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Steve Soto of Goodfellas Tattoo Art & Design Studio | April 11th Pomona CA
Steve Soto was born on July 3, 1979. He is the oldest of four children of Mexican parents. His parents, Luis and Alicia Soto, are now citizens of the United States. His sisters and brother are Johanna,Rosy and Luis.
His earliest memories are those of having a passion for art. He always loved to draw and color his children's books as a child. He always looked out for his one and half year younger sister, Johanna.
During grade school he showed excellence in the arts, particularly portraits. He also loves Baseball and collecting baseball cards, he even spent many hours as a kid drawing portraits of his baseball card player.
Steve Soto was exposed to many elements growing up. Gangs and criminal lifestyles were all around him growing up, in school and in his surrounding enviroment. He managed to not get caught up too much in it.His parents provided for him and his brother and sisters so he had a good childhood. Art was always an alterneative to negative things around him as a kid.
Steve Soto attended Anaheim High School for his Freshman year before getting kicked out for ditching too much school. During his teenage years he became very wreckless and wild. He began to get caught up in the party lifestyle. An alternative to gangs during that time was party crews, which he became associated with. Steve's first child was born when he just turned fifteen years old, his name is little Stevie Soto Jr. The party crews quickly became violent just like gangs and Steve lost his childhood best friend, Luis Sanchez to violence. During this time Steve was very wild and eventually went to jail and began to have problems with the law.
At the age of eighteen Steve began to change his way of thinking. He desired something more and something positive. Growing up his father instilled good family values in his mind so now with the responsibility of a child he had a diffrent mindset. Steve did manage to graduate high school and although wreckless and wild he always worked for his money. Steve had many jobs, from selling newspaper subsciptions at thirteen years old to counter clerk at a burger joint. He also worked for a grocery store where he met his future wife.
At the age of twenty Steve enrolled at Santa Ana Community College in hopes of becoming a graphic designer. Steve now became focused on his dream of making a living with his art skills. Community College was not so easy because he had a full time job, full time school schedule and he coached his litttle brother Luis Soto's baseball team. Luis was ten years old at that time and Steve always vowed to teach him to play ball. Steve took all the art classes and completed most his requirement classes but he was now frustrated. He found that graphic design was not what he wanted, it was very boring and didn't fill the void in him.
At this time Steve worked his way up from the shipping department of a company to the quality control office. Steve still wanted to make it with his art so he got an apprenticeship at a local tattoo shop. His plan was to learn to tattoo and make money to get through school. Steve soon fell in love with tattooing and also with his girlfriend Nora Juergens. Steve married Nora in 2001 and with her support he began tattooing full time and then some.
Steve and Nora had their first of three daughters in 2002, her name is Priscilla D. Soto. Steve quickly began to display good skills in tattooing as well as a good work ethic. A following for Steve's black n gray portraits and realism tattoos grew and soon he had a waiting list for appointments. Steve began to travel the country with his great friend Joe Salomon who displays almost a full body suit done by Steve Soto. After five years of traveling and working hard, Steve has accumalated over two hundred tattoo awards, he has been featured in numerous magazines, he sells his art worldwide and now owns and operates Goodfellas Tattoo Art & Design Studio. He has a beautiful family, his wife Nora, daughters Priscilla, Tatianna, and Natalia Soto. Steve Soto is only twenty nine years old and he is more focused than ever, he is one artist to keep an eye on for the future.
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