Recently had a tattoo or piercing (or both!) done at Magnum Tattooing in Grand Rapids, MI, but can’t remember where you put your Aftercare Instructions? Well, we’re always looking to make sure you know exactly how to care for your tattoo, so we’ve uploaded our care instructions to our website for your use!
Now, if you’ve lost your tattoo aftercare or body piercing aftercare pamphlet, you can just head over to www.magnumtattoo.com to check up on how to best care for your tattoo or piercing – all from your favorite purveyors of tattoos in Grand Rapids.
As part of our ongoing effort to keep our customers fully aware of the world of tattooing, we’ve recently added some new pages to the website for your reading pleasure – focussing on tattoo history and other tattoo information.
Under our page, you can find information on the history of Japanese tattoos, traditional tattoos, black and grey and more. With photo galleries to come (hey, we’re sitting on like 4 gigs of shop photos to sift through!), we hope it will be a comprehensive resource for those looking for information and history on tattooing styles. If there’s any other style of tattoo you’d like to see information on, just let us know through Facebook – and we’ll try to post more information when we can.
In addition, we’ve also posted some information on tattoo practices to avoid – such as the lure of cheap tattoos and home tattooing in general – as well as why to avoid them. Keeping you safe during your tattoo experience will always be a priority at Magnum, and we hope by reading through these pages, you’ll better understand why.
Our Other Tattoo Information page will also give you options for undoing a bad tattoo experience – all delivered by the talented Magnum staff. Whether you’re looking for cover up tattoos or tattoo removal, we can consult to find you the best solution.
So check out the new features when you get a chance, and be sure to let us know what you think!
Here over at Magnum, we reckoned it was high time we get fully on board with this “Facebook” thing of “Liking” or whatever it’s called. So, from now on, you can click the little thumbs up (located at the top and bottom of our website pages and blog posts) to show your appreciation of all things Magnum in separate installments.
Had a good tattoo by Jaime Morton, Jimmy Inker or Stacey Buck? Head to the Artists & Piercers section and like their page to show your support. (Note, a Facebook ‘Like’ does not replace a poor tip for your artwork experience!)
The Financial Times – of all frickin places – just published a story on how high fashion labels, such as Chanel and Jean Paul Gautier – have recently been using tattoo-esque designs and working with actual tattoo artists to create new fashion.
But why all of a sudden do these $7,000 handbag makers want to sport tattoo designs?
Short answer: Because they’re cool lookin’.
Long answer:
It’s no secret tattoos have been around for ages, usually gotten by those who wish to adorn their body with an interesting design, beautifully rendered portrait or some statement they hold dear. Unfortunately, for a long time, proud tattooed people were thought of as ‘dangerous’ element of society.
Well, society has long a quiet obsession with the counterculture, which includes tattoo art and the actual practice of tattooing. As more people who don’t look like they would kick your ass for looking them directly in the eye got tattoos, they became more acceptable to society as a whole.
So the stuffy, Cosby sweater-wearing, suburban dad eventually had to get over a tattoo-phobia once the teen he’d once gotten used to yelling at to turn down the Quiet Riot turned 18 and got one. Mom and Pops learn in sitcom fashion that tattoos don’t mean you’re a criminal, Junior (or Juniette) gets a kick-ass skull-and-crossbones, Rolling Stones lips or their favorite Twister Sister lyric, and culture takes one tiny step forward. But I digress.
“A little subversion, however it comes, is the reason why this look works,” Lauren Cochrane writes for the Financial Times. Fashion designers have long tried to stay ‘edgy’ – the reason why the photos of catwalk models’ clothes look like an art school just threw up on that poor woman! Adopting a tried-and-true counterculture art
form like tattooing for designs basically does the work for them.
And some of the designs aren’t half bad. Like that’s a pretty nice travel bag – it’s just a helluva ask for seven grand. If you’re dropping that kind of bread, wouldn’t you rather just have a personalized piece of permanent artwork you could carry around without worry about the weight of it?
That’s why – if these folks wanted to be subversive for real, they’d drop the dresses and get some ink on their flesh!
Magnum Tattooing and The Amulet is seeking fresh talent to add to our already amazing pool!
