Ink, piercings popular in UNC crowd

Where self-expression, skin and ink meet, there's a permanent trend on the rise - tattoos are bleeding into the mainstream.

"There are very few things in this world that you can buy that will last you a lifetime," said Byron Wallace, the owner of Warlock's Tattoo and Body Piercing in Raleigh.

In 1996, U.S. News and World Report ranked tattooing as the 6th fastest-growing retail venture. Wallace, who has been in the tattoo business for 25 years and owns shops in Wake Forest and Clayton, estimated there are now 41 million tattooed Americans.

Wallace noted that a significant number of his shop's patrons, who range from teachers to medical professionals, are between the ages of 40 and 60. The oldest person he has tattooed was 76 years old.

But generation Y wants tattoos, too. At least half of the clientele at Glenn's Tattoo Service on Carrboro's West Main Street is made up of college students, said the shop's piercing artist, Robert Bland.

Bland, who has worked at Glenn's for three years, said business tends to be slower during this time of year - they only tattoo one or two people a day as the weather gets colder and people start saving money for the holidays.

At Glenn's, tattoos range from $40 to upwards of $1,000, depending mainly on size and the number of hours spent under the needle.

The most popular places on the body to be tattooed are the upper arm and shoulder for men and the lower back and hip for women, Bland said.

He gave a handful of reasons for why a person might get a tattoo: a milestone or commemoration, a girlfriend or boyfriend - or just because it looks cool.

Sophomore Caroline Russell, who has tiger lilies tattooed on her lower back, said getting a tattoo a few years ago was partially about rebelling against her parents.

"I've always been fascinated with tattoos for some reason," she said.

Bland said tattoos have taken a definitive turn toward popular culture. "Pretty soon, it will reach its pinnacle of acceptability," he said. "It would surprise me if it got much more accepted than it is now."

Although Bland joked that the basic equipment used for tattooing is essentially the same as its 19th-century predecessor - Thomas Edison's electric engraving pen - Wallace is certain that the field is improving to include better artists and better equipment, pigments, needles and techniques.

"A lot of talented kids come in here that have their own style and can apply it to tattooing," Wallace said.

Wallace said the majority of tattoo artists, himself included, have no formal art training. A neighbor taught him basic drawing and color-blending skills.

Similarly, the two artists at Glenn's, Glenn Wilson and Tom Michael, have a natural ability for drawing but no art degrees.

"Both Glenn and Tom are amazing painters and sketch artists," Bland said.

Even with Wilson and Michael's freehand tattoo skills, the majority of their work, including many stars, Chinese symbols, names, butterflies and tribal armbands, comes off the walls of their shop.

UNC junior Rob Warren, who sports a silver ring through his septum - the area between the nostrils - said he doesn't have a tattoo yet but is planning several, including a piece based on Dante's "Divine Comedy" that will cover one entire leg.

But junior Aaron Joachim, a student taking a year off from Harvard University and visiting a friend at UNC, said he's not interested in getting a tattoo.

"Society keeps finding ways to shock itself, and it becomes increasingly less shocking," he said. "That's what always happens with things on the fringe. They become more mainstream."

Contact the Features Editor at features@unc.edu.