OHIO – A Norwalk tattoo artist and a man who is no stranger to the tattoo pen, have set what will likely be a new world record for the longest tattoo session.  Robin H.M. and Jeff Garton spent 48 hours and 26 minutes in the 546 Tattoo Studio in Norwalk as Robin created a large and complex tattoo design on Jeff’s thigh.  They started their challenge at 9:05 a.m. Friday and ended Sunday about 9:30 a.m.,  breaking the world’s record by 11 minutes.

Jill Garton, Jeff’s wife of 17 years says her husband and Robin managed to get through the process by sheer determination and lots of endorphins and adrenalin. “I only had to go out get more bananas and orange juice once.”  According to the Guinness rules, they were allowed to take occasional 2 minutes breaks, but could not sleep.

Robin, who has been a tattoo artist for the past 14 years originated the idea as a way to generate donations and raise awareness for the current and baffling cancer cluster in the nearby area of Clyde. A case that has affected scores of lives, including many children. “It just seems like there are more and more of them all the time, and something needs to be done.” says Robin who has been frustrated with the tragic medical mystery for years.  Meanwhile, Jeff Garton, says he was doing the event to raise awareness for a local rehab center in the Norwalk area.

When Robin and Jeff finished their session Sunday morning, Jill Garton says there were quite a few people packed into the tiny shop who took part in a big celebration. “It was a very emotional time.” She says Robin and Jeff were exhausted, but pleased they had been able to go the distance. Jill says she will now put together all the documentation needed to get their achievement recorded by the Guinness World Record folks.

Source : Toledo On The Move

DENMARK – Home to the world’s oldest parlor, Nyhavn is a hotbed of tattoo history.

As tourists stroll up and down Nyhavn snapping photos of the ships and the architecture, most walk past the distinct yellow storefront of Nyhavn 17 unaware that the building’s lower level houses the origins of a story full of drunken sailors, colorful characters, rough living, and even a tattooed monarch. To descend those steps is to visit the birthplace of tattooing in Denmark.

“This is where it all started,” said photographer and author Jon Nordstrøm when The Copenhagen Post met him outside of Nyhavn 17, home to Tattoo-Ole, the oldest functioning tattoo shop in the world.

Nordstrøm began researching the history of tattooing in Copenhagen a few years ago, collecting enough photographs, anecdotes and historical artifacts to put together the 300-page photo book ‘Dansk Tatovering/Danish Tattooing’, which he released in 2009.

Though tattoos can be traced backed some 5,000 years, the modern history of tattooing in Denmark began in the late 19th century, when sailors poured into Nyhavn sporting tattoos they had gathered on their journeys and were greeted by a few enterprising locals who had set up rudimentary stations that amounted to little more than a box to sit on, hand-held tools and some ink.

“The old cliche about tattoos and sailors is waterproof,” said Nordstrøm. “It was all inspired by sailors who would come from the States and other places. The sailors really started it.”

At the turn of the 20th century, Nyhavn was the only place in all of Denmark – indeed in all of Scandinavia – where those inclined could get tattooed. It was a distinction the area held for nearly a century.

“Denmark, and Nyhavn in particular, was the headquarters for tattooing in Scandinavia for nearly 100 years, from the 1890s to 1975,” said Nordstrøm. “Aside from a few ‘sailor shops’ that popped up in Sweden in the ’40s, where tattoos were done in a backroom, there was no tattooing in Sweden or Norway.”

The first to establish a ‘real’ tattoo shop in Nyhavn was Hans J Hansen – better known as Tusch-Hans, or Ink-Hans in English – who, inspired by getting his first tattoo before shipping off to sea as a 17-year-old sailor, taught himself how to tattoo on the drunks at his mother’s Copenhagen bar. Shortly thereafter, Ink Hans approached the owner of the basement bar at Nyhavn 17 and asked if he could tattoo there. Granted permission, he placed a hand-drawn cardboard sign in the window and set to work.

In 1902, one of his customers told Ink Hans of a tattoo he had received abroad using a machine. Ink Hans had the customer describe the machine in detail and then asked a local blacksmith to make him one. Ink Hans then began advertising himself as Denmark’s first professional tattoo artist. After a brief stint in the US, Ink Hans had many successful years in Nyhavn, in which he developed a particularly lucrative partnership with area prostitutes.

“He has a deal with the girls that when a sailor wants to pay to have his name tattooed on a girl, Hans pulls the needle back into the machine and gives the girl – by use of a small contraption -  a tattoo with the sailor’s name that can be washed off the next day,”  writes Nordstrøm in ‘Danish Tattooing’. “He often has, by the way, the exact same agreement with the sailor. Nobody knows and Hans gets his money.”

The style of tattoo offered by Ink Hans was strictly flash – pre-designed tattoos displayed on a wall for customers to choose from. This “point and pick” style of tattooing continued all the way up until the 1960s.

“Ninety-five percent of all tattoos were simply, ‘What do you want? That one? OK, sit down’ and then they were done in 45 minutes,” said Nordstrøm.

Through the early decades of the 1900s, tattoo artists spread throughout Nyhavn, sharing shop space with bars, tobacconists, barbers, and even firewood dealers. While colors and machines improved, there was little development in terms of the artwork. Flash designs remained largely the same. The other constant of the local tattoo scene was the steady flow of colorful characters who worked as tattooists in the district.

There was the duo of Ink Arne and Tattoo Holger, the latter of which developed such a taste for young girls that he became known as Pussy Holger. That some of the girls he fancied were too young landed the tattooist a prison stint that was allegedly cut short after he was castrated in the clink.

