Tattoos are becoming evermore popular over recent times, as people like to tell a story or share a certain memory or feeling that they express through art on their bodies.
A pair of local tattoo artists, Laura Jackson of Moving Pictures Tattoo Studio and Nic Rothgery of Embellish Tattoo shared some of their experiences and what they see as current, popular trends, along with some other information about tattoos.
“I have been tattooing since 1989,” Jackson said. “This is a family owned business. My mom started it. She’s good. We had a lot of people coming to the house at all hours of the day and night. Eventually we decided we needed to open up a shop.”
Her mother worked at shows, swap meets and things like that before opening Moving Pictures Tattoo Studio on East Libertty Street in 1987.
“We are the longest-lasting tattoo studio in northern Ohio, with no intentions of going anywhere anytime soon,” Jackson said.
Trends vs. tradition
Jackson says just like everything else, there are fads and trends in tattoos. But, she notes, there is a difference between trends and tradition.
“Certain designs are traditional, like a lot of ladies tend to get butterflies and flowers, whereas guys tend to get more patriotic with eagles, Harley logos and things like that,” she said.
Jackson adds trends tend to last five to 10 years.
“When I first started tattooing, ladies were getting dolphins, as well as suns and moons,” she said. “I’ll bet you if you ask women between 60-70 what tattoos they have, at least one out of every five will tell you they have a dolphin or a sun or moon. For a while, a big trend was Kanji, which is Japanese and Chinese lettering. And now we’re doing a lot of Kanji coverups.
“The current trend is lettering, particularly on the forearms,” Jackson continued. “They’re getting song lyrics, Bible verses, poetry quotes. I’ve got two on the same arm, including a quote from my favorite author, and one is song lyrics. A lot of people will get things that are meaningful to them at this time.”
Rothgery owns and operates Embellish Tattoo, also located on East Liberty Street in Wooster. He sees pretty much the same trends as Jackson.
He said right now he’s seeing a trend for tattoos with tiny, fine lines.
“Unfortunately, in general, those aren’t going to last years and years,” he said. “When they heal up and time goes on, they don’t tend to look so tiny and fine lined any more.
“The big popular thing right now is probably the fine lines,” Rothgery continued. “We also do a lot of flowers, words to songs, inspirational sayings and things like that.”
Rothgery has been tattooing for going on 19 years. He was always into art through high school. He had four tattoos of his own when he graduated. He worked a few apprenticeships in Massillon and New Philadelphia before returning to Wayne County around nine years ago.
Your skins tells the story of your life
Jackson noted that anime is another popular theme now, but admits for every anime cartoon she does today, she has done 10 Tasmanian Devils or Yosemite Sams or Bugs Bunny over the last 30 years.
“Your skin tells the story of your life; the things you loved in your youth, as well as what you love as you get older,” Jackson said. “Are you going to be happy explaining a tattoo to your grandchildren?”
Rothgery added that someone should be 100% sure what they are getting tattooed is what they really want forever.
The tattoo artists like to sit down and discuss the tattoos and what a particular person is into and come up with an idea or direction they should go.
Rothgery said he likes to make sure what he does is up to his own artistic standards.
“We love to have the full freedom to draw something up for customers,” he said. “But sometimes it’s just getting emblems or logos, where we’re copying to get it as close to that as possible. And when doing portrait work, we like to get it as close to the photo as we can get it.”
The stories that go along with a tattoo can be just as memorable as the art itself.
This article originally appeared on The Daily Record: Tattoo art: Every picture tells a story
Reporting by Kevin Lynch, Wooster Daily Record / The Daily Record
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