So If you:
Have a portfolio of which you can show examples of work you have done
Have been tattooing professionally for over five years
Understand where the pointy end goes and why
Do not have a drug or drinking problem
Do not have drama and/or baggage circling you like a buzzard
Do not do tattoo parties, work out of your house or learn tattooing in prison
Then you should email this information to us:
A web link to your work if you have one
Your phone number
Your work history in tattooing or piercing
General information about yourself (married/single, kids, etc.)
Why you want to work at Magnum Tattooing
All interested persons should respond in writing by emailing magnumtattoo@gmail.com or calling Jaime Morton at Magnum Tattooing studios to set up an appointment.
We will consider the top talent and and contact final candidates to schedule an interview. All successful applicants will contacted ahead of time regarding scheduling the interview.
A US Appeals court in California has agreed with tattoos being protected by the First Amendment in a landmark case between tattoo artists and the city of Hermosa Beach, near Los Angeles.
Originally, tattoo shop proprietor Johnny Anderson, who currently runs a shop called Yer Cheat’n Heart in Gardena, California, tried to open a new location in the beachfront community, only to be confronted with an anti-tattoo parlor law.
However, a panel of three ruled in favor of Anderson.
“A form of speech does not lose First Amendment protection based on the kind of surface it is applied to,” wrote Judge Jay Bybee in the decision.
The court said that “Tattooing is a process like writing words down or drawing a picture, except that it is performed on a person’s skin,” and should not be discriminated against.
The ruling was a big step in the acceptance of tattooing as an art form, as courts have generally upheld bans in local legislation. The court acknowledged tattooing was “one of the oldest forms of human expression” and “one of the world’s most universally practiced forms of artwork.”
Some expect the ruling to overturn other bans in the Los Angeles area, and to lead to more health inspections for tattoo shops. Michigan benefits from already having regular health inspections, with those operators who don’t meet sterilization requirement being denied licenses.
“California lacks statewide standards for sterilization and sanitation and standards for tattooists,” an LA Times editorial in favor of the ruling read. “This regulatory gap needs to be closed.”
Well, the Seattle Tattoo Expo over in – where else? – Seattle just wrapped up last weekend, and local TV station KIRO took a unique spin when covering the event.
While movies and TV shows seem to show ‘the kids’ getting tattooed, or considering getting some body art or piercings, the reporters did their homework and found that even more ‘older’ people (please don’t call us that) of the over-25 set were putting the needle to the skin.
Figures from a 2008 survey found that nearly one in four middle-aged men and women have at least one tattoo.
Interviewing tattoo enthusiasts at the event, reporter Alex Silverman talked to one Sue Falcone, who described her fixation with the artform.
She said she never thought she’d have a tattoo “until the day I got one.”
This monumentous occasion, she said, came at the age of 56.
“Now I have seven.”
Her experiences show that tattooing shouldn’t be thought of as some young, rebellious act, but rather something that requires personal reflection and consideration.
“Most of my tattoos have personal meaning for me,” Falcone told KIRO. “It’s just an extension of peoples’ personalities.”
The research from Harris also found that 84 percent of people who get tattooed never regret it.
Certainly, with a talented tattoo artist who listens to a customer’s needs and wants contributes to that greatly, and the rest probably just got a ‘great deal’ somewhere…
A new survey from the Center for Disease Control in British Columbia, Canada, has revealed that regulation of the tattoo industry goes a long way to battling infections, common from unregulated and untested tattoo artists.
In Michigan, regulations currently exist that required tattoo facilities to be inspected regularly, and those who do not pass the rigorous inspections are prohibited from tattooing.
The health organization interviewed a cross-section of people from all around the world – from the United States to Iran – for the study, and the findings suggest that greater regulation of tattoo shops is needed in some parts of the world.
Unsafe practices have led to tattooed people becoming up to three times more likely to contract Hep C, the research showed. Tattoo needles and tubes touch contact blood, and if they are not sterilized between use, this can lead to infections.
A quality tattoo shop will dispose of all needles that come into contact with the skin, sterilize tubes by autoclave between uses, and ensure that all surfaces in the tattooing area remain sterile for each customer.
Those seeking to get tattoo work should ensure their shop of choice adheres to strict sterilization procedures and discards all needles after use.
