came.
Not out of arrogance — but because I wasn’t chasing cameras.
I was chasing evolution.
Fame fades; legacy doesn’t.
My style? It was never about trends. It was born from feeling.
From the heartbreaks, betrayals, love, rage, guilt, redemption — all the colors the soul bleeds that paint can’t capture. My art lives between realism and emotion; between beauty and agony.
Every piece I tattoo carries a heartbeat, a memory, a ghost of who I was when I created it.
I learned that love is not enough.
It’s obsession that forges greatness.
I’ve built everything with my hands, and when those hands were empty, I built with my will.
When no one believed, I kept believing.
When they shut the doors, I built my own.
Every victory whispered the same truth:
You can’t cage obsession.
Because when purpose burns this bright, it doesn’t beg to be seen — it commands it.
I am an artist, yes.
But also a musician, an educator, and a father — all stitched together by the same pulse that once kept me alive when nothing else could.
Respected by many, resented by some — but never ignored.
Because when purpose burns this bright, it doesn’t beg to be seen — it commands it.
Now I teach — not for validation, but to give what was once denied to me.
I don’t teach shortcuts. I don’t teach imitation.
I teach obsession — the relentless pursuit of excellence, the refusal to settle, the discipline of creation.
Because I know what it’s like to start with nothing.
To be laughed at.
To be doubted.
To have your name whispered like a warning — and to rise anyway.
""Every time I pick up a machine, I carry everything I’ve lived — the silence, the noise, the heartbreaks, the victories, the loneliness, the faith."
And I turn it all into something permanent.
That’s what tattooing is to me — not decoration, but translation.
A translation of pain into permanence.
Of chaos into clarity.
Of everything I am into everything I leave behind.
‘’I am the product of rejection and obsession.
I am proof that creation cannot be contained.
I am Anthony Lara Q.
Lara still here.
I will remain.
And I will ascend.”
