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The Boston Tattoo Convention
by Emily Miller
In a world where even some of the most traditionally outlandish ideas are becoming the norm (single moms? working women? gasp!) it is no wonder that once-underground trends such as tattooing and piercing are becoming popular. Nearly every fourteen-year-old girl nowadays cannot wait to get her bellybutton pierced, while ear piercing is becoming pass� among the youth (unless, of course, you've got three or four in your lobe and an industrial through your cartilage). It seems that every other celebrity has a tattoo now - Angelina Jolie's probably get the most press - and what was once delegated to the underbelly of the society has become standard for the cream of the crop.
Doctors, lawyers, nurses, social workers - you would be surprised to find out just who has ink - and how much. It has become general consensus that the tattoo craze began in the late nineties, and yet, amazingly the art of tattoo was not yet legal in some areas, like the whole of the state of Massachusetts. There, tattoo artists had to work in secrecy - or close-to-secrecy - in order to make a living. Operating out of vans, their basements, and the like, these unlicensed and illegal tattoo artists gave people tattoos healthily, cleanly, and safely (most of the time). According to Brenda Wynne, a Boston local artist and shop owner, this was because of the famed clean up of Scollay Square (now Government Center), once a haven for barflies and sailors on layover. She says that a bad infection may have gone around, and it led local officials to ban tattooing in its entirety.
