Customizing the Body (PDF file) - Print My Tattoo

166 Epilogue 2008
duced by people who wanted to show more than chopped motorcycles
and the bodily decorations of the people who rode them.
Tattoo conventions were becoming more common, and they were
sponsored by organizations other than National Tattoo Association.
There were more art school-trained tattooists and they were
taking tattooing in directions not considered possible even ten
years earlier.
It is unclear whether we are still in the tattoo renaissance that
emerged in the 1960s, but there is no question that tattooing is
still a vibrant art form, and its technical merits and thematic
repertoire continue to expand exponentially. When Customizing
the Body was first published, many would have maintained that
there were only a handful of tattoo artists worthy of that title east
of California. But now it is hard to find a city or town that does
not have at least one tattoo artist who is technically skilled and
capable of working in a variety of styles. Tattoo clients across the
country expect artists to have at least rudimentary ability to
create tribal, traditional Americana, Celtic, biomechanical, fine
line, and Japanese style works, and many seek rather extensive
coverage, from “sleeves” and “backpieces” to full body suits.
Many of the stylistic changes in tattoo art that have come about
in the last fifteen years are the result of changes in the tools of
the tattoo trade, especially the pigments available and needle configurations
used to inscribe the designs. Until the mid-1970s, tattooers
had an available pallet of only five colored inks (red, blue,
black, brown, and yellow). The invention of a purple pigment in
the mid-1970s was revolutionary, and some maintain that this
was partly responsible for the solidification and expansion of the
tattoo renaissance that had emerged some ten years earlier. However,
it was not until the mid-1990s that the available pallet genuinely
opened up—today, there are literally hundreds of colors
available from established pigment manufacturers. The expanded
availability of tattoo inks allowed artists to work in styles and
create images that were not previously possible.
As an illustration, one dramatic stylistic movement began as a
revolutionary departure from the abstract psychedelia practiced
by San Francisco’s Bill Salmon and his imitators. This style,
known colloquially as “the French School,” is attributed to the
early pioneering work done in the 1990s by the European artists
Tin Tin and Stephane Chaudesaigues. The absence of outlines