Johnson - Tattoo machine: tall tales, true stories, and my life in ink

F reeze image.

The curve of a hip is positioned in front of me, a warm, pink arc of living canvas draped in a pristine white towel. Just to my right, on a polished stainless steel counter, is an array of carefully arranged colors in small transparent cups. Of the ten million colors the human eye can detect, fewer than fifteen hundred have names. Some of these colors are mixed to broadcast from that unnamed region.

A wet razor sits beside this, dusted with delicate white peach fuzz, a furry remnant from our time in the trees. A translucent mound of petroleum jelly waits nearby. My gloves are robins-egg blue. If you were to see this tableau without anything else in it, your imagination would likely lead you down an unpredictable road. Then you catch sight of the tattoo machine, a precisely tuned, custom-made brass liner with the kinetic potential of a hummingbird about to take flight, and it all starts to make sense.

Resume.

The atmosphere crashes in, a singular vibe refined by generations, part carnival midway and part hypermodern clinic, with a splash of a foreign bar from a fragment of a dream, all wrapped in a fragrant mlange of soap, solvents, and pheromones. Its Saturday, and the stereo blares an opera from the Met. A creepy German woman is going on about something, God knows what, but shes clearly insane and has found her perfect venue at long last. Every square inch of the walls is covered in a dense riot of bright, twisting images. Everything is buzzing, the atmosphere charged to explode, like a claymore mine packed with acorns of magic.

In front of me this beautiful canvas sighs, indicating her willingness to proceed. There is a dimple in the swell of her hip. A lone freckle rides high on her side. These features will be my frame for the next few hours.

Ive spent my life preparing for this moment. The odd, organic process that brought me and many of my colleagues to this instant again and again is not found in the curriculum of any school. Its more a combination of luck, being saddled with a seemingly unemployable spectrum of otherwise incompatible interests, and an inability or unwillingness to fit in anywhere else, probably in exactly that order.

This moment started with an idea. This developed into a story, a detailed description of a thing that did not yet exist, designed for a place that was previously blank, a snowy Fargo between a dimple and a lone fleck of pigmentation. Words form the first picture, pencils the next, until we arrive at the brink of transformation, the moment when something formed by nature is further formed by the imagination nature gave it.

Right now.

NO ONE SPEAKS for the tattoo industry. We have no president here, or even a representative. All the evil shit Ive witnessed, and even done myself, all the bizarre events Ive been sucked into or narrowly avoided, are only part of a larger picture. There are tattoo artists out there who go to church, who have never had a drink of any kind or even cursed. This may seem sad, and I certainly agree that it is, but it serves to illustrate the scope of the people involved. It has been my pleasure to sample everything this strange occupation has to offer, and Im both surprised and delighted to have survived to share it.

Youll want to read about the bloodbaths, the heroic tales of madness overcome, the rise and fall of empires, and recoil with an exhilarating wash of disgust and delight at the final bubbling gasp of earnest young men and women ejected from the life. Its all here.

Professionals reading this will sometimes smile, on occasion frown, and more than likely succumb to recurring bouts of paranoia if my attempts to drag their darkest fears into the light succeed. If they havent been there, chances are the person next to them has. I expect to catch some shit about what Ive related here. But Ive always maintained that its better to regret something you have done than something you havent.

This isnt simply a memoir. It is also a personal look at the people behind an art form that has undergone a rebirth and is shaking the natal mucus from its drying wings as a new pool of exciting, schooled, and committed artists take their places. This is also a book about street shops and the artists that flourished or inexcusably withered in those fertile grounds. I want to give the reader a more complete picture of a tattoo artists life and the lessons learned along the way, the things that a TV show or a visit to your local establishment cant capture, the things people wonder about when they look through the window that first time and ask themselves, whats really going on in there? This is what Ive seen. You might not want to get a tattoo from me after reading this, but there you go. This is a story worth telling, a portrait worth painting, and the time to do it is now.

Tattoo artists graze many subcultures, more so, perhaps, than any other occupation. I like the world Im part of the best. I fit in here, like so many other oddly shaped pegs, and that is a miracle in itself.

The people I know who are world-class in this profession put in some serious overtime. I doubt Ill ever be that motivated, and theres ample question as to whether I have the talent in the first place. For closing on two decades Ive been content to maintain a casual average. Ive had high points, sure, and many industry-common lows, as youll see. Ive watched the thoroughbreds race past, and Ive trampled a few old ponies myself.

So I hail squarely from the center ranks, far from the rarefied air of greatness and equally distant from the hobbling stragglers getting picked off at the back of the herd. The vantage point is good here. Its just right to offer a peek under the skirt of a fascinating profession.