Cover Story: Hooked on the Needle

Steve Carmichael is lying on a stainless steel table on a March afternoon having his face tattooed. Sunlight streams through the windows at Little Five Points’ Holy Mother tattoo shop as Carmichael tilts his head back, offering the artist a better angle. He is in the middle of what will be a two-hour session, and his forehead is smeared with blood colored orange by ink. The needle doesn’t hurt much, he says. But his eyes are watering.

Over the years, ink has crept slowly across Carmichael’s flesh. His arms are a tangle of blues, greens and reds, winding around images of dragons and mythical birds. An Asian floral pattern protrudes above his collar. On his chest is a topless vampire in subtle black and gray, with supernaturally full breasts and wings extending outward.

Carmichael has been tattooed 30 times in 40 years and has sat for approximately 150 hours under the needle. He tells those he meets he has lots of tattoos - but is working on having just one. Not including $3,000 he paid to have some of his tattoos removed, he estimates he’s spent upwards of $15,000 getting inked.

Nothing - not the time or the cost or his family’s disapproval - has discouraged the 60-year-old independent commercial filmmaker from continuing to get tattooed. He says he can’t stop, nor does he want to.

Go to the gym. Go to the grocery store. Go to the office. Tattoos are everywhere. Movie stars have them. Athletes have them. Soccer moms have them. Today, the tattoo is just another accessory, typically no more shocking than a pair of hoop earrings or a yellow “Live Strong” bracelet - the significant difference being you can take off the hoop earrings and rubber bracelet.

“It’s like cosmetic surgery,” says Chuck Brank, founder of Prick magazine, a 5-year-old regional monthly publication based in Atlanta that chronicles trends in piercing and tattoos. “The older you get, the less happy you are with the way you look. Some people get a face-lift. I got more tattoos.”

The Atlanta tattoo scene, like those of most metropolitan areas, has mushroomed over the past three decades. From the time Atlanta’s first tattoo shop opened in the early 1970s, more than 100 studios have sprung up across metro Atlanta, including the 15-franchise Ink Wizards chain.

Given the success the industry has seen, it was only a matter of time before a new kind of addiction emerged: the tattooaholic. Studies estimate that roughly one in eight adults - and nearly one in four of those between the ages of 18 and 25 - have been tattooed. And though there aren’t any well-publicized support groups for those who believe their urge to be inked has become a problem, nor has research into tattoo addiction been published in a major medical journal, just ask Steve Carmichael. He’ll tell you there’s no doubt about it being hard to stop tattooing once you start.

The question is: Why?

Carmichael got his first tattoo in the mid-1960s. He was 19 and passing time on what he affectionately calls a “kiddy cruise,” a program that allowed young men to enlist in the Navy from the time they were 18 until they turned 21. Not everyone in the Navy had tattoos, but to Carmichael it sure seemed that way. The colorful ink on the arms of so many of his peers made it easier for him to take the leap. Being thousands of miles away from the conservatism of his hometown of Birmingham didn’t hurt, either. The small tattoo shop in Yokosuka, a Tokyo Bay port that housed a large American naval base, was clean and bright. Carmichael’s tattoo, of a blue and black peacock with green and red accented feathers, cost $15. It was 9 inches long and 3 inches wide, running vertically down his left arm - just long enough to hang below his T-shirt cuff.

And it wasn’t too painful. Carmichael says the needle felt like a bee sting, but the pain didn’t linger after the needle penetrated the skin. It was a momentary prick - quickly overshadowed by a rush of adrenaline.

“There’s that moment when the needle hits your skin, and you know there’s no going back,” Carmichael says. “It’s a process that is going to result in something that is totally mine. It’s something that nobody can take away from me. It’s mine. I did it. And I’m responsible for it.”

The military played a crucial role in the importation of the tattoo to Western civilization. The trend first traveled to Europe 200 years ago from Polynesia. Within a few decades, inking techniques were improved in America, where tattoos became common among Civil War soldiers on both sides. From there, prison inmates and bikers popularized the practice.

