Loyal to the Coil

It’s a wondrous thing is skin: aka tegument, epithelium, dermis, cuticle, scarfskin, trueskin, pelage, bark, peel, rind, hide, pelt, vellum.

Covering two square meters, skin is the largest human organ, accounts for about 15% of body weight, contains more than 17 kilometres of blood vessels, is thickest on your feet and thinnest on your eyelids, renews itself every 28 days and houses more than 1,000 species of bacteria.

Small wonder skin care products spawned a global market estimated to reach 180 US billion dollars by 2024. A high value placed on skin care. By contrast a desirable skin adornment has moved from the shadows of underworld gangs, anti-establishment underground bands and wickedly rebellious youth creating a 1.7 trillion US dollar a year industry as people seek a tattoo. To be “inked” is highly desirable, sported proudly by women and men from all social strata. There is even an annual International Tattoo Day observed on July 17th.

Enthusiasts refer to tattoos as “Ink”, “Tatts”, “Art”, “Pieces”, or “Work”; and to tattooists as “Artists”. Art galleries hold exhibitions of conventional and custom tattoo designs. There is no consistent Christian view on tattooing. Mormons have been advised not to tattoo their bodies. Tattoos are forbidden in Sunni Islam, also Judaism. The association of tattoos with the Holocaust and Japanese Mafia, has given an additional level of cynicism to the practice of tattooing.

I am not inked. I am a clean skin, a blank canvas. However, I am intrigued by tattoos. I decided to enter the lair at the Australian Tattoo Expo; to nose around a little and see what I can discover. A little reticent at first, ok intimidated, in I went.

There is a buzz in the air. The sound of a couple of hundred tattoo guns in action. Almost every table at every booth presented a measure of exposed skin. People are proud of their tattoos and alarmingly willing to reveal personal body parts to display the work of their preferred tatt artist. Before long I had the lingo, understood the difference between a line artist, shading, and a blowout, a coil and a rotary machine, a scratcher, stick and poke, apprentice, and an artist. I know about getting a full sleeve. Most importantly the difference between a flash, a geometric, and a tramp stamp.

A major franchiser with studios in Thailand, Bali, India and Australia narrowed down four essentials of client/customer relations:

1. Everyone wants to feel good about their experience.
2. The customer must feel safe.
3. Listening skills are a must.
4. Mistakes are not an option.

There are many reasons for seeking a tattoo. Stopping a young lady with her leg shrouded in Glad Wrap, a sure marker of a fresh tattoo, she openly divulged her entry and subsequent inking history. Annie is twenty-three serving in the army. This necessitates current and future tattoos must fall inside all lengths of her military uniforms. She observed the sense of freedom, and a decent dash of defiance, her mother experienced from inking and determined that she too would strike a mark for independence. Within seconds she hoisted up her skirt to show her favourite tattooists’ work whereupon four others stopped in their tracks to admire her right bum cheek. It’s that sort of place. Dan and Charlie’s markings are motivated by religion (Sikh) and traditional culture (Maori) as an open sign of pride, both key motivation for people seeking their first tattoo. Sometimes the explanation for a first tattoo begins “I was in Bali pissed and…”

Tattooing can become addictive. Many have dedicated their body to becoming a living work of art, their skin the canvas. Geoff Ostling, from Sydney, covered from neck to ankles in radiant floral design has donated his body art to the National Museum. Within hours of death he will to be flayed to preserve his work of art. The world’s most tattooed female pensioner, Isobel Varley, had 93% of her body covered when she died aged seventy-seven. The only areas not completely tattooed were her face, the soles of her feet, her ears, and some areas on her hands.

Dr. Masaichi Fukushi, a pathologist, was interested in the art of Japanese tattooing. Fukushi would remove the tattooed skin off donated bodies and preserve them keeping them stretched in a glass case. He offered to pay people who couldn’t afford to get their full body tattoos finished on condition they allow him to flay their bodies upon death to preserve the tattoos. There are 105 skinned items (many of which are full body suits) on display at The Medical Pathology Museum at Tokyo University.

A cautionary word if you are visiting the Rugby World Cup in Japan. Teams and supporters have been advised to cover tattoos in public to avoid causing offense. Players have been asked by World Rugby to wear rash vests when they use public gyms or swimming pools as tattoos are associated in Japan with Yakuza, the Japanese mafia. Cultural sensitivity in play.

I had come to the end of my induction into the world of tattoo when my ears caught a call blaring over the house PA system seeking entrants in the final onstage event, “The Shitest Tattoo Competition.” This was no time to leave. And enter they did, twelve of the most regrettable tattoo attempts ever worn on skin. Up early and dispensed with the “Hey my cousin Gav will give you one free. He’s practicing in the garage” regrettable messes, mostly a sorry parade of Southern Cross constellations, religious crosses, misshapen penises, and a former girlfriends name forever. The ‘shitest’ level rose, or plunged more accurately, with a young lady who had written her life story in two simple tatts. As a fourteen-year-old she had joyously scratched in red ink “love, peace, happiness”. Life has taken a downturn. At twenty-two she has taken a heavy black hand to cover her fourteen-year-old self with her new life mantra, ‘Eat Shit and Die.”

The unanimous crowd favourite; a young man dropped his daks to reveal his gonads tattooed as tea bags. The pain felt by men and boys crossed their legs, or inadvertently caressed their cherished set in sympathy. No competition, the end, the winner. May I refer you back to #4 of essentials of client/customer relations.

Armed with this knowledge I still left a clean skin with no immediate plans to ink up but, I shall never name the well at which I shall not drink.