 |
|
KAREN
ROZE—SACRED ROSE
After graduating from the California College of the Arts in 1989 with a degree in painting and print making, Karen had ideas about moving to New York City and becoming a famous painter. "A very lofty idea," she remembers. "But I ended up in an art supply store in downtown San Francisco and it was near Goldfield's Tattoo, so Henry Goldfield would come in, as would Richard Cyr from Pat Martynuik's Picture Machine. They were older guys with tattoos all over their hands and everything. This was between 1989 and '91. I was fascinated, but I didn't have any ink at the time. I just never got around to it. I guess I wasn't confident enough or something. "At the time, I had a girlfriend who was really punk, and she was being tattooed by Eddy Deutsche and Ed Hardy. I didn't know these guys from Adam, so I didn't realize that they were the greatest tattooers in the Bay Area or probably on the whole West Coast. I just got lucky and went in with her one day to watch her get a tattoo from Deutsche, and he said, 'Okay, you're next. What do you want?' I said, 'I'm just watching,' and my friend Stacey called me a pussy. So I just looked up on the wall and pointed to a kanji. I just got a kanji and that was all.
"This was back in 1991, and he tried to dissuade me. The only women tattooing in the area were Laura Vida and Deborah Valentine. Laura was there and this kid, Ichinohe Yushi from Japan, who owns Scratch Addiction in Tokyo, now. And Paco Deitz who owns Graven Images in Redwood City. Jen Gallagher was there, too. She now works at Ed Hardy's Tattoo City. Picture Machine also had Jef Whitehead—he was just learning—and Chris Conn. Jef taught me about the rules of classic bold work, and Laura re-taught me the value of hygiene and precision. Because of my early associations, I learned to work in all styles and enjoy the history of the American tattoo as well as the ancient Japanese and Pacific Island styles. "All these artists who are really popular now were just beginning, so I kind of ensconced myself into an apprenticeship. The fact is, I just wouldn't leave. I'd come in with coffee, I'd clean up and, pretty soon, I was making needles for people. When Richard told me it would cost five thousand dollars to learn to tattoo, I thought it was a joke. I think he was just trying to make me quit. He tried everything to make me quit. But they had an apprentice at the time who was hurting people and doing just terrible work, so they let me stay. My first tattoos where just fixing his. I guess they figured it couldn't have been worse. It was an old-school shop, open from noon to midnight. "As soon as I picked up a machine—after about a year of apprenticing, making machines, making needles and such?I was working twelve-hour shifts. It was like throwing me into the deep end of the pool, but I am very grateful, because back then it was still not overcrowded. There were only about fourteen shops in San Francisco. I don't know how many there are now, maybe forty. We had a first-come, first-serve policy. People would just walk in and sit on a bench, so I was really busy all the time. That was a really good start. "I worked there about five years, managing the store and everything—unofficially, I might add, because Richard was the official manager. It was a cool apprenticeship, because I got to cut springs and wrap coils, all the stuff that old, bearded guys at conventions talk about doing, although I don't do all that anymore. I buy my own needles and have other guys fix my machines, but I'm glad I learned that way. It's like learning a hot roller set in beauty school, but you never really do it. That was a tough shop and I'm really grateful that I had the chance. "In 1998, I got fired along with everyone else in the store, kind of unceremoniously. I think Guy—Pat died in 1989 and Picture Machine became the property of Guy, his son—wanted to bring in new kids or something, so I just left, not really knowing what I was doing. I found a nice space, borrowed some money and started a shop. We just opened the doors and began tattooing. I was already booked three months in advance, back then. It was me and the guys from work. I brought them with me. We were tattooing on milk crates before the furniture arrived. All of us were very fortunate and blessed with abundant business.
"In the past two years I have been incorporating Reiki and Buddhist healing philosophy into my business. It's kind of an undercurrent in the shop, so we are definitely more grounded. We're not outwardly saying this is a Buddhist tattoo parlor or anything, but four out of ten of us who work here are practitioners. So four of us have the dharma healing techniques that we can use on customers, if they ask. I don't mean to sound hippie or anything, but we do clear the energy of the store at night and in the morning. Because of it, we find that people will walk into the store and feel comfortable, and not really know why. So, now the store is more a lifestyle store rather than just a business. It incorporates the spiritual aspects of tattooing and my regular life. I think people feel a healing energy here without even trying. "We feel it's a bonus for customers and helps those of us who do this practice not to be carriers of negative energy, because usually when you tattoo people all their negative energy comes out, like at a therapy session. Even if they're quiet, it still comes out, because tattooing is an intimate thing that you're doing one-on-one. And as an artist and a practitioner, I have to protect myself from that. I'm lucky because I know certain techniques to protect myself as well as give customers a blessing as they go out the door. So, even if we're listening to Motorhead and doing a big skull tattoo, we still feel really good when they leave. And I think we get a lot of repeat business from the feeling they get from this relationship. "Plus, the people that work here are much more mature. I'm older now, too. I'm in my forties and I don't have anyone here under thirty-five. Except for my front desk girl, a college student. Actually, we say we ruined her because she graduated from Cal Berkeley. She's the first college graduate in her family with a Poly Sci degree, and she decided she wants to be a tattoo artist. She's our shop apprentice, and we have all taken her under our wing. She gets to be an apprentice with ten teachers." Now what could be more creative and healing than that? Karen Roze
|
