Monday  Oct 10, 2005

An Interview with Tattoo Artist Laura Bennett

Ah, Napa Valley: wine, sun, polo-shirt-wearing yuppies, and tattoos! That’s right, there’s ink in wine country thanks to one amazing woman – the artist/owner of Flying Colors Tattoo, Laura Bennett. Lucky me got the chance to chat with her via e-mail about her passion for tats and her reasons for opening Napa’s first and only tattoo studio. And she even called me Dahling. I admit it, I’m crushing … Justin Pelegano

INKEDblog: Your love for ink started where?

Laura: In high school there seemed to be a lot of injuries that needed casts. Since I wasn't busy going to class or doing schoolwork I would draw on the broken arms and legs; elaborate murals in Sharpie pen that would always be cut off when the bone healed. "What? You let him cut through my Rick Wakeman keyboard?"

A kid at my school had a mustache (all the ID you needed in the 70s to get a tattoo) and he came to school with a lady on his forearm with a snake wrapping around like it was holding her on. It was the coolest thing I had ever seen. I'm sure I had seen some kind of WWII blob on somebody's dad, but it was like the first time I was ever aware of a tattoo. I decided then that I wanted to be a tattoo artist when I grew up. I'm still waiting to grow up, but on my next birthday I will have been tattooing for a living for
14 years.

INKEDblog: You apprenticed under Dirty Harry? Can you tell me a little about what that time in your life was like?

Laura: I married someone who thought tattoos were only for the drunks, sailors and cheap women. "No wife of mine is going to spend her time in a tattoo shop!" (He's right, no wife of his does.) I was working as a Sign Language interpreter at the local high school; unhappily married; feeling rebellious. I went to Berkeley with a friend one day and we got tattoos. I was 29. Before the first little thing was done (a Saturn you could cover with a quarter for my Saturn return) I was already planning and plotting how I was going to be tattooed without him flipping out. I asked C.W. Eldridge (Tattoo Archive, Berkeley) how to be a tattoo artist. He told me that I should draw tattoos, and then draw some more and take my work around and ask for an apprenticeship. Being a woman in 1990, married mom with two kids, everyone that talked to me said NO. "Go home and raise your kids, this isn't for women to do." For two years and one divorce I searched for someone to teach me. There were women in the industry, but nowhere close [to] enough for me to know about them. Chuck Eldridge gave me the best advice, and it's what I pass on to other youngsters that want in: Do NOT try to learn to tattoo by tattooing your friends in your garage. Get an apprenticeship--this can't be figured out by yourself without a lot of unsightly mistakes that will be covered up by the very people you want to hire you. Scratching will poison your name.

Harry said I was good, but he was tired of taking apprentices that weren’t really committed. I spent my rent money on a kit from Huck Spaulding and showed up with it and told him if he didn't teach me how to use it my kids and I would be on the street. He let me start the next day. I will always bless his name, he gave me my in to this business. I've had apprentices that don't acknowledge where they started, and I think that's the height of ingratitude.

INKEDblog: Can you take me through the evolution of your shop?

Laura: I was pregnant with my second husband and my third child and I just couldn't do the commute to Tattoos Unlimited any more. That husband helped me start Flying Colors when all I had was a couple of machines, a desk and some Scotch tape. I was at my first location for almost twelve years before I moved to this newer, nicer spot.

INKEDblog: Napa Valley's first and only tattoo parlor; you must get some...um....interesting clients, right? And at the same time your business must stand out. Is it hard at times?

Laura: Oh, I'm not a "parlor" Dahling...I'm a studio. This is Napa after all, and don't we all have our noses in the air? The city hadn't ever even dealt with an application from a tattoo artist before I came along, and I just sort of slipped under the radar. I think that ANY shop gets an interesting clientele, the people who get tattoos are interesting! When I used to go watch ex-husband number one get in trouble in child-support court I would play a game called "Have I tattooed more people on this side of the bar or that?"

Depending on the judge or the bailiff that day it could go either way. I was not the Tattoo Lady when I moved here, and I didn't realize how difficult it would be. I just smile at the tattoo haters, and know that at least one of their friends or loved ones wears my mark.

INKEDblog: Can you speak to the connection between your study of tarot and your tattooing?

Laura: Tarot and Sign Language are all about visual meaning. Tarot encompasses every facet of the human experience, both mundane and profound. All the flowers, colors, water...the list could go on and on, it all has meaning. The number of stars around your moon can mean something. I google flower meanings to add depth to a tattoo. I have tattooed on myself: Bluebells (humility), begonia (beware), and dogwood flowers (love undiminished by adversity). I always look for ways to slide in something significant, even if hidden.

INKEDblog: What's an ideal artistic connection for you, between you and the client I mean?

Laura: My best connections are with people who have a story to tell. Their tattoos embrace or proclaim something that is important to them, and they only have half an idea of how to do that. It's the tuning in and listening that enables me to do what I do. Other than logos or simple things like stars, I design every tattoo for the person who will wear it, and I don't re-use stencils unless it's a piece that a group of people want to do together.

Many of my closest friends started out as clients, and it's through talking and getting to know the person, sharing personal details of our lives and loves, that I get to know who they really are. I have a place in my tribe; I celebrate with them, mark their grief, claim their beauty. Often someone will say to me "I can't believe I told you all of that." or "We have so much in common!" [And] almost every sitting ends with a hug. I feel honored and connected to many of my people, or, I tattoo a butterfly with tribal right above their crack, or another piece of solid black tribal. (even those are designed for each individual.)

Tattooing is my favorite thing to do, it's what I'd do for fun after work if I had to get a JOB.

Visit Laura and the Flying Colors site at www.flyingcolorstattoo.com

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