Oldschool Alex, a tattoo artist, sees tattoos as a commitment. He says he doesn’t have a reason for every one of the many inscriptions that adorn him; they simply mark his ability to express himself freely.
Alex, who is 38, got his first tattoo when he was 17. He was living in New Jersey and part of the punk rock scene – the mid 1970s rock genre. The image is from one of his favorite comic books, “Faust.”
Alex now has even more tattoos that speak to his interests. He is, for instance, a movie buff and has dedicated one arm to images from horror films.
Among his other tattoos are replicas of the work of artists he admires. One of them, the now-retired Dan Higgs, did the coffin on his hand. Alex says Higgs’s stylized American traditional work is “unique”, a style he greatly respects.
Alex refers to tattoos on people’s hands and face as “job stoppers.” This might hold true for other lines of work, but Alex says his decision to get them was “career motivated. You never trust a skinny chef,” he says.
He’s noticed a growing number of people getting tattoos, which he says is a “double edged sword.” On the one hand, it’s “good for business,” and he’s pleased to see a societal move towards the acceptance of tattoos. But he’s worried that people don’t give the decision sufficient consideration.
Operating the needle comes with responsibility and Alex says the pressure on tattoo artists is often overlooked. “We’re altering people’s bodies permanently,” he says.
Alex says he makes sure his customers have thought their decision through before he agrees to tattoo them. He says that he turns away more people than he tattoos.
Despite claiming that he got his tattoos “for fun” and that most of them “don’t mean anything,” some do hold significance. The cross on his temple denotes his commitment to “straight edge,” a no drink, drug or promiscuous sex lifestyle.
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