I hate to condemn any one place outright, but over the past few years, I’ve seen sufficient proof of the province of Alberta, Canada having far too many incidents of unregistered or unsanitary tattooists operating businesses. The most recent evidence of this comes thanks to Darren Kennaway and Thomas Kennedy of Edmonton, whose tattoo operation, Loki’s Haven Tattoos has been caught tattooing in people’s homes between two different neighbouring towns without the necessary health permits.  It was only through a chance spotting of Kennaway and Kennedy’s advertising on Facebook that health officials discovered what was happening.

‘Tattoo operators must be undergo a health inspection before they can receive a permit for their operation. Horne said an investigation into the Loki’s Haven Tattoos showed proper sanitary measures weren’t followed.

Public health investigators obtained a list of clients from the business, but issued a health alert after discovering the list was incomplete.

“Because these operators did not have proper sterilization processes in place, all individuals who received tattoos from them, in any location, may have been exposed to viruses such as hepatitis B and C, and HIV,” Horne said.

If the men don’t abide by the public health orders, they could be charged under the Public Health Act, Horne said.’

As far as I’m concerned, Alberta is not a good place to get a tattoo.  Hey, apologies to all the legit artists working and living there, but the province of Alberta in general seems to be kind of slack on the issue of ensuring that their artists are working in clean and legal environments.  Hell, Kennaway and Kennedy have been tattooing without permits for at least two years.  Two years?  That’s insane. What’s even crazier is that if the men don’t abide by the public health orders, they could be charged.  Are you kidding me?  How about immediately charging these two stupid rednecks for endangering the lives of hundreds of people over the last two years?  There’s no doubt about it, the Alberta health departments need to step the hell up on this one.

Unfortunately, the issue of tattoos in the work place continues to be a contentious one.  Given the amount of mainstream acceptability that tattoos have received in the past few years, it still continues to both annoy and surprise me how little the perception of tattoos in the workplace has changed.  The very idea that a person working in a professional context is somehow less professional because he or she might have a visible tattoo, is beyond idiotic.  Yet our societies continue to have a problem with it.

In the past, I have seen this issue take on different contexts – everything from the military to police to job recruitment centres, have had some sort of problem with prospective employees showing tattoos.  Now the most recent debate to hit the mainstream is that of teachers, either elementary or high school.  People are generally wondering for example, whether or not a teacher who works in a school that has a dress code should be permitted to have visible tattoos.  Well?  Should they?

Personally, I don’t even think that this should be up for debate.  The crystal clear answer is yes, any teacher who has a tattoo should be completely free to have it visible while teaching class.  Provided of course, that the tattoo isn’t inappropriate for the public, this can’t have any negative impact whatsoever on students.  To assume that it could or would, is to completely ignore the fact that students live in the same world that we all do.  Tattoos are nothing new.  I think it’s more than time to re-invent the word “professional”.  What is professional about a suit and tie or a business skirt?  Nothing.  It’s just that we attribute those values to them.  So, in the same way, we could all just as easily attribute professional values to tattoos.  Or not – we could just ignore them altogether in the work place.  The bottom line however, is that tattoos are only unprofessional if we believe them to be.

Hola amigos y amigas, que tal?  And with that, I have pretty much exhausted the span of my Spanish vocabulary.  That’s okay though, because today I have decided that I’m going to do whatever I can to get shed a little bit of spotlight on tattoo in South America – Chile, to be precise.  I may not speak much Spanish, but I do know some nice tattoo work when I see it, so today Santiago, Chile represents!

There is however, a *small* hitch in this plan and that all goes back to what I’ve mentioned earlier about my lack of Spanish ability.  It was surprisingly easy to find info on tattoo in Chile, but it was a little more difficult finding info that was both Spanish and English.  So as a result, I’m kind of going in blind on this whole thing, but the tattoo images that you’ll see at Santiago’s Tattoo Rockers studio cover a bunch of different spectrums and the quality ranges from great to average.  The main thing to appreciate here however, is that this is tattoo from a different part of the world, and I love seeing the end result of different tattoo work in different countries.  What always stays the same is the passion for the art form and you can really tell that the artists at Tattoo Rockers are passionate and they also get their fair share of celebrity clients.

