Despite the Pain

“Jesus, don’t stare. It’s just a meat painting,” says an older woman in the row behind me. Her husband clears his throat before responding, “I wasn’t,” in a strained whisper.

The theater is dark, and we are waiting for the movie to start. I wonder where this “meat painting” is. I briefly hope that there is a decorated ham somewhere in the theater. Then I remember that my hair is up, and the tattoo of California poppies on the back of my neck is visible to the now conspicuously silent couple seated behind me.

Got it. It’s me. My neck is the meat painting.

I’m not sure what the etiquette here is. Do I introduce myself? Take down my hair to cover the offense? Grab my crotch and yell “punk rock?” I sit there as the show starts, hair up, tongue held, brain humming. I’m not angry or embarrassed. I’m struck by the accuracy of her description: meat painting. Yes, it likens me to an entrée, but it also viscerally hits upon the most compelling and basic facet of tattoos—flesh as canvas. There is no material more difficult to escape. Carve a tree, chisel some marble, and you can leave it behind. Inking skin requires the confidence, however foolhardy, that a chosen image or series of letters is beautiful or important enough to bear on your skin for a lifetime.

The art of the tattoo is situated between the exotic and the quotidian. Tattoos can be ornate and nearly overwhelming in their vibrancy, but even the highest artistry cannot lift them from the day-to-day actions of their wearers. They are present for every snore and tooth-brushing; tattoos are art that you live in.

Social skirmishes and practical concerns aside, tattoos require a unique relationship between work and creator. “There’s a certain feeling of letting go,” says a local tattoo artist who goes by the name Joe Boo. “You let a complete stranger modify you forever…. It’s a very important interaction.”

The allure and the complication at the heart of the tattoo is this: the canvas talks back. The artist does not have the luxury to let their imagination run wild. Flesh, once marked, can’t be erased or crossed out. By the same token, the client, that living canvas, has an emotional and physical stake in the planning and execution of the art.

IN PRIVATE

For some, the idea of such collaboration would be stifling, even terrifying. For Boo, who works at Chameleon Tattoo & Body Piercing, it can be profound.

When I arrived to interview him, the air in Chameleon buzzed with the sound of tattoo machines. Boo is lanky, bearded and, of course, tattooed. A few inches of bright tattoo sleeves are visible between his wrist and his shirt. Boo, who also paints, says that the technique of tattooing relies on sound of the equipment and his own sensation. “You’re listening for a sound…and a certain level of vibration that you can feel in your hands,” Boo says. “I can equate it to driving stick…. You’ll hear what the engine is doing…and you can feel the terrain…. [It’s as] if you could cross driving stick with watercolor paint, or an ink pen.”

The tattoo machine itself, defined by Boo as a “rattling, far-out contraption,” is only part of the process. The clients bring a host of opportunities—and possible complications—to the studio. “Your canvas is going to be very moody and sensitive and prone to moving,” Boo says. “You have to be comfortable with people, and sometimes people can be a pain in the ass.” A prime example is Boo’s first client, who wanted to cover up a name in an intimate area with a series of small black hearts. “Her current old man wasn’t really fired up about whoever’s name was down there,” Boo says. The woman was a difficult customer, refusing to pay the minimum fee of $55, but insisting the work be done. Boo remembers being shocked when his boss consented. “Finally he said, ‘Okay, we’ll do it.’ I was like, ‘Woah, man, you’re going to tattoo that crazy girl?’ And he said, ‘No, you are.’” Boo says. “So my first tattoo was…on that wretched woman’s privates, which was a nightmare…. It took me an hour because I was freaking out the whole time.”

Luckily, that agonizing experience has been followed by many satisfying ones throughout Boo’s career. For him, the client’s attitude dramatically affects his process. “A good day for me isn’t cool tattoos, it’s cool clients,” Boo says. “I’m happy doing a shamrock, I’m happy doing a back piece. I get to hold a tattoo machine—I’m happy.”

In their search for a tattoo artist, many clients look for a connection that resembles friendship more than a business transaction. Joshua L. Boyd ’13, who has 10 tattoos, didn’t meet his favorite artist until he got his fifth. “Our conversations are great…. It’s just overall a good relationship, good vibe. I trust him,” Boyd says.

