TattooAftercare.org

If you’re interested in the process of tattooing as well as the end result, check Myke Chambers tattooing as a guest artist at House of Pain Tattoo in El Paso, Texas, right now. You can watch Myke tattoo live, and as an added bonus, overhear shop banter.

I’ve seen other Ustream videos by tattooists like Durb Morrison but Myke has been doing these videos pretty regularly lately in his non-stop tattoo tour. [His travel schedule is just exhausting to look at.]

I completely geek out over body suits-in-progress blogs, especially when the work is done by tattoo phenomena. [And it seems many of you do too considering the popularity of John Mack's series on getting tattooed by Horiyoshi III.]

One such blog is Munewari Minutes where Brooklyn’s own Mike Crash posts on the progress of his Japanese backpiece and munewari. As Mike explains in one of his first blog posts,

“Munewari (literally ‘chest dividing’) is a tattoo style which
covers the front of the torso while leaving the center of the chest
untouched…The shape is meant to conceal the tattoo when traditional clothing such
as a kimono is worn. As a matter of practicality, I confess the shape has become an
anachronism. You’re not likely to see many folks in kimono
outside of the rare formal occasion. But the style is unique to
Japanese tattoo and I think quite stunning visually, which no doubt has
contributed to it’s longevity–it is still a commonly tattooed style.”

It’s this information on Japanese tattoo, combined with Mike’s own personal experience, that makes Munewari Minutes such an interesting read.

The artist creating the work is the renowned Horizakura, aka Shinji, of the Horitoshi Family. Horizakura has been tattooing Mike–by machine and tebori–for six years at NY Adorned.

The artists of NY Adorned have inspired other tattoo bloggers whom I love like my friend Sarah whose site Evolution of a Backpiece (which we posted here) relays her experience getting tattooed by Stefanie Tamez. Sarah was inspired by the blog (one of the first tattoo-in-progress blogs) of another dear friend, Keith Alexander, who died in July 2005. While his site is no longer online, you can see here
on BME his backpiece, which was tattooed by Chris O’Donnell, also of Adorned.

Horizakura will not be at NY Adorned for long, however. As Mike noted in his most recent post, the artist will soon be opening up his own studio on the Lower East Side.

Other big changes are taking place at NYA:

Photo of Johnny Anderson by Allen J. Schaben for Los
Angeles Times

In 2006, Johnny Anderson of Yer Cheat’n Heart Tattoo wanted to move his shop to a better location and decided on Hermosa Beach, CA; however, he was denied because zoning laws prohibited tattooing in the city (not as an outright ban but by not recognizing it as a permissible use). Johnny fought back, suing in federal court in LA claiming that his First Amendment rights were violated and that tattooing is protected artistic expression.

He lost that case because the court found that tattooing was a service and “‘not sufficiently imbued with elements
of communication” to be protected as speech.

But Johnny didn’t give up. He appealed to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which recently heard the case, and as the Los
Angeles Times reports, “some constitutional law scholars predict the outcome could be different
in what would be the first–and potentially precedent-setting–federal
appellate decision on whether the tattoo artist is engaged in 1st
Amendment-protected activity when designing and applying custom tattoos.”

This means that if Johnny wins, similar oppressive zoning laws–which are some of the biggest obstacles tattooists must overcome in opening up shop across the US–could be challenged with greater success; even better, local officials may think twice before drafting/amending laws to keep tattoo shops out of their districts.

Other tattooists have challenged tattoo bans on other grounds and have won, but in my opinion, this constitutional question is the most interesting and far reaching in its implications:

Does the First Amendment right to free expression protect tattooing?

Here’s what one scholar said to the LA Times:

“If it’s art, it’s art, and art gets protection,” UC Berkeley law professor and 1st Amendment expert Jesse Choper said of the debate over whether tattoos are protected speech. Hermosa Beach might have a chance of prevailing with the 9th Circuit judges, he said, if it imposed
regulations limiting the practice to certain parts of the city or required the involvement of medical professionals. But he said he doubts its total ban on tattoo parlors will pass constitutional review.

The state-wide Massachusetts ban on tattooing was deemed unconstitutional by Judge Barbara Rouse in 2000, who ruled on a civil case brought by a tattooist and the ACLU challenging the ban. In her opinion, Judge Rouse said that tattooing is an ancient art form practiced in almost every culture. She added:

“Persons obtain tattoos to demonstrate commitment to other persons, to institutions, to religious beliefs, and to political and personal beliefs. The medium on which the drawn image appears should not be relevant when determining whether something is ‘speech’; the tattoo itself is symbolic speech deserving of First Amendment protection.”

[...]

“The current ban on tattooing has promoted an underground tattoo
industry with no controls which, in turn, has increased health risks.”

Read more on the Massachusetts tattoo battle in this
New Yorker article.

That was a state court case, however, and limited in its impact on other bans outside Mass. When a case challenging South Carolina’s tattoo ban, White v. South Carolina, was appealed to the US Supreme Court, the highest court in the country refused to hear it (even with Ken Starr arguing it). The tattoo ban was eventually overturned in 2004. [More on that case here and see the S.C. appellate case here.]

FYI: The last state ban to be overturned was Oklahoma in 2006.

Now, with the 9th Circuit Federal Court of Appeals looking into tattoo protections under the constitution, these local bans might also brought down, and just as important, another court will find tattooing as an art form.

Will keep on eye on it and let you know how it goes.

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UPDATE: More legal analysis on HuffPo

Original post: First Amendment & Tattoos