Check out the Tattoo Rockers website for yourself and scroll through their extensive online shop portfolio.  I guarantee that you’ll find something that suits your tastes.  Chile is a country that has been through alot in the past 40 years and the mere fact that tattoo lives there strong and unfettered says almost as much about the art form as it does the dedicated artists who keep the industry in Chile alive and well.

I’ll admit that I don’t know a whole lot about science, but often I find science quite interesting.  My interest in science becomes even greater, however, when it’s added to something that I do know about.  In this case, science has been added to the concept of tattoos (though just temporary tattoos) and it’s all pretty cool.  Now and again I’ve written about a type of tattoo that can monitor blood levels and such in patients with Diabetes.  Well this time, the tattoo that is being used is actually acting as a beacon or a transmitter for WiFi connections.  Since I can’t explain it all too well, I’ll just quote the important info directly from the article:

‘The tattoo was developed with inkjet electronics, which involves the use of special conducting inks to create electronic circuits in the same way that a desktop printer produces pictures.

If the sensors can be made small enough they could offer more exact measurements to be taken by medics enabling them to better target problem areas in the brain. Other applications could enable patients to be monitored at home if they wish, or the sensors could be used by fire or police officers to show they are well in extreme conditions.’

Pretty crazy stuff actually, and it all reminds me a little too much of the event that Futurist Ray Kurzweil assures us will occur within the next twenty years called the Singularity.  Basically Kurzweil says that computers will become part of humans and that humans will then become more powerful than ever before and be capable of living forever, among many, many other things.  It’s a very interesting and scary theory, but the real question is, could this be the start of it all?  Could tattoos be what eventually leads the way to the Singularity?

Crazy stuff.

When you happen to write about tattoo a lot, eventually you reach this point where it gets harder and harder for you to be surprised by people’s tattoos and their different reasons for getting them.  That doesn’t mean that I don’t find people’s tattoos cool or think that they’ve come up with a clever idea for a tattoo, but in general, it often feels like I’ve seen it all before.

That’s how I feel about Brisbane, Australia’s Glen Robinson and his interesting method of asking his girlfriend to marry him.  It’s not that I don’t think that it’s kind of cool that Robinson had “Will You Marry Me” tattooed on his wrists so that he could present them to his girlfriend, Michelle Bate, it’s just that I’m positive that I’ve already seen someone do something similar to this at one time or another.  I just can’t remember who, when or where.

That doesn’t matter though, the important thing is that Robinson had the guts to do this in the first place.

‘“To some people it’s probably a very, very extreme thing. For me, I’ve got a few … so it’s not as bizarre to me,” Glen said.

“So one thing led to another and I got the tattoo.”

That evening, with the new tattoo still raw, Glen bent on one knee in the couple’s living room with a ring in his open palms.

“Michelle wasn’t feeling well that night … she was lying on the couch,” he said.

“I came home and sat down beside her on the knee and said, ‘Hopefully, this will make you feel better’.”

Michelle said, “Are you going to ask me something?”

Glen tactfully replied, “Surely you can read.”

Michelle said ‘yes’.

“I said, ‘Yes! But I don’t know what I think about that [tattoo]’.”

Michelle, a primary school teacher and swimmer who competed at the Barcelona Paralympics in 1992, then had a question for Glen.

“Where’s the question mark?” she said.

“His answer was, ‘It wasn’t a question’.”’

All in all, it’s a pretty cool way to ask someone to marry you.  Plus, he’ll always have the tattoo as a constant reminder of the day that he asked his girlfriend to be his wife.  Good luck to them both.

Despite being a rather odd thing to consider, it’s actually now true that a tattoo can mean more to a person when they are dead than when they are alive.  At least that’s sort of the hope that 81-year-old Joy Tomkins of Norfolk, England has.

