By Katrina Ciccarelli
Photo contributed

Imagine a punctured wound penetrating deep into the skin, filling it with ink. Some punctures can be so deep that they cause immense pain and bleeding. It might sound horrible, but this has become the new right of passage for many people in today’s society.

Once upon a time, tattoos belonged to sailors, bikers and outlaws. They were associated with heathens and certainly not considered appropriate for any respectable person.

But things have changed and tattoos are becoming more and more popular.

“Ms. Deborah,” an experienced tattoo artist and owner of St. Augustine’s Fountain of Youth Tattoos, began tattooing almost 25 years ago.

She opened the first tattoo shop in Jacksonville in 1982 and the first shop in St. Augustine in 1994. Now there are more than 60 tattoo shops in Jacksonville and six in St. Augustine.

“At first I was interested in tattooing because you couldn’t just go down the street and get one,” Ms. Deborah said. “Now there’s a shop on every corner of every city.”

Ms. Deborah says the rise in popularity, especially in the South, is mainly because of increased traveling in America compared to when she first started. “You have a lot more people coming into the South from the North and other parts of the world where tattoos are more accepted,” she said.

“For instance, in New York City, tattoos are no big deal — even policemen have them. People down here are now being more exposed to tattoos although it is something that has been going on for many years.”

She also mentions how television and media have contributed to the rise in popularity of tattoos.

“There are new television reality shows about tattooing and advertisements of tattoo images on T-shirts and a lot of other things,” she said.

“Celebrities and superstars with tattoos are also one of the main factors that helped the idea of tattoos become more mainstream.”

Besides seeing the evolution of the tattoo popularity unfold, Ms. Deborah and her staff have noticed changes in the types of tattoos people are getting and the people getting them.

“There is a lot more custom tattoo art nowadays,” Ms. Deborah said. “People are spending a lot of time choosing the right artist to do the job.”

David Charlton, an artist that works for Ms. Deborah, sees a lot of students getting tattoos these days and thinks most of them do it for the excitement and also for memories.

“I recently tattooed four Flagler College girls with the same tattoo,” Charlton said. “People like to build memories.”

Like these four students, senior Karel Hedstrom has tattoos that reflect her life. “I have a cross on the inside of my ankle and a blue lotus wrapped around the inside of my wrist, which signifies purity and spirituality,” Hedstrom said. “Each tattoo I have represents a time in my life that I will want to remember.”

Another student, sophomore David Paxton, shares a passion for tattoos but for different reasons. He got his first tattoo after being interested in his father’s his entire life. “At first, it was an odd fascination. I always saw my dad’s, and I wanted one too,” Paxton said. “Then, they start to grow on you.”

So, with all these students interested in tattoos, how might it affect them in the job market? This is a problem Ms. Deborah faces a lot.

“Sometimes I have to be the Mama in the business around here,” she said. “Many times young students will want to be spontaneous and I have to either talk them out of getting it somewhere visible or talk them out of it entirely. We’ve had to do a lot of cover ups because of students getting jobs. This is what makes it so obvious that tattoos are still not accepted today.”

Unfortunately, there is still a stigma attached to tattoos and many students do not consider how a visible tattoo might affect them or their ability to get a job after graduation. Even though tattoos are more popular now, they certainly are not widely accepted.

Many people still don’t recognize tattoos as an actual art and Ms. Deborah asserts that she does not ever think tattoos will be totally accepted in society.

However, there seems to be a future for tattooing, and although it may never be socially acceptable, there have always been people with a passion for creating and obtaining the art.

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