by Sarah Schindler
October 20th, 2018. Sarah Schindler watches her acquaintance, Ashley Landen, tattoo another person. She was using a professional tattoo gun this time, after practicing for years with sewing needles, cotton balls, rubbing alcohol, and ink. The tattoo was being done in a dimly lit dorm room by Landen, whose tattoos were barely completed. The ink was perfectly dark for Nelson’s skin type and her face showed no signs of pain. Schindler did not quite understand the requested tattoo, but Landen did and the recipient, Riley Nelson, said it came out perfectly. Nelson was ecstatic to finally have work done on her by Landen because she had been waiting for a tattoo from her for such a long time. Although Landen was not a “professional” artist yet, she did pieces that others thought were great and others were inspired by.
Landen began creating art at a very young age. Her grandfather had been an artist and a photographer, so he taught her everything she needed to know in order to succeed with her creative side late in life. He would have her go into his backyard with an old camera, and take a photo of one thing in twenty different ways, with no other restrictions. Her grandfather tried to explain to her for years that everything did not have to be perfect with an artistic piece, but that was before he knew she wanted to make art permanently on human beings. Throughout doing all of these exercises, Landen was able to fall in love with expressing herself artistically…even after her grandfather stopped teaching her new things. Landen continued to draw, paint, take photos and pursued her own art career through community college classes, endless practice, and endless imperfections in her work. For a perfectionist, it was very hard for her to deal with mistakes she made in her artwork, but that just made her strive for more precise lines and shading when she was giving people permanent ink in their skin.
Landen’s work from early in her life reflected exactly how she was feeling because she did not yet know how to create art for others. She would paint a girl standing in very similar dark rooms all by herself at a very young age and refused to create anything that could be considered “happy”. Over time as she grew older and experienced more in her life, Landen was able to branch out with her artwork more and more. She attempted many different styles and would make herself draw or paint something different every single day, even if it was a small piece. She continued this process for years until she perfected the dark, shade-heavy style she has today. Landen kept progressing with her style and decided she wanted to use her talent for a good cause. To her, this good cause was sharing her artwork and passion with others through tattooing. She never encountered a single person who did not encourage her to follow her passions in life. Landen has been very boosted by her friends and family throughout the years to continue doing what she cares about.
Tattooing first began in Egypt. One doctor wrote about “medical tattooing” back in 1898 when there were tattooed mummies found. The oldest tattoo discovery was estimated to be anywhere from 3370 to 3100 BC, so it is a very ancient practice. Tattoos were illegal in many places for a very long time. Oklahoma did not lift their ban on tattoos until 2006, and they are still completely illegal in Dubai. Tattoos started to become more mainstream around the 1970’s, among both males and females and different economic classes.
There are about 21,000 tattoo parlors in America, and many of them also do piercings. About 45 million people (21% of the country) in the United States alone had at least one tattoo in 2012. There are many different tattooing styles. Every artist and every recipient is different. Some people prefer simple designs, some more intricate, while some prefer black and white and others very colorful. Landen herself has three stick n pokes she has done on herself, and one professionally done piece on her thigh. A “stick n poke” consists of the aforementioned supplies, such as sewing needles, cotton balls, rubbing alcohol, and ink.
The first one she has is a band-aid across her upper knee, the second one is a landscape view of mountains on her inner arm, and the third one is on her other knee and says “RELAX”. The band-aid is a matching tattoo with her best friend, Jordan Proffitt, and is supposed to remind them that everything will be okay. The mountains represent where she wants to go in her life, and the third one is a reminder for when she starts to panic about stresses in her life. Landen’s professional tattoo is a piece of her own artwork consisting of a downward facing fox encircled with flowers. She got it to represent her grandfather teaching her art and always using his old wildlife photos as references for her photography.
Landen needs practice as anyone else does, so her friends offer to let her do pieces on them, and sometimes strangers will see her work and ask her to tattoo them. She does not charge her friends for her practice work, but the strangers will give her different amounts for the size of the piece and how long it takes. Once Landen got her tattoo gun she began practicing on things such as styrofoam cups from Chick-fil-A, banana peels, fake skins from the internet, etc.
Landen is currently enrolled in college at Appalachian State University located in Boone, North Carolina. She is working towards a major in the arts and spends all her spare time in the art studios practicing sketching, painting, sculpting, and any other art form she can find to try out. She is also majoring in English to become an English professor later in her life, and to make money while she is apprenticing at a tattoo shop. A tattoo apprenticeship consists of having to work nearly full-time in a tattoo parlor under a mentor with no pay at first. In order to apprentice, the person has to prove their artistic abilities to themselves and others, build a portfolio of their best work, find a certified tattoo artist who will mentor them, learn how everything is done, then they must get certified, and find a shop to work in. Some artists accomplish this process fairly quickly, but it takes others years to complete.
When Landen was living in Charlotte, North Carolina she wanted to apprentice for a tattoo shop down the road from her house. Now that she is in Boone, she wants to find somewhere else to move after graduation in order to find a shop to work in and an apartment to live in. Her view of it is “If I go back to Charlotte or stay in Boone, I will be regressing instead of moving forward with my life.”
The first documented female tattoo artist in the United States was Maud Stevens Wagner, who was a circus performer in the early 1900’s. Back then it was not an accepted art form, especially for women. In the 1900’s it was still barely acceptable for a woman to even be a photographer. However, recent statistics are proving more and more every day that female tattoo artists are “booming” now and finally “getting the recognition they deserve”. Many are saying a big part of female artists receiving proper recognition is because of Instagram and social media as a whole. This is how they can advertise to infinite groups of potential clients, no matter what their gender is.
I, Sarah Schindler, have personally met many women in the tattoo industry. Hannah McKee has been an apprentice at a tattoo shop in Charlotte for about two years now and stated that it is “very hard to work in a field that has always been so dominated by men. A lot of men will question my abilities as a woman, think I am not qualified enough, and I would be screwed if I got pregnant.” She went on to say that things are definitely changing for the better in terms of women tattoo artist appreciation, but there will always be skeptical people out there. She ended her statement with “the community is definitely expanding in a very positive way. More and more people are embracing female tattoo artists, and many of them are even overwhelmed by so many people asking to be tattooed by them…their schedules have piled up more than they ever thought possible.”
Kari Barba is a professional tattoo artist who works out of Long Beach and Costa Mesa in California. Her schedule is nearly completely booked up for a couple years ahead. People wait days, weeks, months, and years to be tattooed on her because she is credible and does very unique work that is difficult for nearly anyone else to do. Barba started off by painting, like many others. She does interesting work with color but is most well known for her iconic black and grey tattoos. She has tattooed everything from Albert Einstein smiling to an entire upper arm of beluga whales. Barba’s work is typically very large so it is not cheap and takes a very long time.
Getting a tattoo is a very serious matter for some people, and others will just get them on a whim. Most who spend years planning them, and want them executed perfectly will go to someone like Barba or Landen. There is always someone out there who will mess up any kind of artwork they are paid to do whether or not they are considered a certified professional. Some previous people who have been worked on by Landen stated that she has done a much better job than the “professionals” they have been to in the past.
Barba is someone whom Landen models her goals after. She has a different style from Barba but looks up to her as a professional and something to strive for (owning her own shop, having a huge client base, etc.). Landen already feels as if she fits into the female tattooing community because of people like Hannah McKee and Kari Barba. To Landen, these two women are direct proof of how women can be successful in a male-dominated industry where there are many clashing views between the sexes. As Landen said, “it isn’t a job if you don’t have to work for it.”