| Getting the needle |
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Anna Britten watches Bath’s very own celebrity tattooist at work. A Thursday morning in Bath and Montana Studios is busy. All three tattoo artists are decorating customers as late-summer sun floods through the shop, catching on the Native American artefacts hanging on the walls, and the needles buzz gently like hornets. In the background, Stevie Wonder explains why he just called. “Is it always this busy?” I murmur to owner Sara Hopson. I don’t want to be disrespectful but I just don’t think of tattoo parlours, especially in a town like this, doing a roaring trade. “We do around 10 tattoos a day,” she replies. Quick calculation: three tattoo parlours in Bath and another half a dozen in Bristol – this means something like 90 of us round here are getting a tatt every day. Turns out tattooing is undergoing a boom. Once the preserve of criminals, bikers, soldiers and sailors, nowadays – according to one survey this summer – a fifth of all British adults have now been inked. Even Sam Cam has bolstered her street cred by ’fessing up to one (though this could, like the Tricky friendship, be delusional). A decade ago, there were 300 tattoo parlours in Britain; now the estimate is 1,500-plus. Sara opened Montana Studios a year ago, having decamped from a Bristol studio. “We’re not your bog-standard tattoo parlour,” she says. “They can often be intimidating, full of big, heavily tattooed blokes, with no reception area. We cater for people on the street – we’re more chilled out, and we have very high standards when it comes to hygiene. All sorts of people come in.” A recent trend is for memorial tattoos. One customer has just had a tribute to her dead daughter indelibly marked on her arm. One of Montana Studio’s clients, a soldier, was blown up in Afghanistan this year – his entire family have just been in for memorial tattoos. Members of his squadron are also planning to visit. “We get a lot of emails from Iraq and Afghanistan.” Meanwhile, at the back of the shop, star tattoo artist Kouri Montana (the shop’s named after him) is bending over the bare left foot of a young woman named Natalie. She’s having her toddler daughter’s name etched across her metatarsals – said child is skipping around the reception area under the eye of her grandmother, seemingly oblivious to her inky immortalisation a few feet away. Natalie joins Johnny Depp and Pink on Kouri’s extensive client list. Canadian by birth (the Native American décor choices are his), and a trained fine artist, he has previously exhibited at the Royal Academy of Art and worked as an art teacher. And after 17 years in the profession, he has seen all sorts rock up for a Celtic cross or a Rihanna star cascade – and turned many away. “If they’re 1% unsure, I’ll know,” he says, drawing the upward sweep of an elegant ‘M’ freehand onto Natalie’s skin. “I won’t do it. It’s there for life. If we only did it for the money, every Tom, Dick and Harry would have a tattoo. “And we don’t do girlfriends and boyfriends’ names. I say, ‘If you’re still together in a year, come back and I’ll do it for free.’” He pauses. “They never come back.” Everyone approaching Montana Studios for a tattoo is asked to compete a detailed consent form designed to establish whether they should get one or not – how much sleep and alcohol a person’s had in the last 24 hours are among the deciding factors. Younger clients are asked for photo ID, which is photocopied and kept on file. Montana Studio’s focus is on ‘custom’, or bespoke designs, created by the artist with the client’s input, though off-the-shelf, ‘flash’ stencil designs are also available. These are the domain of Kouri’s son Raph, who chucked in a law career to join his dad in the family trade. “That’s parents for you,” he says. “Always think what they’re doing with their life is best.” A man called James is getting his date of birth done on his arm in roman numerals by custom artist Vicky Le Guilcher. It’s his second tattoo. The first, on his bicep, depicts three Chinese symbols which translate as ‘Love’, ‘Sex’ and ‘Peace’. He grimaces at the naffness of it. “That was my early 20s tattoo,” he says. He displays today’s cling-filmed purchase: “This is my early 30s tattoo.” Before I leave, I have another look at Natalie’s foot. Kouri’s about three-quarters done. Does it hurt? She nods. As much as childbirth? She shakes her head. “I’ve got a six-week-old baby, too,” she manages. “I’m having her put on my foot next.” Her daughter skips over, babbling something about “love”. Kouri fixes her with his piercing eyes. “Love? Whaddayou know about love?” he asks gruffly. “I love her,” says the little girl, slapping Natalie’s arm and running away. “When she’s 18 she can have ‘mum’ tattooed on her foot,” I say. Natalie rolls her eyes in response. Whether in agreement or pain, it’s hard to say.
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Bristol Ink
• Long before Lisbeth Salander, Beckham’s sleeves and ‘Miami Ink’, Bristol was the tattooing capital of Britain. Back in 1928, one Les Skuse started learning the trade under the city’s then only tattooist Joseph Hartley in a shop off Stokes Croft. Having inked his way through his fellow troops during World War Two, Skuse set up his own business, founded the British Guild of Tattooing and the legendary Bristol Tattoo Club (which features heavily in Taschen’s book ‘Tattoos’). In 1955 he was voted the Champion Tattoo Artist of All England and over the next few years, thanks to an informal cultural exchange he set up with leading US tattoo artists, became almost as famous on American shores as he was at home. His sons Danny and Billy continued the family business (Billy’s wife Janet ‘Rusty’ Skuse made it into the Guinness Book of Records as Britain’s Most Tattooed Woman). Les Skuse’s grandson Jimmie now runs the Les Skuse tattoo studio in Keynsham (
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