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

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). Natan Lin, owner of Darkwave and Lightwave, 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 MitchellThese 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

Russell Mitchell, tattooed-bad-boy bike builder of Exile Cycles (and formerly of “Build or Bust” on Speed TV) wants us to help him get back on television.

From the Exile website:

“As many of you may know I love doing the bike shows and it seems I’m at a different one in a different State every weekend. I get so many people asking me when I’m shooting the next Build or Bust series and sadly I don’t know whether we will because we don’t actually have control over that. That set me thinking recently as we have so many good ideas for our own TV show. So here’s where you guys can help me out. I’m pitching some great new ideas to the networks right now and would really appreciate the Exile fans out there helping me out. Your comments about how you wanna see the Exile crew back on TV causing trouble would show the massive support we receive from you all. So why don’t you write a quick e mail to say just that and send it to media@exilecycles.com and with any luck you’ll see me and the crew back on TV, hopefully with our own show.
Cheers.
Russ”

It definitely seems that motorcycle programming has been phased out to almost extinction and the new trend is tattoo shows like LA Ink, Miami Ink and Tattoo Wars. With Jesse James without a show and Billy Lane trying to dig out of heaps of legal problems, Russell does seem like the next in the natural selection.

left to right: Russell Mitchell (the man himself), Mad Max (one of his creations) and one of the times I met Russell at the 2005 Myrtle Beach spring rally.

I have been a busy, busy girl doing all sorts of fun stuff!

Thursday night I got all dolled up and attended the kick-off party for the Boston Tattoo Convention. We schmoozed with lots of tattooed people, got tipsy from drinking Dewars, looked at art work, played Guitar Hero and oogled strippers (because nothing classes up a formal party than strippers!) all night long.

Left to right: me in the car on the way there, the BTC logo and the Dewars bar

Left to right: some of the art on display, the fabulous Miss Jessica Lee & Mr. Forrest Frazier, crazy moustache

playing photographer, tattoos!

The evening’s entertainment, Jess, Natan & me and my fabulous outfit

Special thanks to Natan for the invite!

On Friday I barely made it through a harrowing day of work and promptly came home to prepare for what I was looking forward to all week and the topic of my next post: Saturday’s trip down to Cape Cod!