Photo by Kit Leffler

Kristen Ferrell, a buyer for The Third Planet at Ninth and Massachusetts Streets, often trades paintings for new body art.

Sitting in the chair, I took a deep breath. The machine buzzes in the background. The first touch is always the most painful — like a bee sting or a rubber band smacking against my skin. It’s the pain that gives you goosebumps and makes your teeth chatter, but it’s not unbearable. I’m nervous at first, but after the pain dulls I can’t wait to see the finished design. Sitting there, I’m one of the millions who will get a tattoo each year. Tattoo art is a universal medium and although the technology has changed, the meaning and the experience have remained the same for thousands of years.

Reseachers have said for years that tattoos are over; they’re just a trend. But the numbers prove them wrong. In 1936, Life magazine reported that 10 million Americans, or 6 percent of the population, had at least one tattoo. Even now millions take a seat in the chair for the first time every year. In 2000, National Geographic News reported that 40 million people, or 15 percent of the population, were tattooed. In October 2003, a Harris Poll found that 16 percent of adults had at least one tattoo — that’s about 47 million people. The poll also found Americans ages 25 to 29 made up 36 percent of those with tattoos. In October 2004, CBS News reported that there were 15,000 tattoo parlors in the United States alone. CBS estimates that if you typed “tattoo” into a Google search you’d come up with more than 10-and-a-half million hits. More recently, on April 15 of this year, Yahoo’ Buzz Index reported that tattoo searches were up and ranked in the top-10 queries. Twenty percent of those looking were 18 to 20 years old; more than half were women.

Modern tattoo and man (and woman)

Tattoos date back at least thousands of years. In 1991 a tattooed treasure was found on the mountainous border between Austria and Italy. The discovery of a mummy more than 5,000 years old provided insight into the global taboo. Otzi, the mummified man, has the oldest surviving examples of tattoos, says writer and adventurer Vince Hemingson, who details the history of tribal tattoo in a documentary called The Vanishing Tattoo. Scientists found a system of tattoos on Otzi’s joints and lower back suggesting the markings were used for an ancient form of Chinese acupuncture. When scientists thoroughly examined the body they found that the man had suffered from arthritis in the areas where the tattoos were present: knees, ankles and lower back.

Hemingson says tattooed individuals have also been uncovered in the permafrost of Russia and Mongolia, and the mummies of Egypt often sported skin art. He says these tattooed bodies date back thousands of years and show that tattooing is a universal human practice and it was only a matter of time before tattoos reached the West.

Seamen first brought tattoos home in the mid-18th century. When sailors, such as Captain James Cook and his crew visited the Polynesian islands in about 1796 they were so impressed with the ink on skin that they returned to Great Britain with tattoos themselves. It was Cook who presented tattoos to the King and the upper class. The obsession spread and soon the King of Denmark and even Winston Churchill’s mother, Lady Randolph, were tattooed.

As the interest in tattoo art spread, so did the technology. In 1892 Thomas Edison patented the tattoo machine. The equipment made tattooing quicker and more available. Soon, American military service men were getting tattoos. They’d stop at a port for a good time and thus the phrase “stewed, screwed and tattooed” was born. Many of these traditional sailor tattoos have remained popular. A blue bird, for example, was given to a sailor for traveling 5,000 nautical miles. He’d receive a second for traveling 10,000 nautical miles. Hemingson says that sailors were superstitious. The men were out at sea for so long that any sight of a bird — meaning land is nearby — brought excitement and hope. Another design that has its roots off shore is the hand tattoo. “Hold Fast” was often tattooed on the knuckles of sailors so when they were climbing up the ship’s rigging, they would never let go. The heart tattoo and the classic “mom” design were a constant reminder of what the service men were fighting for. In the 1930s and ’40s, when servicemen were sent to Asian countries during the war, a new design swept the scene: Asian art. Hemingson says traditional Japanese tattooing was done by hand poking, rather than with a tattoo machine, and during that time the industry saw some of the finest examples of hand-done tattooing. The time many servicemen spent in Asian countries during the war may have furthered the trend.

Photo by Kit Leffler

Big Daddy Cadillacs, a favorite of Kristen Ferrell’s, is located at Eightth and New Hampshire Streets next door to Sakaroff’s. Kristen is a loyal customer of “Carlos”.

Pigments have also made a dramatic change in the last 50 years, Hemingson says. Now inks are approved for use on skin by the FDA. Contrary to what many think, when a tattoo machine marks the skin, it’s not injecting ink into the skin at all. It actually perforates the skin and allows ink to penetrate between the dermal and epidermal layers of the skin. A tattoo machine works like a sewing machine. Controlled by a foot switch, the needle moves up and down at a rate between 50 to 3,000 times per minute. Then the needle places tiny droplets of pigment about one-eighth of an inch deep into the skin. Because the cells in dermis skin are so strong, the ink will last forever, with minor touchups.

Otzi was tattooed for medicinal purposes. Many Egyptian women were tattooed on their breasts and lower abdomen to aid fertility, and sailors saw tattoos as amulets, while certain tribes used the art to remember some kind of journey. In Western cultures such as the United States, tattooing may answer a deeper need that people have to mark their person, Hemingson says. It’s bloody and painful, but people continue to put themselves through it.

Kristen Ferrell, buyer at Third Planet, 2 E. Ninth St. got her first tattoo when she was 16. “It was this funny biker chic moon and stars thing,” she says. Ferrell says she always knew she would have tattoos. Growing up with National Geographic, she loved the idea of being able to put a drawing on skin permanently. “You only have your skin once, why not do as much as you can with it,” she says. She has now been getting tattooed for about 15 years and doesn’t plan on stopping. Ferrell says that tattoos change the way you see empty spaces on your body. And that once you get the first, you start thinking about where you’re going to put the next. “Instead of seeing your body as a whole, you see it as open space,” she says.

