Customizing the Body (PDF file) - Print My Tattoo

93 The Tattooist
"scratchers" turned out work that was technically incompetent,
marked public skin with anti-social symbols, and threatened the
physical well-being of their unsuspecting and unsophisticated
customer/victims with their unsanitary equipment and work
practices.
A lot of the people who just get their Easyrtder tattoo kits are
just into it for the money. For everyone that is coming up and
trying to improve themselves and better things, there are
probably half a dozen more that are just tearing down what
other people are doing. I'm learning all the time and getting
more aware. It gets spooky-I'm trying to bulld up my business
and all of these people out here who are bootlegging are just
making it worse for everyone else. A lot of people might start
coming down with diseases or they're going to be tattooing
people that aren't of age, getting people in an uproar. Maybe
theyl1 try and close everything down now.
Because of the stigma surrounding their occupation, tattooists
are the focus of both formal and informal efforts to constrain or,
in some cases, prohibit their activities. 15 Tattooists frequently recounted
tales oflegal difficulties, police harassment, unannounced
visits from health department inspectors, and other forms of negative
offiCial attention. One interviewee, for example, described
his experience in trying to open a studio in the New York metropolitan
area:
[Established artist) was interested in starting a business and
asked me if I was interested in going in as a partner in the
business. So we began dOing some research into [City) as a
potential location. So we were trying to find out from the
health department if they had any ordinances bearing on
tattOOing. I told him that I had friends that probably could do
the research without stirring up a lot of snakes so that we
could find out exactly what the story was. So I was in the
process of putting out all of the feelers I had trying to find out
that information. He went ahead and called up the health
department and just blatantly asked them if they had any
ordinances on tattooing. They said, "Well, well call you back