18.11.08

Tattoos: For Angels, Demons and Everything In Between

For every artistic medium there are corresponding masters that left such a mark on their particular area of expertise that they are forever associated with it. In painting you have Da Vinci, Rembrandt, Monet; in sculpture, Michelangelo and Rodin; but what about in skin?

Where once traditional art forms such as, painting, drawing, and sculpture had somewhat of a monopoly on artistry, the emergence of a new class of creative genius in the fields of music, fashion, film and even tattooing have spotlighted the existence of Picassos, Van Goghs, and Matisses in more unconventional creative fields.

Daniel Walker, 26, is one such innovator.

While working as a volunteer teacher in Guatemala, Walker supplemented his meager per dium of about 80 bucks a month, by selling street art to tourists.

Beto, a fellow street vendor, admired his sketches and asked Walker to give him a tattoo; three extension cords later, he completed his first body art on the roof of a hotel.

“I did all my first tattoos in Guatemala and Mexico as a scratcher (someone with no formal training),” Walker said. “I didn’t have any equipment, Beto had machines, and I did a few tattoos, not the right way, but you have to start somewhere.”

And unfortunately, scratching is the route most amateur tattooers have to take. To be considered a professional tattoo artist, you have to do an apprenticeship that can last anywhere from one to several years, but scratchers are mediocre artists one day and self-proclaimed “tattooers” the next.


“There are schools but they’re all horrible and none of them are qualified and that’s a new a thing because of the tattoo craze,” Walker said. “They charge 5 to 10,000 dollars and it’s a 3 week or 3 month crash course and then they think they are a tattoo artist. I don’t.”

In contrast to tattoo school, an apprenticeship is all about testing your mettle. “You don’t get paid anything, you’re here [at the shop] all the time, you do all the cleaning, the “bitch” work and that’s pretty much where an apprentice begins,” Walker said. “You have to prove that you’re into it, that you’re here to tattoo.”

Any real artist takes this training very seriously and puts their apprentice through the hoops before they even touch a machine. For 6 months to year they mop the floor, clean the bathroom, clean the tubes, watch and draw. Putting in 50 hours a week with no pay, an apprentice has to have a second job to even survive said Walker.

But at the end of that time, when the art’s there, they’ve learned how to make needles, sterilize, tune and build machines, the apprentice starts tattooing their friends for free and once their tattoos start looking decent, they’re an artist.

But just because someone works or owns a tattoo parlor does not mean that they’re qualified.

“It’s a piece of cake to open a shop - you just rent a building and start tattooing,” Walker said. “A scratcher is the enemy of the industry. We don’t care, they can have all the tattoos they can get but it’s unsafe and they haven’t been trained to understand that.”

With no “Bureau of Tattoo Art” to issue certificates to pros and to crackdown on scratchers, the only thing a real tattoo artist can do is to get licensed through the health department by undergoing training in blood-born pathogens and infection control.

Painted Temple, the shop where Walker has worked for a year and a half, “stole” him from the parlor where he did his apprenticeship. Something like that could have started a war only a few years ago, resulting in shops burning down.

There is an unwritten code that you don’t steal other shop’s artists, you don’t finish tattoos other shops have started, you don’t talk badly about other shops, and you don’t open a shop anywhere near one you’ve worked at, otherwise you’re asking for a war, Walker said.

But thankfully, even after swiping Walker, Painted Temple is still standing.

Opened in September 2005 by a tattoo artist named Oak, Painted Temple is an all-custom shop. As opposed to street shops, a custom parlor doesn’t do any flash, which are books of bulk designs sold to shops by artists throughout the country.

“If people bring [flash] in, we tell them every single time, do you mind if I redraw that?” Walker said. “For the most part we work off of photographs.”

But tattoos are trendy right now and when it comes down to it, there are two types of people who want them - people who are looking to be excluded from some part of society – like Walker - and people who are looking to be included in some part of society.

“The first tattoo I got was my last name,” Walker said. “Really I was testing the waters. I wanted to get something I wasn’t going to regret later, that I’d always be proud of and that I could afford.“

Although Walker was underage, 17, (legally you have to be 18), 15 tattoos and 9 years later, he has never regretted his first one because it gave him an outlet for his individuality.

“I’ve always felt separate from the mainstream culture,” Walker said. “Growing up in Utah was definitely a struggle, I didn’t feel like I could be myself ever.”

Inspired by his welder and diesel mechanic grandfathers, Walker saw in tattooing the ability to be a craftsman, someone who knows everything about what they do – “how it begins, how it ends and why.”

“They put their heart into what they did,” Walker said. “ The average mechanic today is a specialist, my grandpa could build anything from the ground up, if he didn’t have a part he could make it on a lathe - he was an artist.”

And so is Walker. While explaining how his machines work, he held his tools with a delicate but steady hand. With each tattoo requiring 3 to 5 different machines with varying needle sizes for thin lines, shading, black, grey or colored ink, Walker deftly switches between machines like a painter switches paintbrushes.