A junior at the College, who was granted anonymity by The Crimson because she does not want her Jewish grandparents to know about her tattoos, has six pieces all done by the same artist. “I’m in love with him,” she says. “It’s good to have someone who’s really funny and snarky and can keep the conversation going.” She said conversational chemistry is highly important in a tattoo parlor, as having someone to there to talk to distracts from the pain you’re paying to experience.

RISK YA NECK

The antiquated stereotype suggests that tattoos could be found only on hardened individuals who spent most of their time riding motorbikes from one knife fight to the next, with occasional stops to ingest drugs and aggressively ignore personal hygiene. Today, it’s an entirely different scene. “I think it's a very outdated idea at this point,” Cathy Johnson, a tattoo artist at Regeneration Tattoo, wrote in an email due to the time constraints of her work schedule. “In most modern cultures and places, people have realized that tattooing is an art form and a very relevant one.”

Katherine Hinde, an Assistant Professor in Human Evolutionary Biology, is evidence that the culture is shifting. On the inside of her right arm, near the elbow, is a swallow done in blues and greens. Swallows, which migrate over 12,000 miles round trip to return to Capistrano, CA, are a common symbol of homecoming. From an informal survey of professors here at Harvard, it seems that Hinde is one of the few faculty members with visible tattoos. “I’ve seen people look at them and then not remark…. It could be that people are polite, and they don’t want to be invasive,” Hinde says. “Categories of people that were likely to get tattoos in the past were not the categories of people that were usually professors at Harvard.”

Hinde insists that her ink has in no way tempered her professional success. However, she is aware that having tattoos can still be limiting. “Decisions [people] have made about tattoos may constrain their options in the future,” Hinde says. “These things shouldn’t be a handicap.”

Many tattoos no longer are. Pieces which are easy to cover, like Hinde’s, are acceptable even for a professor at Harvard, a development which stands in stark contrast to outdated assumptions surrounding the art. Knuckle and neck tattoos, however, remain a source of contention. Boo has been very strategic about the location of his tattoos. “The world still has very strong opinions about very visible tattoos. I mean, shit, I’ve been in the trade since ’97, and I don’t have anything on my hands or throat. I look really normal in a suit,” Boo says. “Someday I might want to take out a mortgage, stand in front of a judge, talk to cops. I might have to go to a PTA meeting.” Barbed wire neck tattoos and lettered knuckles may still be stigmatized, but those aside, tattoos have entered the mainstream as a form of expression that is at once daring and innocuous.

THE BAD OLD DAYS

With this rise in acceptability, the culture of the tattoo has expanded from its crustier origins to embrace a bumper crop of young adults looking to express themselves. “Oh yeah, everyone gets tattoos now. I think it’s good and bad,” Boo says. He links the old sensations of fear and awe associated with tattoos to a higher level of respect for the artists.  “You know, before it was spooky going into a tattoo shop. You’d go in and there’d be these far-out cavemen…. You’d have to have some nuts to go in there. And now anyone can get them,” Boo says. “Everyone should be able to get their tattoos, but I like that trial-by fire aspect of tattooing…. I feel like the sense of earning it [was] there, and we’re losing that.”

As the fear wanes, so does the conception of the tattoo artist as a creative authority. Although he’s happy to ink a basic design if a client desires it, Boo admits that doing so strips him of his art, at least for that isolated job. “People aren’t respecting the artists,” Boo says. “They just look at us like we’re mechanics. ‘Oh, I want a shamrock. Put a shamrock on me.’”

When clients come into the parlor with fixed ideas of what they want, the process is faster and more straightforward, but not as stimulating for the artist. “My ideal client is someone who knows themselves well enough to have a clear idea of what they like but also someone who appreciates my work and trusts me enough to design the piece with a reasonable amount of freedom,” Johnson says.

Trust is the essential word here. It seems as if clients are split between trusting their artist and trusting themselves—and, frequently, the latter wins. As a result, the trend of found images or lettering tattoos is gaining momentum. Hinde has retained control over her tattoo designs by bringing found images to her artists. “I didn’t want [the artist] to feel like they were just [a] stencilist and didn’t have any creative input into what was done, but at the same time I didn’t want to be perceived as rude or end up with a tattoo I didn’t really want on my body,” Hinde says.

