Customizing the Body (PDF file) - Print My Tattoo

135 The Tattoo Relationship
inexperienced, unknowledgeable, fearful. and interactionally tentative.
(See Mennerick. 1974: 407-411 for a general discussion of
these issues.)
Factors that are both behavioral and physiological affect the
tattoo clients' facilitation of the work and their consequent categorization
by tattooists. Certain characteristics of the organic
"canvas," which the client presents to the tattooists, aid or impede
the tattoo process. "Good" clients have finely textured, clear, light
skin ("like fine vellum paper"). Dark, coarse skin presents artistic
and technical problems.
Clear. white, unwrinkled. and unblemished skin is the best.
That's one reason I like to work on women. The worst kind of
skin is on those guys who have laboring jobs or who are out in
the sun all the time. The sun breaks down the elasticity of the
skin. That's why when you see sailors or old cowboys they have
loose, wrinkled skin thatjust seems to hang there. You see a lot of
that in shops around seaports. Some guys come into the shop
and you can't really tattoo them. You just mark up their skin.
I had one gentleman come in. He worked for twenty-five years
in a heat treating plant. His skin is like gritty sandpaper. It is a
terrible thing to think that this happened to this human being
because of the place he worked. You can't even shave his skin.
Red headed people have like albino white skin. All red headed
skin is like rubber. The elasticity is unreal. I have small hands
and you have a big man come in and it is almost impossible to
stretch the skin and get a nice tattoo. Blond headed people
with light skin ... say someone of your size.... Tight skin is
excellent to work on. The color flows in well; you don't have to
repeat yourself. You can do a tattoo in a third of the time it
would take you to do a normal person. There are some men
that I can't tattoo. I won't because I can't guarantee that the
tattoo will come out right. Their arms are so big and the skin
is like buffalo hide. You can't seem to puncture the skin under
the epidermis. It just stays on the top. I was taught that if the
color doesn't go in the first time don't overwork it. By
overworking it, it is going to bleed out anyway.