Tattoola Magazine

Loverdose
Tattoo Edition
The New Womens Fragrance

F A N

Joey Hamilton
Does this guy look familiar? If you’ve
been to any tattoo convention in the past
five years you have had an 87 percent
chance of seeing Stéfano Alcántara. The
realism wizard spends as much time in
folding chairs as a soccer mom because
he likes to soak up different tattoo art
scenes. Originally from Peru, he now
gets his mail delivered to New York City,
where he takes clients at Paul Booth’s
Last Rites Tattoo Theater. Alcántara’s
pieces are spellbinding—he’s simply
one of the best realism tattoo artists
in the world. One of his life goals is to
advance tattooing to a place where the
medium gets its rightful respect in the
art community. When the 20-plus-year
veteran first tried breaking into tattooing,
he wasn’t welcomed in by the old
guard, but in the past two decades he’s
seen a change in the culture and thinks
that tattooers are set to unite and propel
the form forward. “FOR ONCE I THINK
ALL TATTOO ARTISTS ARE ON THE
SAME PATH,” he says. “We are all in the
same mission: to bring tattoos to where
they have never been and become artists
validated by our counterparts in fine
art.” I was in art school in Peru and I
saw the tattoos in American magazines
and I knew that is what I wanted to do.
I ordered some equipment online and
tried to teach myself. Luckily in art school
I had those free-spirited, art-loving
friends who were willing to let me try on
them. This was over 20 years ago when
there wasn’t much tattooing in Peru and
tattooing in the States was really closed
off to people not really on the inside. I
would travel to the U.S. and try to get
people to show me how to tattoo, but the
trade was really kept a secret, especially
to some Peruvian kid like myself. So I
would visit the United States, and go to
conventions or get tattooed by the guys
that I thought had really good work.
Back in Lima when they would tattoo me
I would be watching the whole time and
asking them all these questions. Because
I couldn’t find a place to pay my dues, I
paid for sessions. When you try to hang
out at a shop it takes months for tattooers
to talk to you seriously, but when they
are tattooing you, you have their attention.
I set up a guest spot with the shop
manager through MySpace—so you
can guess around when that would have
been—and my first day there I met Paul,
and we have been friends ever since.
Article by: John ferucciatin

Humans have marked their bodies with tattoos for thousands
of years. These permanent designs—sometimes
plain, sometimes elaborate, always personal—have served
as amulets, status symbols, declarations of love, signs of
religious beliefs, adornments and even forms of punishment.
Joann Fletcher, research fellow in the department
of archaeology at the University of York in Britain, describes
the history of tattoos and their cultural significance
to people around the world, from the famous
“ Iceman,” a 5,200-year-old frozen mummy, to today’s
Maori
In terms of tattoos on actual bodies, the earliest known
examples were for a long time Egyptian and were present
on several female mummies dated to c. 2000 B.C.
But following the more recent discovery of the Iceman
from the area of the Italian-Austrian border in 1991 and
his tattoo patterns, this date has been pushed back a further
thousand years when he was carbon-dated at around
5,200 years old.
Following discussions with my colleague Professor Don
Brothwell of the University of York, one of the specialists
who examined him, the distribution of the tattooed dots
and small crosses on his lower spine and right knee and
ankle joints correspond to areas of strain-induced degeneration,
with the suggestion that they may have been
applied to alleviate joint pain and were therefore essentially
therapeutic. This would also explain their somewhat
‘random’ distribution in areas of the body which would
not have been that easy to display had they been applied
as a form of status marker.
There’s certainly evidence that women had tattoos on
their bodies and limbs from figurines c. 4000-3500 B.C. to
occasional female figures represented in tomb scenes c.
1200 B.C.

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does your tatt

oo define who
you are
The good thing is you are inkless. Being
confused and getting a tattoo is never a good
idea. You should always strive for a permanent
marking that is significant and personal to you.
Many tattoos tell stories of loved ones and lost,
whereas others share your hobbies and interests
with the world and serve as a blueprint as
to who you really are.
While most any tattoo artist is capable of
making a design recommendation, without any
sort of direction these same artists, if they are
reputable, will hopefully refuse the work until
you’ve done your own legwork as to what is
distinctive and worth wearing for a lifetime.
It can be difficult to define yourself and your
own style. Much like fashion, people struggle
for years trying trends and different looks and
some eventually become masters of their own
identity, and others just sort of keep going on
and on from one style to the next until they
eventually fall into a comfort zone, whether or
not it suits them.
Because tattoos can become very addictive,
this may mean you end up with way more tattoos
than you’d really like in hopes to find that
one true piece of artwork that helps define
you.My first advice is to not look at your hobbies
or interests, rather study the different
types of tattoo styles and get to know the
differences between them. You may find over
careful evaluation that you really love the
organic flow of a Japanese tattoo. You don’t
have to be Japanese to wear this particular
style, so forgo that concern altogether should
it exist. You may also discover you really like
the colorful and strong style of old school traditional
tattoos. Whether that be a ship or a
panther, this style is timeless and making a big
comeback, becoming quite fashionable with
the younger generation.
You should also make effort to consider where
you’ll place your first tattoo. Bear in mind you’ll
likely hope to see it, especially if it’s your first.
Do you plan on covering up? If so you’ll want
it somewhere you can do just that. These details
may seem the least important at first, but
they’ll really help direct you to the perfect
tattoo that helps define you. Seeing that your
tattoo will become a prominent part of your
appearance, deciding the style and placement
of your tattoo will eliminate many of the tattoo
styles along the way.
Last but not least, Color tattoos have their own
beauty, but colors will obviously fade over
time. Some people just go for black and grey
and rely on artist shading to create contrast
and depth to their design and this creates an
entirely different look. With that in mind, you
will also begin to narrow your focus. You may
opt for a biomechanical tattoo or even a skull.
I suggest you get to know what you like first
by looking over all the styles and then start to
pinpoint all of these considerations. It can be
overwhelming at first, but it’s a huge decision.
The best advice to most things in life is that if
you don’t know what to do, don’t do anything.