The needle is tiny, but long enough that you can feel it under your skin; probing, carving, dispatching its venom, drop by drop. My body vibrates with the pulsation of the point as I clasp my hands together so hard that my knuckles turn white. You could never vicariously understand the sensation of getting a tattoo—you can only really know at that moment when you reveal your skin to the artist and let him or her hone in and infuse you with ink.
It’s my first time. It’s my first time stepping foot in a tattoo parlor, let alone having five inches of black ink drilled into my flesh. “Im tirtzu, ein zo agada” it reads; translation: “If you will it, it is no dream.” If you want something badly enough to make it happen, no matter what it is, it’s within your reach. I willed it, it was indeed not a dream and Derek Hendrickson, tattoo artist for Renaissance Studios, made it happen.
Renaissance is a small parlor for tattoos and piercings located on Main Street near the University at Buffalo’s South Campus. Derek Hendrickson is one of their artists.
The 33-year-old Hendrickson has been working at Renaissance as a tattoo artist for a year and a half now, having moved from the beach town of Point Pleasant, New Jersey to Buffalo to pursue this career.
“It’s not easy to get a job here,” said Hendrickson, “but I’ve been friends with the people here a long time.” Usually, tattoo artists begin their careers by an apprenticeship with a more seasoned artist, then gain experience by practicing on a few trusting friends as well as their own bodies. The first real tattoo Hendrickson ever grafted was on his own body.
It takes a good friend to trust the future of his skin to a novice. Hendrickson admitted, “There’s a million different reasons why it could go wrong,” he said. It is, however, easy to touch up.
Hendrickson has me stand erect, yet relaxed, while he tries to align the printing on my right shoulder blade. “It’s hard to put a tattoo of a text on a body since the body has no straight lines,” he tells me. It takes him three tries to get it right because I’m tense and I’m having trouble relaxing my shoulders. He places my white T-shirt on the back of the faux leather chair to keep me warmer and dips the gun needle in a thimble-sized ink chamber.
“Are you ready?”
I take a deep breath and nod.
The sounds in this tattoo parlor are limited to the buzzing of needles and the only decipherable smell is the faint scent of ink, which resembles the scent of sticking a Bic pen under your nose.
There is a glass case in the front of the studio filled with a collection of different kinds of earrings, studs, eyebrow rings, nose rings, belly rings, and of course those rings that fill the pierced holes in places where the sun don’t shine.
On the case there’s a taped-down sheet of white paper with piercing and ring prices. They’re sized from the small and simple to the heavy and intricate, ranging in prices as low as $20 or $30 for normal ear piercing, and as high as $100 for something like an industrial piercing, which is a tiny metal bar threaded through two specially aligned holes in your cartilage. A small disclaimer says that rings or other pieces can’t be returned once they’ve been in your body, and another sign insists that subjects need to be at least 18-years-old and have identification to prove it (one of the many policies of a trustworthy and reputable tattoo studio).
There are a number of three-walled white stalls and a ceiling of old-fashioned looking tile. There are deer skulls hanging above each stall and smaller rodent skulls with peacock feathers placed randomly about the shop. The walls in the front of the shop have extraordinary and exotic artwork. Inside each stall hangs numerous drawings, former tattoos done by that particular artist, and other interesting pieces. Hendrickson has a head-sized mirror with Elvis’ face painted on it in black.
Though he’s only been tattooing for a year and a half, Hendrickson has still gained formidable experience. He has tattooed people as old as 67 and he has done a tattoo so elaborate that it took him 15 hours to complete, which required taking three or four breaks and cost $800. He claims his strangest tattoo yet was tracing the outline of a pair of Daisy Duke shorts on a guy, which he could only describe as “pretty fuckin’ weird.”
It’s a job like any other in the sense that the artist is obligated to give the subject his best work and not pass judgment. Even in an intimate situation such as tattooing a woman’s breast or a behind, Hendrickson realizes he must be professional at all times. “I’m more worried about getting this line straight than anything else,” he said.
The pain is getting to me a little now. My fists and are clenched, my eyes are clamped shut, my muscles are tight, and I can feel myself sweating under my arms and on my forehead. “Done with the first word,” Hendrickson tells me, and I let out a sigh and release my fingers’ grip. It is painful but not unbearable. I tell myself I could probably hold out like this for another half hour at the most. He dips the needle in the ink and dives back in…
Men’s bodies and women’s bodies are different in terms of shapes of things, sizes of things, and curves; therefore, the pain of a tattoo on certain parts of one sex would be more painful than the same part on the opposite sex. In general, however, Hendrickson says the ribs are the most painful place for body art because of all the nerve endings in that area.
Even though the artists don’t need to officially know about human anatomy, it is a comfort to know that the man with a needle in your back knows a thing or two about the body.
And while it may seem that you always see tattoos in the same places, Hendrickson claims that there really is no common place for a tattoo. So forget your muscle-armed bicep tattoo with the word “Mom” in a heart, because these days people get tattooed practically anywhere on their bodies you could ever think of. Essentially, if you can point to it, you can tattoo it.
Many girls get what’s commonly known as a “tramp stamp,” which is basically a design of their choice on the lower back; but many people of both sexes get tattoos on their arms, feet, ankles, forearms, legs, chests, upper back, around the bikini line, and some even in the more dangerous territory.
Customers can get nearly anything they want in tattoo form. They could describe it to the artist and watch them draw it out, or they could draw it out themselves and bring it in. This freedom, however, could result in the artist using his discretion. If somebody wanted a swastika, or a racist symbol, the artist can refuse to do it. “I don’t have to tattoo anybody I don’t want to,” he says. Fortunately, Hendrickson has never had an experience with a racist or anti-Semitic subject, but he has given a number of satanic tattoos, which seem to be pretty standard.
“Am I bleeding?” I ask him shyly.
“No,” he says, “but it would be completely normal if you were. I’m almost finished,” he tells me, while I’m in the midst of this intensity, trying to push the pain out of my mind. I’ve never liked needles, and I’ve never had a high tolerance for this kind of pain. I sit and I clench and I pray that it will be over soon, until he tells me it’s done.
He takes a picture of his work for his records, lets me look at it in the mirror, and then puts a bandage on top with a few long strips of masking tape. I walk to the front of the room while he cleans up and I begin to feel light-headed, and soon I’m completely nauseous. I need air. My body is shaking and I start to feel dizzy. I try to open the door to go outside but since I was the last customer they had already started to lock up and I’m stuck.
After a brief spell of anxiety, I breathe hard, regain my senses, and I’m good to go.
I fork over his fee, which he can basically make up on his own, and I slip him an extra ten bucks as a tip for letting me stay in after closing. He gives me a card and says I can call if I have any questions, and I walk out—the same person on the inside, but on the outside, I now have a remarkable strip of black ink inscribed in Hebrew across my right shoulder blade, and it’s not going anywhere.
