More Than Just Ink

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 21/12/2017 (3058 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

His nose inches away from his client’s rib cage, Eric Gammack delicately positions and presses a piece of transfer paper onto her skin.

He peels it away and takes a step back, cocking his head to the side as a beam of sunlight shines through the window of Adam’s Body Art and illuminates the soon-to-be tattoo outline on Kristen Shaw’s torso.

“Hmm, nope,” Gammack said, abruptly wiping it off with an alcohol-soaked paper towel.

Shaw laughs.

Where a first-time tattoo recipient may be inclined to get nervous, she takes it with an all-familiar stride.

“I’d rather him make sure it’s perfect,” Shaw said.

This isn’t Shaw’s first tattoo rodeo. At 26 years old, she’s been getting inked for almost 10 years now, and has plans for many, many more.

“As soon as I got my first (tattoo), I booked my second one,” Shaw said laughing. “I have a running list and it depends on how much money I have at the time … I have a whole back piece planned, both my arms are going to be fully sleeved, my other rib is definitely going to be done, and the outsides of both my legs — then we’ll stop and take stock.”

Today Shaw is getting a watercolour style bird of paradise with script, based on the poem Sonnet XVII by Pablo Neruda — a tribute to her boyfriend of five years and Neruda, who Shaw states adamently is the best poet of the 20th century.

“It has to do with loving someone in a way that isn’t for the whole world to see … the whole poem for me has been about what love actually is,” Shaw said. “It’s beautfully written.”

Tattoos are a different way people can express themselves and tell a story, Shaw said. She likes the idea of having a snapshot of her life on her body, even if it stings a bit.

“It’s a cat scratch on a sunburn,” Shaw said. “It hurts, but when it’s a pain that you’re expecting and once it starts happening … eventually your body just starts to suck it up.”

“Women always take tattoos better than men,” Gammack adds, setting up a row of bright ink colours on a side table.

The stencil of Shaw’s soon-to-be tattoo has now been perfectly placed, and Gammack asks if she’s ready as the buzz of the tattoo machine reverberates off the walls and fills the room.

“It’s surprisingly not that bad,” Shaw said as the first line is drawn on her ribs, arguably one of the most painful places to get tattooed.

Gammack said he always knew he wanted to do something creative, and tattooing was at the top of his list.

But the transition from paper to skin wasn’t an easy one, he said.

“A paper is stagnant, it doesn’t move. When you’re working on a living thing — something that breathes, something that reacts — it’s a huge learning curve,” Gammack said. “Just because you can draw, doesn’t mean you can tattoo.”

With hard work and determination, Gammack has been tattooing now for nearlys three years.

The challenge of the trade, and the ever-growing talent in the community, is the reason Gammack still loves what he does.

“All these tattoo shows on television have upped everyone’s game and upped everyone’s creativity. Tattooing has become so popular that it allows people to be much more creative,” Gammack said. “I love the challenge of it. People come in with good ideas all the time … and basically you’re taking their ideas and making them your own. My goal is to try and make it better than they thought, better then they hoped for. You’re constantly improving and striving to be better.”

With Brandon being as small as it is, tattooing has become somewhat of a competitive field, Gammack said, which is a good thing.

There’s so much variety to every artist in Brandon, and there’s so many amazing artists here.

The tattoo artists at Blood and Iron Tattoo tend to agree.

“The amount of talent in the industry now is amazing,” said tattoo artist Lee Elvers. “You think you have a good day, and then you look at something someone else has done and you’re like, ‘well, I suck. Time to sharpen the pencil’ … You just have to keep trying to outdo yourself.”

“Every time I turn around there’s someone doing something you’ve never seen before,” added tattoo artist Scott Oldenburger.

Elvers and Oldenburger have both been in the tattoo business for approximately 16 years, with their fellow artist, TJ VanStone joining the team a little more than three years ago.

A lot has changed in 16 years, Elvers said.

“People who would have never gotten tattooed when we first started are now coming in,” Oldenburger said. “We see a wide range of people.”

“From kids to seniors; cops to criminals, basically,” Elvers added.

And while there’s always a new trend — like watercolour-style tattoos, for example — some things tend to get returned to over and over.

“Things come around. Things that were popular when we started tattooing are coming back again,” Elvers said. “Unicorns were big back then and there are actually a lot of unicorns getting done now … I’m doing one today.”

“Traditional stuff has always been somewhat popular, but it seems to be really popular again lately,” added VanStone.

People are also turning to tattooing for more functional uses, Oldenburger said, such as permanent medical alert bracelets and nipple reconstruction for breast cancer survivors.

“(The tattooing industry) is going to keep changing in ways that we’re not going to expect,” Oldenburger said. “ If it keeps on this trajectory, everything is just going to keep getting better. The average tattoo artist now is better than the average tattoo artist 30 years ago. If it keeps following that trend, in the future you’re going to have to be a pretty damn good artist in order to even compete — which is good. It pushes the envelope. It motivates you to be better.”

With 17 years in the industry, piercing artist and owner of Adam’s Body Art, Adam Lyttle, has seen similar advancements on his side of the shop.

“When I first started, it wasn’t as accepted,” Lyttle said. “A lot of people felt they needed to hide (piercings) from their employers … and that still goes on a bit but as it becomes more popular, the number of people applying for jobs with piercings and tattoos becomes more prevalent. It has become way more accepted, way more popular.”

Much like with tattoos, Lyttle has also noticed a widening range of people looking to get pierced, which he attributes to to an increasing variety of jewellery options.

“Even older clientele are coming in now because they’re not stuck with plain jane looking jewellery,” Lyttle said. “You can get something really nice with proper set stones or Swarovski crystals — made of implant grade material. It’s safer and better.”

And as piercing trends come and go in waves, Lyttle focuses his creativity into designing the perfect jewellery for whatever spot someone might want to bedazzle next.

“I have jewellery designed to go into certain places, and I’m just waiting for that place to walk in the door. Waiting for that one ear, that one nose to come in and say, ‘Yes, let’s do this,’” Lyttle said.

Whether it’s tattoos or piercings, Lyttle said he wants to see the community continue to strive for greatness, because it’s what Brandon deserves.

“It all comes from this post I saw on some internet feed … someone was badmouthing Brandon — saying how no one knows how to tattoo and that it was all crap — and I remember thinking, ‘you know what? screw that,” Lyttle said. “Brandon deserves so much better than what that one guy has seen, and it’s not going to be like that anymore, we’re changing it. Why can’t we have the best piercing and tattoo shops in the province? We have good people here.”