Tomkins has recently had two tattoos done that she feels will be sufficient enough to end her life should she ever have an accident that renders her unconscious.  On her back, the letters “P.T.O.” along with an arrow, and on her chest, the words “Do Not Resuscitate”.

‘”If I’m found lying about and can’t say something, I want [medics] to accept that,” she said.

“I’m 81 and don’t need any more use. What do you think I’m going to do with the frightful thought of getting to 100? I hate it.

“My mother-in-law lived to be 106 and in the last six years of her life she’d have been much better dead. She was miserable.”

The widow said that had the age of 81 she did not have the “stamina” to enjoy all of her hobbies any more, such as playing the piano and gardening.

“I’ve had 80 good, interesting years of marriage and children and grandchildren and plenty of friends,” she said.

“I’m quite happy if I wake up in the morning, but if I don’t I’m just as happy.”‘

If you ask me, this is all some seriously depressing shit.  But, if she doesn’t want to be resuscitated, I guess that’s her prerogative.  The thing is, I don’t care how big your tattoo is or how obvious it is, no paramedic or doctor in the world is going to pay attention to it.  Ms. Tomkins should know better than to believe that paramedics would actually just let her die based on a tattoo on her chest requesting that they do as much.  Whatever does happen with this case, it has created a bit of an interesting jump for tattoo into the realm of euthanasia.  Is getting a tattoo all it takes to demand that you be left to die how you wish to die?  We’ll see.

There’s no doubt about it, sports related tattoos are one of the biggest types of tattoos that I often see on people.  Because I live in Canada, those sports tattoos are almost always hockey related.  Now if you ask me – and you didn’t but I’m going to tell you what I think anyway – I don’t really understand the point of getting a sport related tattoo.  But, as with all things tattoo, sometimes you just have to say To each his own.

It’s taken them a little while to catch on, but it seems that at least one money obsessed professional sports industry has caught on to the idea of tattoos and their marketability amongst sports fans.  As if it weren’t already enough that fans are expected to dole out for outrageously inflated ticket prices and insanely overpriced jerseys and other team related clothing, the New York Islanders hockey franchise is now going to be adding a tattoo booth to several of their home games this upcoming season, making it the first professional sports franchise to have their own “official” tattoo shop.

‘Tattoo Lou’s will set up a tattoo/body piercing station at 10 Islanders home games at the Nassau Coliseum during the 2011-2012 season. The Islanders claim they’re the first pro franchise to designate an official tattoo shop. The mini-shop, in the form of a penalty box, will also sell body-centric Islanders souvenirs and tattoo-inspired T-shirts.’

Yup…I’m sure those will be really affordable and reasonably priced tattoos.  Look, I’m not going to sit here and tell anyone who wants to get a NY Islanders tattoo that they are stupid for doing so or that they simply shouldn’t do it.  But I think that if you really are serious about getting a tattoo of your favourite team, go to a tattoo studio that isn’t located in a professional sports arena.  I’m all for advancing the art of tattoo in terms of its acceptability, but this is nothing more than a cash grab by the NHL and the New York Islanders and it has nothing to do with tattoo and everything to do with the further gouging of hard working people who already pay too much money to see a bunch of highly overpaid athletes play a game.  In other words, I’m going to go ahead and encourage people to just say no to pro-sports stadium tattoo shops.

I only recently discovered the work of Nick Stegall, but that doesn’t make me any less impressed with what I’ve found.  Nick is a talented tattooist who also seems to have the nickname “Hogwart”, though I’m not quite sure as to whether or not the nickname is a Harry Potter reference.  If it is a Harry Potter reference, then this will be the second tattooist in as many weeks whose tattoo blog profile contains mention of Harry Potter.  In case it wasn’t made clear last weekend, I am a fan of Harry Potter and of artists who appreciate the young wizard.