But the tattoo goes back thousands of years in some cultures. Hawaiians applied pigment to the skin with a needle made from bone, tied to a stick and struck by a mallet, imprinting fallen chiefs and family members. In New Zealand, Maori men wore a full-face moko, made by literally carving the skin with a chisel, and adorned themselves with puhoro, an intricate tattoo extending from mid-torso to the knees that featured the characteristic design of a spiral on the buttock.

Today, studios employ sophisticated sterilization and machines that work similarly to a sewing machine. The artist dips the needle in the ink, which is drawn into the needle’s reservoir. Stepping on a peddle on the floor makes the needle bob up and down. When the needle presses against the skin, ink is automatically released. The challenge is to pierce the skin deep enough so that the color does not quickly wear away, but shallow enough so that the ink does not spread out like a marker applied to tissue paper.

As for the person into whom the ink is injected, there are two types of customers tattoo artists typically see: those who get no more than a few well-concealed tattoos, and those who keep going back for more - until the tattoos are impossible to shield.

Craig Miller is a 48-year-old prosecutor in North Georgia’s Polk County. He got his first tattoo five years ago to celebrate graduating from law school - a symbol on his ankle of a congi, a Japanese ideogram that means “truth.” Today he has more than 25 tattoos, including a full sleeve.

“Some people get one and, for whatever reason, either it hurt too much or whatever, they decide that’s it,” Miller says. “For me, that wasn’t the case. For me, it has been kind of an addiction.”

Not that it’s easy being tattooed. Miller says his wife disapproves, and he must be careful at work to cover up his arms and chest, wearing long sleeves and buttoning his shirt to the top button.

Like Miller, Carmichael went back to get a second tattoo less than a year after he got his first, at the same shop in Yokosuka. That one was on his upper right arm, of a black and blue Japanese foo dog.

According to Carmichael, the problem with trying to curb your tattoo lust is one of symmetry. “If you get a tattoo on your left arm, before you know it, you’re going to realize how empty your right arm looks,” Carmichael says. “That was the case with me. I just wanted another tattoo to balance out the one I had.”

Not exactly a popular kid growing up, Carmichael says he was interested in photography at a time when carrying a camera instead of a football was the mark of a nerd. To Carmichael, getting tattooed was a way of distancing himself from a disapproving crowd, of building up the wall between him and the adolescent bullies and disinterested high school girls. Carmichael didn’t worry that his tattoos might have a harmful effect on professional opportunities or future relationships. At the time, he could cover both of them with a long-sleeved shirt.

In 1965, when Carmichael was 21, his naval service ended and he returned to his hometown of Birmingham to enroll at Huntingdon College. There he met his future wife. The couple married during Carmichael’s sophomore year and had their first child, a boy, a year later.

During college, Carmichael worked as a photographer for the Montgomery Advertiser and Alabama Journal. His wife worked as a business manager at a local hospital. After graduation, the family moved to northeast Atlanta, near Buckhead. Carmichael took a job as a news film photographer at Channel 5 (then a CBS affiliate), and in 1970 the couple had their second child, a girl.

Carmichael’s wife didn’t mind his two tattoos, but she made it clear she didn’t want him to get any more.

Nevertheless, he recalls thinking about another tattoo often. But he put it off - not only because of his wife’s distaste but because he didn’t know where to go. There weren’t any tattoo shops listed in the Atlanta Yellow Pages in 1970. The scene still was very much underground - and largely biker-run.

A few years after the family moved to Atlanta, Carmichael’s marriage began to suffer, and the couple eventually divorced. Roughly a year later, Carmichael’s wife moved the children to Dallas. Carmichael obsessed over the separation from his family.

“There was a lot more stigma to divorce in 1973,” Carmichael says. “I had two kids I wasn’t sure how much I would get to see. And I was afraid of living alone.”

