Committing to your ink

He was both delicate and deliberate in his delivery of the ink…down from his creative mind, through his commanding body to his very skilled right hand.

The preparation time was more than I had remembered; it wasn’t just bringing in a picture and leaving with fresh ink. He took the time to add his spin to the simple picture that was brought through the door. He was talented, and people who came to see him knew it. You didn’t just make a rash decision and come and see this man; you may have seen him a year ago, at least. He’ll make you stop and think about what it is that you actually want to have stain your skin from now until eternity.

He had his head down, intently focusing on the task at hand. Today he was perfecting a popular form of tattooing, the written word, with a border on the top and bottom. The client was *Janis Jones and she’d been asking him for the same tattoo for over a year now, so he knew that she was ready to commit.

It was to go on her upper left thigh, scrolling around the entirety and had a beautiful mosaic border to go underneath the words. Very classy decision by the 24-year old woman, who had an understanding of the world beyond her years. A hardworking single mother of a four year old, she knew what it meant to live the best and worst of in this life.

After several nervous cigarettes with Janis, I started to adopt her hesitation about the task at hand, yet she assured me that it was just the “jitters” that comes just before making a decision about a tattoo, a feeling that I, myself, had experienced several times before. I had first gotten ink on my 21^st birthday and had just gotten my last tattoo from this very artist just three months ago.

A tattoo reflects the thoughts and feelings of it’s wearer.

Tattoos are very permanent; they reflect who you are, what you believe in, what you stand for. They can showcase where you’ve been, they can reflect what you’re currently experiencing, yet they need to be able to encompass where it is that you see yourself going: yes, a tattoo needs to do all that.

The art of tattooing is complex, actually- I could never do it; I don’t see in straight lines. I have a heavy hand and I’m really not much of an artist. All of these limitations make it almost impossible to have ever entertained the idea of my becoming an artist of any kind, especially one involving permanent ink.

His tools and work areas are spotless. The client may not realize how much time and effort that this man takes, or what goes into making sure that everything that he touches is sanitary. There is a lot of time that goes by when the client is actually having the tattoo done; hopefully in their quiet time they realize that they have come to the most obsessively-compulsively- driven man in the field.

He doesn’t advertise; he doesn’t have to. He doesn’t do it full time, he does it when people are referred to him, and when he makes the time to perfect his God- given craft. He will not tattoo people who are under the influence, nor will he be under while giving one. In order to be the artist that he is, he takes his work very seriously and would not do anything to interfere with that.

I watch as he applies color to the lower half of the scroll, and he is so intent on what he is doing that he could care less about anything else on Earth. Gone are the stresses of the day and the anticipation of knowing that he has to return to his full-time job tomorrow. “If my co-workers only knew what I did in my off-time,” he chuckled. Right now it is just about an artist and his utensil; in this case, a small contraption that shoots ink from a little tube out through a needle, into the carefully anti- bacterialized skin.

I look at Janis’ face, and she looks a little perplexed, but understandably so. Tattoos are not painless; they are not as bad as childbirth, but many compare the two. The nice thing about watching a tattoo progress, is that you know it’s progressing. You can see the art begin to emerge right before your eyes. Janis kept asking if her leg was shaking, which it was, but this was one tough cookie. She was having her leg tattooed, and he was just wrapping the tool around the most tender part of the back of her thigh…I was shaking just watching it. I was going to give her about another 15 minutes or so, and then offer for her to join me for a cigarette outside. She would be ready for the break, I thought.

I watched him again, as he followed the written word along her leg. Carefully, he held her skin tight with his left hand as he would again follow the curve of her leg, back and forth, capturing the continuous, fluid design that she was going for. The words were starting to really “pop” and appeared to be emerging from the skin, with almost a 3-D effect. Cool.

Dark hair tucked up under her fluorescent pink hat, this 130-pound woman could take some pain. She’d known her fair share of pain…she’d suffered more than she ever thought she would have in the past five years, but she had survived. And that is what this tattoo was about for her…surviving.

For a seed to achieve its greatest expression, it comes completely undone. The shell cracks, its inside comes out & everything changes. To someone who doesn’t understand growth, it would look like complete destruction.

As I watched the artist carefully deliver each new drop of ink, I realized that he was doing something worthwhile, something that he was very passionate about, and it was just amazing to be part of the whole experience.

This individual artist and client of “Committing To Your Ink” wanted to remain anonymous, so their names have been changed. Just remember to support each and every local small business, it is what helps to keep our wonderful community alive.

by Maggie J Shepeard

Maggie J. Shepeard lives, works and plays in Marquette, Michigan with her husband and four amazing children, ages 10-18. She’s been an avid writer since the moment she first picked up a writing utensil. Non-fiction novels are her specialty, but she can see a storyline in everything and everywhere that she looks. Often working under the pen name, “Kathryn Lee,” she’s had one book published and is under contract to complete two more before year’s end. She’s a full- time student at Northern Michigan University, in Marquette, with a Major in Multimedia Journalism and a Minor in Writing. She’s taken every English and Writing class that she can, but still learns something new with every new subject. Maggie enjoys traveling and camping with her family and looks at everything is life as an adventure. She’s a die-hard Green Bay Packer fan, and she can be found every Sunday (during the season) rooting for her team. Maggie is a “Yooper” all the way, and is originally from Powers, Michigan, although she’s also lived in both Cadillac and Escanaba, Michigan before finding her permanent home on the pristine shores of Lake Superior, right here in Marquette. To see more of Maggie’s work, or to reach her via email, please click the link below.

Website