Andy Steiner

Minneapolis Star Tribune
May 22nd, 2005

The plumber you might suspect, but the shy dry cleaner, the grad student, the payroll specialist? They’re among the many who have forsaken the demure ornamentation of an ankle or a pectoral. Here are five people who have willingly paid up to $150 an hour to have a tattoo specialist create a piece of art in places that few other people will see. Does it hurt? Yes. Is it worth it? They think so. Here are their stories:

Peggy Larson
Hometown: St. Louis Park
Age: 34
Occupation: Accountant, graduate student

There’s no question that getting a tattoo hurts.

“It’s like being the cloth under the sewing machine,” said Peggy Larson, who two years ago spent 17½ hours having two wild horses tattooed across her back. “Sometimes it feels like ice picks being driven into your flesh.”

Larson has been intrigued by tattoos ever since she was a self-described “headbanger” in junior high. People who would ink designs on their skin exuded an aura of daring bravery, she thought. But when she made the appointment for her first tattoo, Larson felt anything but brave.

“When it came down to getting started, I was afraid,” she said. “When I saw the first drawings of my design, it was much larger than I expected.” The custom tattoo uses horses, white and black, to represent the good and evil residing in each person’s soul.

“I didn’t know what I was in for,” she said. “I thought I had a high pain tolerance, but I could only take two hours at a time before I had to stop.” The first day was the worst. When Larson’s tattooist outlined the horses, the pain, she recalled, “was an 8½ on a scale of 1 to 10.”

Larson said she loves her tattoo because of what the experience taught her about herself.

“Now I have a real sense of pride in my inner strength and a realistic acceptance of my limitations,” she said. “After a few months, having the work done got to be an event that I looked forward to. I’d always feel energetic afterwards. It was like going to a spa, except the whole time I was in pain.”

Ryan Bruce
Hometown: Blaine
Age: 30
Occupation: Plumber’s apprentice

Ryan Bruce looks like a tough guy. His back, one of his calves and both of his arms, from the top of his biceps halfway down to his hands are covered with bold tattoos.

Look closer, and you’ll see that most of Bruce’s skin art incorporates letters. They’re the initials of the people he loves — or has loved — more than anything in the world.

“On my shoulder, I have a star that’s been made to look like a rock,” Bruce said. “My wife’s nickname is Rocky, and I have her initials there. I have a band on one of my forearms that has my older daughter’s initials in it, and I’m getting another one made for my new baby daughter. I got the tattoo on my leg with a friend. Later, he committed suicide and I added his initials.”

Koré Grate, owner of Tatus By Koré at 611 W. Lake St. in Minneapolis, designed most of Bruce’s tattoos. For more than 20 years, she’s been creating what she calls “soul-surfacing skin designs,” custom work that she sees as part of a transforming spiritual ritual.

“I don’t see a person I work on as a canvas,” Grate explained. “I see tattooing as finding something that exists inside a person and bringing it to the outside.”

Bruce said he didn’t set out to mark his body with the names of his loved ones, but over the years, the theme began to take shape.

“When I started getting them done like that, it felt right, like they were supposed to be there,” he said. Now he feels so comfortable in his tattoos that he says “I won’t stop until I run out of room.”

Michelle and Barry Kennedy
Hometown: Big Lake, Minn.
Ages: Michelle 33, Barry 35
Occupations: Payroll specialist, Staffing coordinator

Sometimes it seems like Michelle and Barry Kennedy have known each other forever. They met at a Boy Scout family camp when he was 16 and she was 14. They became friends that day, and eventually began dating. Ten years ago, they married and bought a house.

For them, tattoos were a way to stave off the predictability of “settling down.” Barry chose a wizard tattoo for his left biceps, and soon after, Michelle had a two-headed bird inked above one of her breasts.

“I was always the straight and narrow one,” Michelle said. “Barry was the rebel. But once he started doing it, I wanted to get one, too. Now we’re both pretty much addicted.”

From the first, they knew they wanted someday to splurge on extensive, colorful custom designs like those featured in tattoo magazines. Eventually, they agreed to take turns getting tattooed — so they only had to budget for one at a time.

Barry was first, getting his left arm — from wrist to shoulder blade — encircled by a fire-breathing dragon. The piece took 59 hours to complete and cost $7,500.

Then it was Michelle’s turn. For her canvas, she selected her left leg, from her knee all the way up to her lower back. “I was just so taken by Barry’s sleeve,” she said. “I knew I wanted a big, bold piece of art.” What she got was a lush, green tropical scene featuring a nubile fairy riding on a cartoonish frog. Michelle’s piece took 40 hours. It set her back $5,500.

The tattoos are a financial commitment the Kennedys are happy to make. They have good-paying jobs and no children. They love the way the art has changed the way they think about their bodies, and they feel the tattoos are a good investment.

“Once I had a boss who looked at my tattoos and said to me, ‘Obviously, I’m paying you way too much,’ ” Barry recalled. “I said, ‘You have a brand new Jeep Grand Cherokee out front. I didn’t pay nearly as much for my tattoo as you paid for your Jeep, but I’ll have my tattoo for the rest of my life. I’ll take it with me when I die.’ ”

Reeta Schmitt
Hometown: Robbinsdale
Age: 55
Occupation: Dry Cleaner

The tattoo that stretches from the nape of Reeta Schmitt’s neck to her left buttock cost eight months of her time and $4,000. Although hardly anyone ever sees the intricate depiction of a lion bursting from a leafy jungle, she tingles with pride when given the chance to explain why she endured 33 hours of searing pain.

“A person gets caught up in being a mother, being a wife, working at a job,” Schmitt said. “Suddenly, it’s 10 years later and you say, ‘Who am I? What happened to Reeta?’ That’s why I got this tattoo in the first place. I wanted to create something that shows what’s inside.” She paused and put her hand over her heart, and then to her head. “I wanted to remember what was inside here.”

Schmitt, who describes herself as a “free spirit living in a quiet, shy shell,” got her first tattoo 22 years ago — a delicate, colorful bird just under her left collarbone. She also has a tribal-style armband encircling her left arm.

For years she thought about getting a big signature tattoo, one that would illustrate her strong spirit, but she waited until after she and her second husband split up.

“He never wanted me to get it,” she said. Not long after the tattoo was completed, the two reunited. “Now he jokes that I divorced him just so I could get the tattoo done.”

When Schmitt first met with Dan Dittmer of Electric Dragonland Tattoo Studio in Hopkins, she outlined the elements she wanted in her tattoo. She also told him about her tough childhood, her abusive mother, her five children, her two rocky marriages. A couple of weeks later Dittmer had a design to show her.

At first, Schmitt was disturbed by it: “I knew I didn’t want any fluffy stuff, but I was frightened by how fierce it was.” After some consideration, she decided to accept the tattoo exactly as he had drawn it. “Saying yes was my free spirit coming out,” she said.

The pain was part of the process, too.

“I wanted to go through the pain outside to take away the pain that’s inside,” she said, “to release it and make it disappear forever.”