Tattooed Moms

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – Ladies and gentlemen, step right up. Be the first in your neighborhood to see the Tattooed Lady. She twirls. She dances. She bows to her audience, showing off her exotic and intricate body art.

Where, you ask, can you find such a wonder? At the local playground, on a sunny afternoon … with her 2-year-old daughter.

This Tattooed Lady is a mom, and she’s not alone. On this playground on this afternoon, she’s in the majority. Moms and dads with illustrated ankles, necks and arms push swings, chase toddlers and kiss boo-boos.

On playgrounds throughout the country – and at PTA meetings, family reunions and church services, and even in the workplace – tattooed women and men are showing their body art without shame or fear of discrimination.

A recent Harris Poll found that 16 percent of adults have at least one tattoo. Among Americans ages 25 to 29 – a prime childbearing age – the number jumps to 36 percent.

“People are a lot more accepting about tattoos than in the past,” said West Side Tattoos co-owner Aaron Moore. “They are starting to understand that we aren’t shady individuals or druggies. A lot of us have families. We wear tattoos as part of our identity, as a way to show art.”

The art of tattooing goes back thousands of years. Ancient cultures marked their bodies in rituals and used the artwork to show status, accomplishments or provide protection from evil.

In the United States, generations of people have been tattooed, but for decades the ink-on-skin trend was embraced mostly by a counterculture that included rough-hewn sailors and bikers, hardened criminals, and the iconic Tattooed Lady in the carnival sideshow.

They were proud of their status as outcasts, and they wore their tattoos – entwined snakes, hearts labeled “Mom” and American flags – like badges of honor.

A Time magazine article in 1944 reported that “a tattooed man is one-and-a-half times as likely to be rejected by the U.S. armed forces as an unillustrated man. He is one-and-a-half times as likely to be a psychiatric rejection.”

The journey from psycho to cool would take place during the next 25 years.

Fast-forward to another Time article that told readers in 1970 that tattoos were “enjoying a renaissance” and had “become the vogue of the counterculture.”

At the center of that renaissance was Lyle Tuttle, 75, a San Francisco-area tattoo artist who began his career in 1949. Tuttle is revered in the tattoo world, but he’s probably best known for decorating blues singer Janis Joplin’s body with a wristlet and a small heart on her left breast.

Amy Krakow believes that was the beginning of the current tattoo revolution.

“I wanted to get a tattoo in 1970, right after I saw that Janis Joplin had a tattoo,” said New Yorker Krakow, president of Propaganda Marketing Communications and the author of “The Total Tattoo Book.”

“I wanted to be Janis Joplin. Having a tattoo like her was cool and hip and anti-establishment,” said Krakow, who even went to Tuttle’s studio to get a tattoo but “stood in the shop and said ‘I can’t do this’ and walked out.”

In the early ‘80s, Krakow presented the first New York Tattoo Festival. That event, on Coney Island, was instantly popular and still takes place every year.

It was the beginning of a new kind of body art.

“Tattoo artists were suddenly taking their art to a whole new level,” Krakow said. “They were pushing the envelope and doing a brilliant job. The images were extraordinary … things nobody would have dreamed were possible.”

Krakow became known for the festival, but still, she didn’t have a single tattoo on her body. “It took me until 1993, when I had done the tattoo festival for 10 years, to finally get one.”

That reluctance isn’t uncommon.

“Getting a tattoo is about acceptance,” she said. “You have to accept it as a part of your body that will be there forever, and you have to be ready to accept that some people won’t like it.”

Veteran tattoo artist Tuttle calls tattoos “exterior designs for interior thoughts.”

West Side Tattoos’s Moore has many tattoos, including one that honors his 4-year-old daughter, Madison.

Moore says he has been interested in tattooing since he was a child. “On my 18th birthday, I got my first one. My dad kicked me out of the house.”

But things change. Now, Moore says, his dad has tattoos.

Moore said children often ask him about the tattoos visible on his ear and his arms. “I usually tell them I’m like a human coloring book.”

That might not be too far off. Moore says the tattoo industry changed dramatically as tattooing became more creative. The best shops feature original art, and tattoo artists are beginning to specialize – in black and white art, portraiture or brightly colored paintings that were first developed in Japan. That detail, that uniqueness “appeals to a lot of people who might not have wanted a tattoo before,” Moore said.

And that could include any segment of society – bankers, teachers, lawyers, coaches, moms and dads.

But how does this growing acceptance affect the business world? Can an illustrated 21-year-old college graduate get a job?

A press release issued by Challenger, Gray & Christmas, a global outplacement firm, says yes.

“Some employers are already having trouble finding skilled workers – they are not going to let some body art get in the way of hiring the best qualified candidate,” said John Challenger. “Plus, a growing number of employers recognize the benefits of diversity in all its forms and are embracing the unique attributes that make people stand out from the crowd.”

Employers are more accepting of body art, but what about the toughest critics – children whose parents are tattooed?

That childish curiosity was the impetus behind a new children’s book that explores the topic of tattoo tolerance.

“Mommy Has A Tattoo,” is Phil Padwe’s first book. A graphic designer and art director in New York City, Padwe was inspired to write a book for children on a subject that hadn’t been approached at that level before.

Illustrated in a bright, cartoony style, “Mommy Has A Tattoo” tells the story of James, who finds out from his big sister that “Mommy Has a TATTOO.” “James shut his eyes and pictured his Mommy. … She was the prettiest Mommy in the whole world … but he couldn’t remember any tattoo!” James is worried – is his mommy really like the scary neighbor man with tattoos on his arms and neck?

Padwe chronicles James’ journey of discovery as he learns that tattooed people aren’t scary after all.

The current generation is no different, Padwe believes. “And I think judgment of tattooed people is going to cease.”

The artform “is crossing all boundaries – from 18-year-old girls to 70-year-old men,” Padwe said, and he says he will continue to help break down the barriers.

Due out for Father’s Day, 2007: “Daddy Has A Tattoo.”