The manager of health protection for Vancouver Coastal Health, Angelo Kouris, said, “Operators look for sterilization of reused equipment, clean sanitary work surfaces and ensure that single-use disposable needles and disposable gloves are used.”
The State of Michigan requires that tattoo shops be licensed, which means regular inspections of premises, and banned from-home tattooing, where many untrained artists use unsafe practices, earlier this year.
The study was published in the International Journal of Infectious Diseases.
Some news from across the pond today as health advocates in the United Kingdom – the smart cookies that they are – have called to ban ‘do it yourself’ tattoo kits from being sold on the internet.
People often buy tattoo machines off the internet and practice in the home on themselves or others – something that was struck down as illegal in the State of Michigan earlier this year.
The Chartered Institute of Environmental Health told the British Broadcasting Corporation that the sales should be banned due to a lack of education on the parts of those buying the machines.
While a professionally tattooed, well cared for piece of skin art can be beautiful, the end results of a in-home tattoo, or something from a ‘tattoo party’, can be sloppy, slow to heal and, in a worst case scenario, infectious. Not to mention that – at least in Michigan – it’s against the law.
Some of our friends in Auld Scotland, such as Graham Robertson of the Royal Environmental Health Institute of Scotland, have heard multiple reports of legit tattoo artists needing to “repair” work done by untrained hands.
“We have a problem with how unlicensed tattooists source such kits. The more available those things are, the more common it is becoming,” he told the Scotland Herald. “We get reports when people have come in and told the licensed tattooists they have had a botched job. People don’t seem to realise the risk.”
He said that while infections aren’t reported regularly, they are still a big concern for the health industry.
“We have had two reports of infections attributable to tattooing or piercing in four years – luckily. It is more due to good fortune that it is relatively low,” he said.
Unsanitary conditions, such as those often found where people who don’t know tattooing procedures try to practice, can lead to all sorts of infections, and the transmission of blood borne pathogens can be higher.
Something that translates between Scotland, the USA and the entire world is the cleanliness of the tattoo environment. In the State of Michigan, tattoo shops must be approved by the Department of Community Health in order to achieve a legal status.
In an interview with the Herald, George Greenhill of Tribe studios in Edinburgh, Scotland, suggested: “People should only use a licensed operator.
“People should also check the cleanliness of a studio.”
One thing that many people worry about when getting a tattoo or body piercing is whether an employer or any future employer might not hire them them for having one. (Strangely, the opposite is true here at Magnum.)
However, according to John Challenger, who operates the job placement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. – and happens to have a wicked last name – says the threat of such discriminations is almost non-existent.
“Today, even in this tight job market, most companies are not going to view tattoos too harshly,” Challenger told the Central Valley Business Times. “One reason is that with everyone from soccer moms to MIT computer science graduates sporting tattoos, preconceptions about tattooed individuals are no longer valid.”
Tattoo advocates have long said that tattoos should not be considered during a hiring, and Challenger agrees.
“More importantly, companies have a vested interest in hiring the most qualified candidate,” he said.
“Two decades ago, showing off tattoos and body piercings would be a surefire way to get your resume placed in the ‘No Way!’ pile,” he said, before admitting that “Times have changed.”
In the past twenty years, the popularity and acceptance in society of tattoos has skyrocketed, with recent research indicating that almost two in five people aged 18 to 29 has some skin art.
Additionally, those doing the hiring – for the sake of our argument aged 30 to 45 – aren’t strangers to tattoos and piercings either, with more than three of every ten hiding some ink underneath the dress shirt and tie.
The research, conducted by the Pew Center, who specialize in – what else? – doing research also found that 30 percent of 18 to 29 year olds (who they call “Millennials” … pretty badass, eh?) have their body art visible at all times.
And while Challenger said we might never see visible tattoos on the clergy – no, seriously he said that – he recommended that jobseekers scope out employers as much as they are being scrutinized.
“As a job seeker, you have to judge whether the employer you are interviewing with is going to be accepting of your body art,” he said.
Recently had a tattoo or piercing (or both!) done at Magnum Tattooing in Grand Rapids, MI, but can’t remember where you put your Aftercare Instructions? Well, we’re always looking to make sure you know exactly how to care for your tattoo, so we’ve uploaded our care instructions to our website for your use!