Anyway, all geekiness aside, it doesn’t really matter if Nick Stegall’s nickname is Harry Potter related or not.  What does matter however, is the quality level of Stegall’s tattoos.  Well, I’m here to tell you that the quality level is nice and high.  Nick tattoos at RedLetter1 in Tampa, Florida and he dabbles a lot in Asian art – including some Japanese stuff, a little classic American, portraits and even some black and grey thrown in for good measure.  Everything is clean and smooth, with some really nice lines and heaps of colour.  There’s a control to his work that makes you want to keep seeing more long after you’ve gone through his portfolio.

For those of you in the UK, Stegall will be appearing at the London Tattoo Convention at the end of September.  If you aren’t lucky enough to catch up with him in London, then you can always keep a close tab on his blog, which is often updated with videos and photos of his work, along with info about when and where he’s going to be.  Check him out, it’ll be worth your while.

In my numerous blog posts on the issue of tattoo regulation, I’ve always been very much in favour of getting artists licensed and on the books.  Well, today I came across an article from the Dayton Daily News about the amount of unlicensed tattooists that are being reported to authorities.

‘Public health districts in Montgomery, Greene, Clark and Warren counties reported a total of 32 public nuisance complaints against unlicensed tattoo artists since 2007, compared to 13 complaints on licensed operators.’

It’s great to hear that the scratchers are being outted and dealt with by the authorities, but it’s kind of crummy to see that so many still exist and that even licensed tattooists are having complaints levied against them.  Which kind of begs the question: is regulation doing everything it can or is it simply impossible to weed out all the illegal/basement dwelling scratchers just with regulation alone?

It probably is naive of me to believe that regulation can put an end to scratchers, but it’s still nice to see that things in Ohio are kind of on the ball.  By that I mean that at least they are getting these public nuisance complaints and the more the public is aware of the illegalities and the dangers of unlicensed scratchers, the better things are for everyone.  So, I guess from this point of view, while regulation might not be the final nail in the coffin for scratchers, it does help to educate the public on what is and isn’t acceptable.  And the more that the public are aware of these sorts of things, the better.

There’s absolutely no question that tattooists are artists who are producing art through a different medium, but what happens when contemporary artists who make their living painting or by some other artistic pursuit turn their attention to tattoo?  Obviously the first concern and difference that pops up here is that while many tattooists can and do take up other artistic mediums as a sideline hobby or career, it isn’t as simple for traditional artists to just randomly take up tattoo.  The reasons for that are as varied as are the styles and types of people who tattoo for a living.

Fortunately, a recent experiment with contemporary artists taking on tattoo art only goes as far as the artists designing the tattoos and then handing them off to professional tattooists for the actual act of tattooing.  Beyond this, the only other issue of note is the slight controversy that this has caused due to the nature of one particular tattoo…

Now, if you ask me, a girl getting a tattoo on her vagina is no big deal.  I mean, I’m sure there are millions of women out there with tattoos on their vaginas and it’s just the way that it is.  But because this most recent vagina tattoo happens to be designed by artist Damien Hirst and because it happens to be on the cover of a new art magazine called Garage, well, people are kind of losing their shit.

‘Would you want a tattoo by a famous contemporary artist? For Taylor, the answer was a definite yes. “I would have been stupid not to be part of this project,” she said, explaining: “I have a piece of art on my vagina. Not one single person can ever say they gave birth through a Damien Hirst piece of art. I can [if I ever give birth].” And it’s clear she’s proud of her new acquisition: Taylor reportedly showed the tattoo to Hirst after the work was done—and then promptly threw a garden party to celebrate it.’

The whole situation actually strikes me as a bit ridiculous.  Honestly, does it really matter if your tattoo was designed by a contemporary artist or where exactly it was placed?  Anyone who follows tattoo and who has any sort of interest in the art form knows that there are lengthy lists of tattooists who are far more prestigious to actually be tattooed by with a tattoo that that artist has designed themselves.  So bringing contemporary artists into all this and flipping out because some girl got a tattoo on her vaj just seems, well…kind of boring to me.