Designing Women: Tattoo Entrepreneur Sketches New Image For Ancient Artistry
FrederickNewSpost.com:
Why on earth would anybody take a perfectly good stretch of skin and cover it with a dragon, or a battleship or a Maori tribal symbol?
‘Because this is something nobody will be able to take from me, man,’ flared a truculent youth to a passing busybody in a San Diego tattoo parlor back in 1979. The haunting answer stuck like a loved one’s rebuke, and resurfaced – as the predicate question – 27 years later at the woman-owned, all-women-staffed, 4-year-old Skin Deep In Ink body art studio at 99 S. McCain Drive, just off U.S. 40’s Golden Mile.
The studio’s owner, Bobbi Dearstine, a jovial ‘forty-something’ and 10-year resident of Frederick, is chatting easily with grimacing, repeat customer Patty Collins while inking something onto Ms. Collins‘ lower back amidst a setting that looks and feels more like a small manicurist’s salon than a traditional tattoo/piercing parlor.
Ms. Collins‘ son, Justin, 17 – in an adjacent, temporarily unpartitioned area – is also getting tattooed, adding several ankle stars to his collection of 12 other designs; while Ms. Collins‘ younger son, Adam (Ms. Dearstine won’t tattoo anybody under 16), and Justin’s girlfriend watch with mixed emotions from the wings. Everybody is gabbing easily, and a television is on.
‘I just like the art,’ Justin responds to the dredged up question, but admits there is also a bit of macho exhibitionism, as well, to a tattoo’s appeal. ‘For me, it’s about sex appeal,’ clarifies Ms. Collins candidly, who, it is learned, is having the ‘tribal’ insignia on her back gilded with a floral design to make it look more feminine, sexier.
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