Andrew Holtmann, Kansas City, Kan., senior, says he also sees his skin as a blank canvas. “I knew when I got the first one I was going to get more,” he says. “It was just a matter of taking that first step.” Holtmann now has eight tattoos, one yet to be finished and says he will continue to get more. He sees his tattoos as a source of strength. He says they are a way to remember events and people, like his band-mates who have moved on.

Views on ink

Tattoos not only change the way you see your own body, they can change the way others see you too. Ferrell is the mother of a 6 year old and says now that he’s older, her tattoos aren’t such a problem. When he was younger, she says, they’d go to the park and other mothers would take their children and leave because of the culture that tattoos represented. But that stigma is changing. Joe McGill, owner of Joe’s Body Art, 714 Vermont St. Ste. 100, says there is no longer a negative stereotype. “It’s not just servicemen and bikers and ex-cons that have them, everyone gets them now,” he says. Ferrell too says she sees a difference in the way people see skin art. They are becoming more mainstream and acceptable she says. “Now, you are judged by the kind of tattoo you have, not just that you have them.”

Stacy Daugherty, owner of Big Daddy Cadillac’s, 16 E. Eighth St., says tattoos are becoming more acceptable in the workplace too. Daugherty, for example, just finished two full sleeves and a full back piece for a high school principal. Daugherty says people who get tattoos vary radically. Although tattooing is probably more common among educated 18 to 26 year olds, Daugherty did give a 93-year-old woman her first tattoo. She told Daugherty that her husband never liked tattoos and he died, so she decided to go for it.

Men and women see tattooing differently, says hemingson from The Vanishing Tattoo. Men tend to get more masculine tattoos such as dragons and usually have tattoos on their upper body to make themselves look bigger. Women on the other hand, are more likely to get art with more emotion and meaning. Women get tattoos that reflect a certain time or help them remember a loved one. They also have a tendency to be tattooed on more erogenous and feminine body parts such as the hips and buttocks. Women represent 56 percent of the clientele at Big Daddy’s. Daugherty, the owner, contributes this number to women presenting themselves more strongly. While tattooed women were once stereotyped as prostitutes, they’re now accepted.

So you want to get a tat?

When I got my first tattoo I was overwhelmed. I had no idea what I was doing. I went to every tattoo shop in Kansas City, looked through portfolios and asked about each artist. After weeks of debating, I took my crayon drawing into a shop and handed it to a tattooed girl with bubblegum pink hair. After a few re-sketches I handed her the deposit and waited, for what seemed like forever. Finally, a week later, I went in to see the final drawings and scheduled the appointment. After a few more weeks of waiting (and plenty of time to talk myself out of it) I went in. My first tattoo took three-and-a-half hours to finish, and the most painful part was sitting still for so long. Now I have two tattoos, more than $600 worth of work, and I love them both, because I drew them myself. And I have no hesitations about getting more. There is more to getting a tattoo than picking some flash off a wall. You have to get something you can look at everyday for the rest of your life.

To make sure it’s the tattoo for you, Ferrell says to place a drawing of the tattoo you want on the bathroom mirror. That way you’ll have to look at it at least a few times a day. If you still like it after about three months, get it. Ferrell says you can also try henna. The ink will stay on your skin for a few weeks and give you an idea of what the finished product will look like.

Pick an artist you trust and feel comfortable with. He adds that it’s probably not a good sign if the artist can take you right when you walk in. Holtmann says to pick something you like and don’t become a cliché. He says to choose something with a deeper meaning that you can will stay with you. Some tattoos, such as tribal armbands, stars and Chinese characters may be overdone. And butterflies and roses have always been popular among women. But don’t let that scare you away, if the design means something to you, get it.

It’s also important to like the artist’s style says McGill from Joe’s Body Art. He prefers doing free-flowing tribal designs; those that move with the body and look like they’re supposed to be there. He says to choose an artist who will work with you on what you want. “It’s not about me,” he says, “I’m just the pencil, so they say.” McGill says getting something you can be happy with is most important. The tattoo needs to have meaning for you because it will always be there. “Tattoos last longer than you do,” he says.

Get the biggest tattoo you’re comfortable with, says Hemingson; The bigger the tattoo is, the better an artist can show off his or her talent. Hemingson says artists need about 10 years of experience to do their best work because skin is hard to draw on and it takes a long time to master. “You want a tattoo that can blow their minds a little,” he says. “You want people to say, ‘Wow, who did that?’ Not, ‘Oh, what is it?’”

The future of skin art

With more people getting tattoos, the industry is improving its technology. McGill, owner of Joe’s Body Art, says equipment and service are getting better all the time. Even since he opened his first shop in 1994, the quality of ink and equipment has improved. He says colors are brighter, they last longer and the machines run smoother, which allow for making finer lines. There are more talented young artists entering the scene than ever before. Many new artists have backgrounds in graphic design and fine arts and bring a different kind of ability to the industry. He says that as these artists grow in number we can expect to see more fine art reproductions on skin.

More talented young artists are entering the scene than ever before, says Daugherty from Big Daddy’s. Many new artists have backgrounds in graphic design and fine arts and bring a different kind of ability to the industry. He says that as theses artists grow in number, we can expect to see more fine art reproductions on skin.

As I got up from the chair to leave the tattoo shop, my new piece covered in clear goo and encased in plastic wrap, I took a deep sigh of relief. I’ve marked my body, making it my own. I’ll always have a tattoo to remind me of that point in time; that exact moment. It is a permanent keepsake of who I am.

Contact writer at: lfoskey@kansan.com