Her tattoos have acted as powerful and overt symbols in her life.  When her brother suffered massive skull trauma in 2006, Hinde immediately flew home from an international conference. She remembers sitting at his hospital bed with her mother. “I remember my mom kept turning to me and saying ‘Thank you, thank you for coming home.’ And I remember literally pointing to my [swallow] tattoo and saying ‘I don’t just have this because it’s pretty, mom. I have this because of what it means,’” Hinde says. “This is why I love my tattoos. I love them because they’re symbols of real experiences in my life and of things that have incredibly deep meaning for me.”

Tried and true symbols—such as the swallow—or other fixed designs offer the comfort of controlling the outcome and deep personal meaning behind the design. Asking an artist to design a piece has an element of risk that is not always appealing to a client who will wear the work permanently.

For Boyd, complex personal symbolism matters more than pure aesthetic appeal. “I definitely like to attach meaning to my tattoos,” Boyd says. “I like to get something that I can speak to, that means something to me. I mean, it’s on my body forever.” The idea of a meaningful tattoo is profoundly satisfying for most clients, but it also complicates the art form as it suggests that the intrinsic value of the piece is drawn equally, if not more, from the client’s personal experience than art itself.

SAVE THE STORY

In this respect, the art of the tattoo raises one of the most universal artistic questions—is aesthetic value more important than the overarching meaning of an artwork? For the clients I spoke with, meaning is clearly paramount—the aesthetic pleasure of a tattoo is valuable not simply for itself, but for its ability to deliver a deeper meaning. For the artists, the opposite holds.

“The idea that for a tattoo to be good or meaningful there has to be a big elaborate story behind it is false. A great tattoo simply has to look good…. If someone is drawn to an image, [that is] reason enough, and no tattooed person should feel they owe anyone an explanation or elaborate story to justify getting tattooed. If there is a story, that’s great, but a great tattoo doesn't need a story,” Johnson says. From an artistic perspective, there does not have to be meaning behind a tattoo because it is an art form. The piece itself is meaningful and can speak to the client on its own terms as a compelling piece of art, as opposed to an aesthetic narration of their life.

For Boo, a client who approaches their tattoos with this in mind will consider the artist and the style of their piece first and foremost. “If you went into the Museum of Fine Arts…you’re going to like one painting. Might be a Picasso, might be a Matisse. Might be a Michelangelo sculpture or some shit…. You’re really going to make a connection with a particular piece or a particular artist,” he says. This recognition of shared artistic taste allows the client to connect with an artist in a collaboration that Boo considers sacred.

In ideal situations, the understanding between artist and canvas is translated into a shared sense duty to the art itself. “It’s a sacred situation…. Some people come in and they get it. They say ‘I’ve always wanted this. It’s hard to explain.’ It can be emotional. Here I am, modern day medicine man—whatever you want to call me—witchdoctor, artisan...here to help you to get to that place that you need to be,” Boo says.

“Some people like myself are on this weird quest to be covered in tattoos because they feel more natural with them….That’s shit that defies a lot of explanation. And to be the guy that helps people get there? That’s a heavy trip.” When the client and artist form a mutually trusting and creative bond in the name of the art, the resulting tattoos can be stirring and beautiful.

Tattoos vacillate between high and low culture, mainstream and hardcore, and between artist and client. They can be beautiful, daring, and sexy. For every tattoo that is regretted when the client grows up or sobers up, there are pieces that ringingly affirm that tattoo is an art form in its own right. But for all the cultural and social complexity that surrounds them, tattoos are, first and foremost, art. For Boo, being a tattoo artist is not a means to an end anymore than tattoos themselves are simply vehicles for self-expression. As he says, “My whole life is tattooing. I don’t do anything else. I wouldn’t want to do anything else. If I’m lucky, I’ll die in a tattoo shop when I’m older. This is it for me.”

—Staff writer Sorrel L. Nielsen can be reached at sorrelwestbrook-nielsen@college.harvard.edu.