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The Artistic Gift That Keeps On Giving: Austinist Interviews Tattoo Artist Karen Slafter
With temperatures soaring into the eighties for Christmas, it’s hard to keep your skin under wraps at any time of the year. So it should come as no surprise that Austin boasts more tattoo parlors per capita than any other city in the United States. If your shoulders are going to show, they may as well be colorful. But with so many options, with whom should you entrust the eternal destiny of your flesh? Below is an interview with one of our favorites.
Artist: Karen Slafter
Shop: Southside Tattoo at 1313 South Congress Ave.
Experience: Slafter began her career in 1993 in Austin while in art school at UT. She was named 2005 Tattoo Artist of the Year by the Austin Chronicle.
Why did you become a tattoo artist?
I’d been drawing tattoos on myself since I was in eighth grade and drawing since I was a baby.
A lot of art students got involved with tattoos about fifteen years ago, and that really upped the ante from biker-sailor stuff. In this shop everyone either has been to art school or definitely should go because they are so talented. That is how I got started. I was getting tattooed when I was in art school and I thought, “Wow, what a great way for a woman to make money in the arts.”
Leonardo DaVinci is one of my heroes. He combined the sciences and art, brought esoteric themes together, and that is what I try to do. I draw on different theories from sacred geometry to the emotive qualities of color and the connections between objects and composition.
Do you have a certain philosophy regarding your work?
Usually I try to make a tattoo so it is a positive thing. I think that tattoos can have a sort of sublime quality, tell the story and have longevity. When you do a composition like that it helps to make it last forever and be interesting forever. If it’s a joke tattoo it is over in about five minutes, but you want something that can give and give on different levels.
The permanence is scary to a lot of people, but they also really want that. One of my customers got a disease in her leg where she was going to loose the movement in that limb. So we tattooed a shield along her leg as a healing, protective symbol. I love doing things like that. Like with breakup tattoos, don’t get something like “heartbreaker.” Get something positive like a growing tree that changes the negative into the positive. Because you do have to look at it forever, and I’d rather not tattoo something negative because it just stops you at that point.
What do you think about the social connotations of tattoos?
I hate when peopled are labeled in any kind of way. I don’t think a tattoo should do that. It shouldn’t limit you. If anything it should be an inspiring thing, not a limitation.
But tattoos are a really good social filter. You can find out instantly if someone is the kind of person you want to be friends with. It’s not necessarily that they have tattoos, but they are open-minded, they don’t have a problem letting you express yourself.
Recently my grandmother told me she wanted a tattoo. She thinks she is old enough not to care what people think about her any more. And I was like, “Yeah, you finally got it.” Because the tattoos are ultimately for you. You can show it or not. If you do want to show it, you know it’s a special. You earned this, you went through this, and now you have it.
