| State pride guides Alaskans in choosing tattoos So many customers ask for the state flower inked across their bodies, Juneau tattoo artist David Lang says he might as well have named his shop "The Forget-Me-Not. , where people ink evidence of their time here like soldiers after a tour of duty. , tattooist Curtis Linton said people rarely ask for artwork commemorating the Dakotas. He once inked the South Dakota state bird, a ring-necked pheasant, on a friend. " Like Alaska, the state has just one area code, he said. Otherwise, it's mainly tribal tattoos and Bible verses. At 21, Roll already has two. The other is tattooed on his thigh: A grizzly bear with antlers. "It's the Alaskan jackalope," he said. At Ink become experts at inking Tlingit artwork and Northern Lights. " On another customer he inked the outline of the state map across the full width of a woman's pale back. Don thumbed through pictures of her fresh tattoo on his iPhone. Southeast Alaska wound down toward her kidneys, along with a small image of two happily mating moose. "I've worked in Arizona, New York, New Jersey, Florida, Tennessee, Kentucky, Connecticut, Louisiana and here," said Debra Yarian, one 50% of the husband-and-wife team that runs Eagle River Tattoo. "The tattoo clientele here is different than it is in the Lower 48 in that they don't follow any trends, other than their own trend of getting state of Alaska (tattoos)," Yarian said. For one of her first New Year's Eve celebrations in the state, her new Alaska friends took Brown out on the town. It felt like she visited every house in the city, she said. One of the newer state pride trends is the numeral "574," artists say. Others have asked for the Northern Lights, dog sleds, Alaska Native corporation logos and Inupiat, Yup'ik and Tlingit designs. Las Vegas tattoo artist Oz VonMunster said customers often ask for designs honoring their visit to Sin City, but are less likely to demand, say, the fence post outline of the condition of Nevada. In Juneau, summertime tour-industry workers sometimes ask for Alaska pieces, but most of the demand comes from locals, said Lang, of High Tide Tattoo. Later this summer a wave of fresh high school graduates will file through the Anchorage Tattoo Studio in Midtown, inking Alaska on their backs and biceps before leaving for trade schools and colleges Outside, said artist James Allen. Customers ask for Big Dippers on every part of their bodies. (Even Sarah Palin may have a Dipper. She once bet her husband Todd she'd get the sta te stars inked on her ankle if then-Gov. |
Monday, 4 June 2012
State pride guides Alaskans in choosing tattoos
