![]() After every convention, calls at the clinic increase significantly, he said.ĭuring the convention the hum of tattoo needles is constant as people get old tattoos freshened or new ones added at booths such as Tattoo Mania, Psycho City and Freakshow Tattoo, where Mike Ferguson, 26, was working on John Zimmerman's already heavily tattooed right arm. He said a lot of people want homemade tattoos that they regret removed or lightened so professional ones can be inked in their place. ''This is our third year here, and we just want to give people an alternative.'' His brother, who is a doctor, performs the procedure at a clinic in West Los Angeles. Not far from the Greenwood sisters' booth, 1 of 107 at the convention, Victor Popkow was showing a videotape of the latest laser technique for removing tattoos. ''This is how we're going to send ourselves to college,'' La-c said. They began tattooing at 13 because their family owned a parlor. Two of the youngest artists at the convention were 17-year-old twin sisters La-c and Amber Greenwood of Tyler, Tex. ''Are you ready for this?'' he asked, pulling off his shirt and turning his back to reveal a huge tattoo of Jesus, two dozen past presidents of the Mormon Church and himself, looking like Santa Claus in a baseball cap. Armstrong hoisted himself up out of his chair. ''The whole convention stopped for 30 minutes while Jack Armstrong got skulls in his ears.''Īfter telling that story, Mr. Armstrong, who gets around in a motorized chair, a cane across his lap. Armstrong's ears, just above his hearing aids. Four years ago, two renowned tattoo artists at a convention in Memphis each inked a skull in one of Mr. Armstrong lives in Las Vegas, Nev., and does not do much tattooing anymore. ''I used to use the same needle on 50 people. ''In the old days, you could go into a toilet and tattoo,'' he said. At 16, he settled in Portland, Ore., and opened a parlor, Jack's House of Tattoos. ![]() He got a lot of business outside of bars around closing time. He did it himself and ''got a beating I can still feel.'' When he was 9, after stealing ink and needles from his mother, he set out on his own, crisscrossing the country by bicycle, pulling a little red wagon and inking tattoos for a nickel. Armstrong received his first tattoo when he was 7. ''She was tattooing a sailor who was getting his whole body done when right in the middle she said, 'Well Gus, I'm going to have to take a break.' She went into the room in the back, birthed me and then got up and finished the tattoo.'' Armstrong was born in Seattle in the back of his mother's tattoo parlor. ''I've been doing it longer than anyone in the history of tattooing,'' he said. Armstrong's name is spoken with respect and awe. One man who never has to pay is Jack Armstrong, a baldheaded white-bearded legend who has been giving and receiving tattoos for 70 of his 79 years.
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