On Needlework

[rushthatspeaks]

I always forget what it's like to get a tattoo.

This is because one's body censors things. Old pains fade.

However, I know that getting tattooed is not an experience that everyone will have, or would like to have, and that one of the first questions many people ask me when they find out I have tattoos is 'What's it like?'.

Well, what's it like when?

Before I get a tattoo, I'm nervous. I'm intending to do something which I know will effect the course of the rest of my life, and that I know will have irreversible effects on the skin I'm submitting to this process (lasers or no lasers, once you get a place tattooed it is never going to be unmarked normal skin ever again and you should know that going in). I know that there's going to be pain involved, and money, and time. My personal policy is that I never get anything tattooed unless I've had the exact design of the tattoo, or at any rate an extremely good general idea, set in my desires for at least a year: serious want with never a spell of 'but maybe I should get it somewhere else' or 'do I really think I'll like that when I'm eighty?'. One of those spasms starts the year over, after a serious reconsideration. Body art is not something I take lightly. Which is why, despite clarity of plan and firmness of purpose, I'm never sanguine the morning of a tattoo appointment, and I have to work to make myself eat, because you don't do this on an empty stomach, and I have that gradual sinking feeling you get when someone has just talked you into making a long speech in public supporting an issue which you aren't entirely sure you do in fact support. And cold sweat. And vague nausea.

Fortunately, tattoo artists as a rule are used to this, and if someone is not the sort of person who expects you to be a little overset (no matter how cleverly hidden it may be), you probably shouldn't let that person stick needles into your body. Just saying. In fact, you should never let anybody stick needles into you for artistic purposes unless you personally like them. I promise. My first tattoo artist, seven years ago, also ran a biker bar, and was not entirely understanding of the concept that women are also people, and I still regret that it happened to be that guy who had drawn the art that was absolutely perfect-- especially since I had to go to a different shop six months later to get the resulting tattoo touched up because he didn't do it right the first time. If you wouldn't be willing to have lunch with somebody, don't let them tattoo you-- and if you don't know them well enough to know whether you'd go to lunch, you haven't had a long enough consultation.

My current tattoo artist is Darlene, at Fat Ram's Pumpkin Tattoo in Jamaica Plain. She has brush sketches she's copied from Miyazaki movies on her walls, a magnificent snowy owl on her left arm, and a wicked sense of humor. I like her. She likes me. I turn up on time but don't sweat it if she's running late, I do what she tells me to do when she tells me to do it, and I remember to eat. This is how to make a tattoo artist like you.

The beginning of the process of getting a tattoo is so interesting that the nervousness generally dissipates. First, there's the drawing phase-- inspection of the area, little jottings with a marker here and there (the top will go here, the right edge here, and *this* way round) with the design sketch held over the skin. If there is no design sketch-- and Fat Ram, who owns that tattoo shop, is famous for not needing them-- the design goes right on the skin with a marker. I saw Ram working on someone's arm last time I was in there: a meditative look, two strokes, a questioning look (a little to the right?), she nodded, he got out a needle. This is not a country in which I dare venture, although Ram is so good that I can understand it being worth it.

Then the mimeos. Purple stencil. The area to be tattooed gets shaved with antibacterial soap and washed off with Betadine. The dampness left is what transfers the stencil. If the setting of the stencil isn't perfect, it comes right off with a little petroleum jelly.

Of course, the stencil is a rough approximation: a real artist's lines will be smoother, thinner, and generally more graceful than any mimeo machine has ever managed.

A tattoo machine looks and sounds rather like a dentist's drill held together with rubber bands. The needle goes automatically up and down a variable number of times per second. There can be one needle in it at a time, or two, or four, or a whole lot, depending on the desired line width. The tips of the needles get dipped in the ink before every stroke.

And then it hurts.

How much it hurts depends on where the line is. The thinner the skin, the closer to the bone, or the higher the concentration of nerves, the worse it'll hurt. Sometimes it just hurts a lot for no apparent reason. But what I find is that at the beginning of a tattoo, the pain feels like a lot, and every stroke hurts differently and a distinct amount. As time goes on, things sort of level out, so that most strokes hurt about the same and one only notices the difference between strokes when there's one that's particularly light (mostly short) or particularly bad (due to location). It also helps that it's not a hurt that really causes pain. I know that's an odd statement. What I mean by it is that when something hurts it's usually the body's way of pointing out harm: something's going on here that is bad and causing damage and it needs to be stopped. But the pain of a tattoo stroke doesn't linger. It's there and then gone, and my body is not convinced that it did damage on the way. The momentary hurt is not taken as evidence that something needs to be done about whatever's causing it. I'll involuntarily flinch or have to hold myself in place during the particularly bad ones, but as soon as the needle lifts, I feel no need to move and in fact no pain. There is no fight-or-flight reaction. This is probably why people can get tattoos at all.

As to what an average tattoo stroke actually feels like? Have you ever had a pin scratch you not quite hard enough to bleed? Yeah. Lighter strokes almost feel like a pencil line, frankly. Bad ones-- well, the pin's red-hot. And it's radiating heat and prickliness away from its path and right up whatever major nerve is closest. Say you've got a stroke over the ankle-bone-- you might feel it right up to the hip. Again, though, it stops when the needle picks up.

After a while I fall into a rhythm. Inhale, exhale slowly when the needle hits, and let my body relax. The endorphin high produces a Zen-like sense of peace with the world and myself, and an odd inability to sense the passing of time correctly-- has this been going on for five minutes? An hour? I think the inability to notice time is probably why people can sit for long stretches of being tattooed without having the pain accumulate. It's there and gone, and breathing into it doesn't make it go away, but makes it not entirely unpleasant. There's a stage in the middle of a tattoo where it feels downright good. Unfortunately, then I get tired.

The new tattoos, by the way, are on my feet. The outline work is done (was done Friday) and needs to heal before the color can go in. I've taken pictures and will try to post them tomorrow or the next day with the rest of this entry. Right now, I am out of batteries on this laptop.