Tattooed

Body art goes mainstream as Portland area becomes skin work mecca

By Peter Korn

The Forest Grove News-Times, Jul 7, 2010 (2 Reader comments)

Artist Ryan Burke, owner of Tattoo Asylum in Forest Grove, works to fill in color on client Brittany Muller’s tattoo sleeve.

Chase Allgood / News-Times

The first six months Aimee Palomino held her job as a graphic designer at construction company S.D. Deacon Corp., she kept her tattoos hidden, as she had at her job interview.

But at the office Christmas party, an apprehensive Palomino decided to show up with a spaghetti-strap dress that put her chest and arm tattoos on display.

The response surprised her, starting with Steve Deacon, the Northeast Portland company’s middle-aged chief executive officer, who walked up to her.

“He said, ‘Well, Aimee, how long have you had those, and why have you been keeping them from us?’” Palomino recalls. “It was like I opened a present in front of everybody.”

It’s largely a generational thing, and Portland is full of young people, but knowledgeable folks both within and outside the body-art industry seem pretty sure that Portland has more tattooed and pierced residents per capita than any city in the country. And no, you can’t classify this in the Keep Portland Weird category — for those under, say, 40, tattoos have become very mainstream, crossing all sorts of political lines.

For decades, San Francisco was considered the country’s mecca for body art, but that’s changed, says Jeff Johnson, co-owner of Sea Tramp Tattoo Co. in Southeast Portland and author of “Tattoo Machine.”

Johnson says that over the past decade, tattoo artists from up and down California, but especially the Bay Area, have been flooding into Portland. Johnson says the result has been “a weird renaissance” in Portland.

Forest Grove connection

The tattoo-oriented trend also branched out to the suburbs — even the more rural reaches of the tri-county area.

Forest Grove, where 24-year-old Ryan Burke opened Tattoo Asylum in February, is a good example. The western Washington County city of 21,000 has welcomed Burke’s business with open arms — and legs and chests, too.

“I’ve done tattoos for people who just turned 18, and I just tattooed someone who’s 70 the other day,” said Burke, whose tidy shop is located on Pacific Avenue next to a children’s used clothing store. “He wanted a lizard.”

Burke admits that opening his business in the throes of a recession was a bit risky, but so far, he says, there’s no shortage of skin to go under the needle. That’s because he and his partner, Bertrand DeBrug, give people fair deals on quality body art.

“We specialize in doing pretty much any kind of tattoo — any request that walks in the door,” Burke said. “I’d say we’re mostly a custom tattoo shop.”

Burke got his first tattoo — a likeness of cartoon character Johnny the Homicidal Maniac — at 19 and “enjoyed the whole process,” he said. So much that he’s since acquired “13 or 14” more tattoos.

A couple years back he started training to become a licensed tattoo artist, which, in Oregon, means an apprentice must take 360 hours of classes. Burke also completed 150 hours of actual tattooing at Forbidden Body Art in Northeast Portland.

He’s earned his official paperwork from the Oregon Health Licensing Association.

It isn’t Burke’s desire to inflict pain on his tattoo customers, but he tells them up front that some discomfort is just part of the process.

“We basically tell people we’re going to do a small area first and see how they do,” Burke said. “I haven’t had anybody quit because of the pain … but it’s true that it’s a factor.”

If a client wants a larger body part tattooed — such as a “sleeve” on a forearm or a longitudinal design down the side – Burke and DeBrug take things slow. “We’ll ask them to make several appointments,” Burke noted.

Most folks adopt a stiff-upper-lip attitude about the sting of tattooing.

“It’s fairly tolerable,” said Burke. “In my mind it’s more like an annoyance.”

What tattoo design has Burke been most proud of? “Nos Sertatu, a vampire from an old black-and-white movie,” he said.

What’s the most difficult design he’s attempted?

“Believe it or not, it’s a circle,” Burke said. “The hardest thing to do is a perfect circle. Remember that it’s on the skin, and the skin is a breathing, moving thing.”

More tattoo shops

A city-by-city survey of tattoo shop listings bears out Portland’s standing. San Francisco has a population of about 808,000 and 70 tattoo shops listed in its Yellow Pages. Portland’s population is 580,000 and it has 73 shops. Seattle has only 40 shops and Phoenix 36. Los Angeles lists 167 shops, but its population of 9.8 million is more than 10 times that of Portland. On a per-capita basis, Portland has far and away more tattoo shops than any major city in the country.

A 2008 Harris poll confirmed what people in the tattoo industry have known for years — that tattooing is much more entrenched on the West Coast than anywhere else in the country. Nationally, 14 percent of U.S. residents say they have at least one tattoo, but 20 percent of West Coast residents admit to one.

The Harris poll breaks down tattoos by age, and 25- to 29-year-olds have the highest national rate, at about one in three. People 30 to 39 are just a little behind. Males and females are about evenly split. And surprisingly, or maybe not, Democrats, Republicans and independents all admit to tattoos at about the same rate.

Blue collar roots

But not everybody is buying into the Harris numbers, especially not as they apply to people under 40 and living in Portland.

Mike Perrotti, president of Black Cat Plumbing in Southeast Portland, says he’s got a fairly diverse set of friends and work acquaintances, most under 40, and he estimates three of four have at least one tattoo.

Perrotti, 39, has tattoos up and down his arms and legs. And he says that in Portland, tattoos for those under 40 have little to do with the so-called young creative class. Tattoos, he says, were in fashion among people wearing blue collars long before they became popular with young creatives.

“Walk onto a job site and say, ‘Who’s got tattoos?’ and everyone’s got one,” Perrotti says.

New Orleans native Thomas Dunklin, 33, is head chef at the Red Star Tavern downtown. His tattoos reflect his food and cultural heritage — a giant crawfish with corn and lemon on one arm, and on his stomach is a pig roasting on a spit.

In Portland kitchens, Dunklin estimates, about one in three cooks are tattooed. And, he adds, the right tattoos establish a little kitchen street cred, too.

“It’s almost like a rite of passage,” he says.

Jeff Kish, co-owner of Rock n’ Rose Clothing on East Burnside Street, worked as a tattoo artist for seven years in California before moving to Portland. He’s convinced that, while more San Franciscans may have elaborate body art and more residents immersed in a tattoo subculture, tattoos are more mainstream here, with more people overall having at least one.

About a third of Kish’s body is covered with tattoos. In addition, he’s had his tongue split and Teflon ball implants placed under the skin of his forearms. For some, that’s a bit much.

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