For many reasons, more people are answering the call of the tattoo

01:00 AM EDT on Wednesday, September 28, 2005

BY ALISON APROBERTS
Sacramento Bee

SACRAMENTO -- Getting a tattoo can be a response to the most superficial of impulses.

Your friends got them and they looked cool. It was the best way you could think of to bug your parents. You were drunk and it seemed like fun.

But getting a tattoo also can go much deeper than the skin. It can be a spiritual act, says John Rush, a professor of anthropology, a naturopathic doctor and the author of a new book, Spiritual Tattoo: A Cultural History of Tattooing, Piercing, Scarification, Branding and Implants (published by the Frog Ltd. imprint of North Atlantic Books, $17.95, 200 pages).

"In a secular world, we need to invent religious experiences," Rush says as he lies down for more of the enlightenment he has found -- and studied -- at the tattoo needle's tip.

Looking remarkably relaxed and maintaining an academic manner that fits in with his day job as a professor of anthropology at Sierra College, Rush settles in for a session of inking at the steady hand of Kim Forrest, a tattoo artist at the Wild Bill Tattoo studio in Roseville.

Rush says tattooing has become a 21st century American ritual marking significant beginnings and endings in our lives.

"We don't have rites of passage here in this country; maybe getting your driver's license or getting to drink in a bar, but it's not the same," Rush says. "For most of the young people who go out and get these tattoos, it has a lot of meaning to them."

Whatever the reasons, more people are answering the call of the tattoo.

"Tattoos used to mean you were a biker, a criminal or a sailor," says Forrest, 36, who has been inking others for 13 years. "Now, we do a lot of housewives."

ALTHOUGH THE taboo has not been entirely erased from the tattoo, the body art is coloring way outside the old lines, leaving its marks on physicians, firefighters, cops, stay-at-home moms, attorneys and conservative Christians. Tats seem to be required for professional athletes.

A Harris Poll in 2003 found one in six American adults has at least one tattoo. For those ages 25 to 34, the proportion is nearly one in three. A survey of college undergraduates in 2001 found 23 percent of the students were tattooed, with rates holding steady across gender and ethnic lines.

The inking industry is moving up in the world. Tattoo studios have moved from sketchy neighborhoods to respectable addresses and even center stage on two new reality TV shows: Miami Ink on TLC and Inked on A&E. (Both premiered in July.)

The stories behind every tattoo are as varied and personal as the countless designs.

While Rush is being inked and looking as though he's ready for a nap, Chad Kolpacoff is lying, looking wide-eyed and a little nervous, on another table in the studio. But then Kolpacoff, who is 25 and lives in Elk Grove, is a "blank," as a tattoo virgin is sometimes called. He's getting an upper armband of a Maltese cross, fire and smoke, signifying his identity as a firefighter.

"It's just personal," he says. "And my wife likes the idea."

He sits up, looking a little shaky and pale, but smiling. "It's awesome," he says, looking in a mirror.

KOLPACOFF SAYS he has wanted a tattoo since he was a teenager, but he's glad he waited.

"I would have gotten something stupid like my girlfriend's name," he says.

Rush took an even longer and more scholarly route to his first tattoo, in his 50s (he's 61 now). He says he chose his first design carefully, after taking an inventory of the fears and unrealized desires he wished to bring to the surface of his skin.

"I chose Egyptian myths and images because there is something there for every occasion," he says.

This saves him from the prime hazard of a trendy tattoo: The design can serve as an indelible date-stamp, marking the era of your tattooing days. Got a little dolphin or a rose on your hip? That's so '80s. Upper armband in tribal design? That's very late '90s or early 21st century. Twin Towers? You did the post-9/11 thing. Kanji characters? That's pretty current. One of the latest trends is retro sailor styles, from pinup girls to hearts.

FORREST SPENDS a lot of her time consulting on designs and draws the line on some. She won't do hateful words or images, nor will she break the law by tattooing anyone under 18. (Sorry, kids; parental permission doesn't make it any less of a misdemeanor.)

Some of Forrest's clients take their tattoos lightly and even let a little humor get under their skin. There are bar-code designs, always handy in a consumer society. One man had "Place Tag Here" etched on his toe. Another had a lawn mower inked onto his chest so that he could shave a path through his hairs for a sort of 3-D yardwork cartoon.

For some, tattooing is a way of transforming and ultimately coping with a painful past history, a death or some other traumatic event.

"You remember all the times you were angry and you put them on your body as beautiful art," Rush says. The art serves as a retelling of past injury that mutes its hurtfulness, because, as Rush puts it, "two versions of a story can't both be true."