While some of his machines are decorated with snakeskin and hammered metal, the majority are embellished with various types of money – Mexican, Honduran, American.

Tattoo artists say that if you put money on your machine, it’ll make money for you. But if things get really hard, at least you’ll still have a couple dollars. But with tattoos only continuing to grow in popularity, the money serves more as ornamentation, than a safety net.


From 100 percent biodegradable, organic and vegan ink to better equipment and popular shows like Miami Ink on TLC and Inked on A&E, tattoos are losing their underground status, shifting from the shoulders and chests of army/navy men and convicts to the lower backs and ankles of suburban soccer moms.

“I’ve tattooed 70 year-olds to 18 year-olds, every race, men, women, the super religious to ex-convicts,” Walker said.

In the 1890s, American socialite Ward McAllister condemned tattoos as “the most vulgar and barbarous habit the eccentric mind of fashion ever invented.” While deeming them suitable for the likes of illiterate seaman, McAllister declared tattoos to be absolutely unacceptable for aristocrats and other members of polite society, according to vanishingtattoo.com.

But in 2008, tattoos are everywhere and on everyone, aristocratic or otherwise. Entering mainstream society on the backs, arms, necks and wrists of supermodels, sports figures, actors, and rock stars, tattoos have lost their lower-class status and their deviant stigma.

In 1997, the Chicago Tribune reported that the growing tattoo trend is due to “a greater number of ink colors, the fact that fine artists are entering the field and the proliferation of celebrity tattoos.”

Young people no longer see body art as a way to separate themselves from society, but as a form of decoration and self-expression. And tattoo parlors are no longer dirty, “assembly-line service” vehicles for urban outlaw culture. They have emerged as custom, “by-appointment”, fine art studios aimed at middle and upper middle-class professionals, according to tattooartist.com.

Despite this growing national trend, in Utah, the proliferation of tattoo culture has been somewhat limited by the predominance of the LDS church, which discourages it’s members from marking their bodies in any way. But because tattoos are not seen as grounds for excommunication or damnation, some LDS church members still choose to get them.

This unique LDS environment has helped to sustain the counter-culture image of tattoos in the eyes of LDS Utahns. While in other states, tattoos are seen as harmless forms of self-expression, in Utah, tattoos have still retained their rebellious edge.

Aaron Fernuik, a 25 year-old psychology major at BYU, has a Union Jack on his elbow and is in the process of getting the personification of Pistol, his St. Bernard puppy, on his upper arm.


“There is such a stigma in our church that because the prophet says don’t get tattoos you are somehow a bad person for getting one,” Fernuik said. “So I wanted mine to be really meaningful.”

Not wanting to sound like a sob story, Fernuik explained, “My father was abusive and after years of therapy and finally being able to take care of myself and be my own best friend, I needed a trophy to show a milestone.”

So Fernuik planned a trip to England. He went all by himself and got his first tattoo, the Union Jack, to commemorate a chapter in his life closing and another one opening.

But his London souvenir was met with mixed reviews. “My older sister is so opposed to it, anytime she sees it, she’ll quickly turn her head because she absolutely hates it,” Fernuik said.

Still, others are more complimentary. “Some people see it and they like it,” Fernuik said. “Even though they don’t run out and get a tattoo of their own, it gives them permission to be themselves in a way of their own that may be unacceptable in the way that getting a tattoo is unacceptable.”

But because his particular outlet for expression is not condoned by his Church or his University, when considering a second tattoo, Fernuik decided to ask the honor code office at BYU what the consequences of more body art might be.

“They said that if it was offensive material I’d always have to have it covered, but other than that they would call you into the office, so you could discuss it with someone to make sure you know that the body is not something to be trifled with,” Fernuik said. “No formal warning, kind of a you know better kind of a thing.”

But Fernuik feels like, with tattoos, he does know better. “I will never get a tattoo where I can’t see it because they’re for me,” Fernuik said. “I don’t think I really valued my body before as a temple, but ironically enough, with the tattoos, I do.”

Acting as a visual symbol of his love for his puppy and a reminder not to close off, Fernuik’s second tattoo is also a testament to his own strength and fortitude.

Because of the size and intricacy of his puppy tattoo, Fernuik has already endured five hours in the chair, but he still has four to go until his newest arm adornment is finished.



“I focus on the pain rather than away from the pain to deal with it,” Fernuik said. “It turns out to be an interesting sensation rather than something painful and horrible that you try to avoid.”

But more than that, Fernuik’s tattoos are concrete reminders of speed bumps hurdled and milestones reached. And in the future, he hopes to memorialize other landmark events on his skin, as long as they are as meaningful as their predecessors.

“You have to think, is this life changing enough that I want to give up a portion of my skin to represent this? And most often it’s no,” Fernuik said. “Because if one tattoo means nothing it devalues all of them and I always want to be proud of my tattoos.”

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