Bikers and tattoos go together like peanut butter and jelly. The two cultures are intertwined in a never ending love affair. Tattoos became utilized by biker gangs to signify their allegiance to specific gangs and to convey an image of rebellion that would set them apart from the rest of society.
“The Tattoo Artist” by Norman Rockwell, Saturday Evening Post, March 4, 1944
A brief history of post WWII motorcycles & tattoos
After World War II tattoos became further stigmatized by their associations with bikers and juvenile delinquents. Tattooing had very little respect in the American culture. In 1961 there was an outbreak of hepatitis, which caused an even bigger backlash against tattoos and sent the tattoo world into a tailspin.
tattoo flash by Sailor Jerry
Here in Massachusetts, there was a ban on tattooing in effect since 1967, until local underground artists lobbied to legalize it in the late 90′s, partly because of health and safety reasons. Tattooing was finally legalized in this state in 2001 and shops began to spring up everywhere–the first legal shops being Fat Ram’s Pumpkin Tattoo and Darkwave Tattoos (which then spawned Lightwave Tattoo Studio and Witch City Ink). Natan Lin, owner of Darkwave, Lightwave and Witch City Ink, was a large supporter of legalizing tattooing in MA and has been running the wildly successful annual Boston Tattoo Convention ever since.
Here are three of my favorite, tattooed bike-builders (can you guess why?) Billy Lane, Jesse James and Russell Mitchell
Current perception of tattoos in the biking culture
These days bikers use tattoos as a means of expression. Common designs for biker tattoos contain skulls, spiderwebs, pin-up girls, flames, eagles, scorpions and of course the die-hard Harley-Davidson logo.
photos by Forrest Frazier (see more motorcycle pics at ffphoto.com)
Tattoos today are more acceptable and popular than ever before. And it’s getting even more mainstream with TLC hitching its programming trailer to tattoo shows like LA Ink, Miami Ink, and London Ink. Acceptability and high demand for the best artwork have put some artists on the map. Certainly that can partly be contributed to the quality of inks and needles that just weren’t around forty or fifty years ago. People now revel in the highly artistic nature of tattoos and artists are now truly fine artists.
Kat Von D from TLC’s La INK