There was Niels Fischer the sailing tattooist, who gave tattoos out of his boat as he traveled from harbor to harbor across the country. There was also Tattoo John, later known as Bimbo Banger or simply Bimbo, whom Nordstrøm called “probably the most drunken tattoo artist to ever grace Nyhavn”.

In the late 1940s came Tattoo Jack, who became so well known for his tattoos – particularly his portraits of women – that the Swedes, who accounted for around half the customer base at the time, all asked for him by name. As a result, all the tattoo artists in the area were happy to tell any drunk Swede that came into their shop that they were, indeed, the famous Tattoo Jack. The real Jack probably didn’t mind, as he was too busy trying to have sex with prostitutes in the back room whenever he could escape the watchful eye of his wife Bodil.

Tattoo Jack later came to own the famous Nyhavn 17 location, but when facing a prison sentence on drug charges, he was forced to sell the shop to Tattoo Ole, who would come to be viewed as Denmark’s most famous tattoo artist ever.

Born Ole Hansen and raised an orphan, Tattoo Ole turned to tattooing after a brief sailing career. He quickly developed a reputation for his tattoos of sail ships. He also blended his own colors – his red was particularly famous – and assembled his own tattoo machines that are now highly sought-after collector’s items.

Tattoo Ole also became known for the work he did on a particular customer. In 1951, a LIFE magazine article featured a shirtless King Frederik IX – a former sailor himself – showing off his physique and his extensive collection of tattoos, which included the handiwork of Tattoo Ole. (See a short video of the King showing off his tattoos here)

With the king proudly displaying his ink to an international audience, tattooing in Denmark had hit the big time. The years ahead would see the number of people getting tattooed explode and the art form progress leaps and bounds. But as the local tattoo industry expanded beyond Nyhavn, it faced growing pains ahead.

Read part II of the history of tattooing in Denmark next week to find out how the emergence of new artists fundamentally changed the tattoo scene, and how tattooing expanded into the “really tough” Istedgade area.

Source : The Copenhagen Post

BUTTE, MT – An Uptown Butte tattoo artist is hoping to land a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records.

Bodily expressions’ offered free tattoos yesterday of shamrocks and stars. They’re goal was to help Carl Ankeny break the record for the most tattoos in an eight-hour period.

The current record is 314 tattoos.

Ankeny says he’s almost positive he beat the record, but won’t know for sure until a final count is made.

“If i made it, it’s a goal that i’ve achieved,” he said. “But i’m going go for it further. Over here in Butte, they have Evel Knievel days. I’m going do the same type of thing here and there.”

Source : NBC Montana

ARLINGTON, TX – For Jeremy Stroud, body piercings were usually brought on by a dare.

“I’ve been around the tattoo community, and a lot of my friends are in it,” Stroud said. “They’ll sit around and say, ‘Hey you want to do this?’ And I’ll get it pierced and pull it out.”

But that wasn’t the case for the piercings he got May 2 – this was for the record books. That day Stroud had 1,197 piercings done, enough to break a Guinness World Record.

The 18-gauge surgical needles inserted over about five hours at an Arlington tattoo shop — about 800 in his back, 300 in his right arm, 50 in his right leg and 20 or so in his left arm – left scars across his back, he said.

“They’re so close together that they leave a line. It kind of looks like I had stitches from my wrist all the way up to my shoulder,” he said.

‘It’s just therapeutic’

Stroud, a diesel mechanic for a large freight carrier, isn’t new to tattoos and piercings, known as body modification. He sees it as art, with five piercings on his face, several tattoos and gouged ears.

“A lot of people say I did it for this reason or this means something to me,” he said. “But not for me….  It’s just therapeutic.”

He said he got a “smiley face sunshine” on his leg because he was mad.

“I stay away from meaningful tattoos now,” Stroud said. “Now it’s more art. I just like being covered up in it.”

And he’s used to the stares that go along with being covered in tattoos.

“When most people get to know me they say, ‘You’re a totally different person than what you look like,’ ” he said. “Yes, it’s called stereotyping.”

Doing His Homework

Stroud had been planning the record-setting piercing session for eight months, at the urging of Tyson Turk, an Arlington body modification artist.

Last year, they began testing parts of Stroud’s body to see whether he could tolerate the pain. And in March, Turk did a test run of 50 piercings in the small of Stroud’s back.

“I did my homework,” Stroud said. “This isn’t just something you can go out and do; you’ve got to be prepared for it.”

In fact, making the record official required a witness, a photographer, notarized statements, two EMTs and months of paperwork.

Turk had experience in that area. He also did the piercings for the previous record holder, a Dallas man who received 900. He also plans to claim the record for the world’s fastest piercer.

But Turk’s coaching couldn’t prepare Stroud for all the pain.

As the session wore on, each piercing produced radiating pain that felt like an intense sunburn.

“After a while I guess the body just starts rejecting all the needles,” Stroud said. “It felt like my back was on fire and my arm was on fire. It was a totally different kind of pain. I just wanted those needles out of me.”

Stroud was hooked up to a heart monitor during the session.

“As soon as we got the needles out I was fine, but during I started to get really slow, and my pulse jumped up to 130.”

The original plan had been to do 2,000 piercings.

“I made it to 1,200 and my body was getting ready to shut down,” he said. “I had no idea what I was getting into.”

That’s one reason Stroud isn’t sure what he’ll do if someone breaks his record. The past record holder, Robert Jesus Rubio of Dallas, is already talking about it, Stroud said.

“There’s a reason it’s a record,” Stroud said. “He made it to 900 and his body had enough. And now that I’ve gone through it, I see what’s really happening during the process.”

Source : Star-Telegram