There are Tattoo Artists, and there are Artists who Tattoo.

There is Body Piercing, and there is Body Modification.

Here's one client's account of his experiences with us:

Getting a tattoo is a fulfilling experience, and one that brings me constant joy. I’ve always been interested in art of every form, so getting a tattoo was never out of the question. Since I was cognizant of the fact that I will live with this tattoo and it will live with me for the rest of my days, I knew that I wanted any potential tattoo to be important. That can mean lots of things to me. It can simply be an object, shape, or design I find beautiful, humorous, or thought provoking, a symbol significant to my past (thus present), or a creation that comes from within me.

Since I’m fortunate to possess a moderate talent at drawing, the latter seemed to press itself on me. What I find important is that I never rushed into getting my tattoo, or coming up with the form. It just sort of happened after a few years of being aware that it seemed to be coming to me one way or another, as if I were an unconscious participant.

So one day on vacation, in the presence of Zack, I looked up images of aspen leaves on the Internet. Aspens have meant many different things to me over the years, and I was always coming back to the idea of a leaf-based tattoo. I started with a print out of an aspen leaf in fall colors and drew in pencil over it images that came to mind, mostly natural in essence. In the center of my tattoo is an American Indian symbol for the four points of the compass, an image I copied down in my sketchbook several years prior to conceiving this tattoo. Around this form I drew an aesthetic arrangement of natural features within the outline of the aspen leaf; a mountain peak, a tree line, and a river cascading down to make the stem of the leaf. I have a degree in natural resource ecology, so maybe that explains some things. In the end, after about three hours of slow work, I had a tattoo design that excited me.

Talking with Zack about what works and doesn’t work in tattoos really helped. I had very tight lines to begin with, and far too much detail. There were also things that I had never planned on, like keeping the fall colors in the leaf to create an atmosphere of fire (Zack’s idea, but I loved it) where the negative space in my drawing would have been. The next day I found myself in the chair at the shop, not nervous about the “pain”, but unsure about how Zack would be able to include all the dimensions of the tattoo that had presented themselves to me during its inception. We had talked extensively about the aspects of my drawing that I found important… the break in this outline, or the shading over here, or the way the lines showed movement in the water, lots of picky but important things it seemed to me.

A couple hours and one cigarette later, I was looking at a permanent piece of art on my skin that I will take wherever I go for all time. Zack was especially happy to point out that he had been able to keep a swirl, or eddy, in the river that I had imagined, but he had thought might not work before doing the tattoo. He captured all the aspects of my modest drawing that I somehow thought made it what it was, but on top of that, he added things I never planned on. Ridges of trees emanating from tree line with the glow of fire fading into their highest reaches, leaf veins fading into the dark half of my snow-capped peak, and seamless intertwining of all the aspects in the leaf that I had not been able to convey.

Whenever I look at my unique piece of art, it is, at the same time, mine, Zack’s, and pure contentment.