Carmichael says he wanted to do something to break his cycle of depression. He says he wanted to demonstrate his newfound freedom. He says he was tired of hiding his two tattoos. So he got two more, one on each forearm. He wanted these new ones to be seen.

After driving 145 miles to a tattoo shop in Augusta - the closest he could find - Carmichael walked out with a bald eagle perched on a bed of red and yellow flowers on his right arm, and a chartreuse-scaled dragon flanked by red flames on his left.

Carmichael’s tattoos were no longer a secret. But they weren’t exactly an obsession. Not yet.

It would be 12 years before fate introduced Carmichael to “Painless” Paul Nelson and Colette Thompson - and his next series of tattoos.

Painless Paul is a throwback. A former biker, Nelson pawned a motorcycle to pay for his first tattoo apprenticeship. He says he opened his first shop, Ace Tattoo, in 1974, when he saw how much money there was to be made tattooing in Atlanta. He later opened two more shops under the same name. For years, Nelson’s Ace Tattoo shops, which he describes as “rough-looking old buildings with red carpet and flash on the wall,” offered the only tattooing in town. Back then, Nelson says, he kept away competition with threats. “I was very serious about my territory,” he says. “A guy would move in down the street and start tattooing out of his house, and I would have to go down and explain to him that I started this here, and if he stayed he might get hurt. His house might burn.”

Nelson says he never had to burn any houses, because rival artists never stuck around. Then in the early ’90s, Nelson claims that, as if overnight, tattoo shops sprung up all over the city. Painless Paul’s monopoly was over. He closed the last of his three shops in December of 2004.

“Up until 10 years ago, there was decent money to be made,” Nelson says. “But around 1995 you could see it tapering off. I had a business that was making $500,000 to $1 million a year, and it went to where I was making $50,000 a year. So, yeah, I’m a little bitter.”

One of Nelson’s biggest complaints about the industry is the hassle accompanying the rise of custom tattoos. It used to be that getting a tattoo was a matter of walking into a shop and picking a design off the wall. But today’s elite artists do custom work - tattoos designed specifically for the individual. Often, the customer will come to a shop with a drawing, a printout or an idea, and it will be up to the artist to create something unique.

Many custom artists pull in customers based on their distinct styles. Tony Olivas, of Sacred Heart Tattoo, is known for realistic black and gray portraiture, and his work can be seen on the Black Crowes’ Chris Robinson. Deano Cook, owner of Psycho Tattoo, is renowned for underwater scenes with bright tropical fish and wavy seaweed - what he calls “aquatic photorealism.” He has tattooed the Discovery Channel’s “Motorcycle Mania” star Jesse James.

The increased popularity of custom tattoos has helped advance the notion that the tattoo is in fact art. Still, for every customer with a custom tattoo, there are dozens with a barbed wire armband or a Celtic cross pulled off a shop wall.

And despite the booming popularity of tattoos, there are still some people who just don’t get it. Steve Carmichael’s second wife is one of them.

The couple met when Carmichael was living with three roommates in a two-story brick house in Buckhead. She lived next door. The two bonded over their mutual love of literature, art and music (they’re both symphony buffs). They married shortly thereafter and moved into Carmichael’s old house, which he had been renting since the divorce. He and his new wife had a daughter in 1982.

Two years after his daughter was born, Carmichael’s daughter from his first marriage died in a car accident. She was 17.

“It was the worst thing that ever happened in my life,” Carmichael says. “I got the call from her stepfather telling me what had happened. That’s a phone call that no parent ever anticipates getting.

“I think loss has been a big factor in my getting tattoos.”

There is no medical research to suggest people get tattoos to help deal with trauma. In fact, a recent University of Florida survey found no connection between tattoos and a person’s past. The survey, which sampled about 280 undergraduates with at least one tattoo or nontraditional piercing, found that a stressful experience was not linked to the number of tattoos people get (though those with multiple piercings were much more likely to have experienced stressful events such as injury, illness, abuse or the death of a loved one).

Because of his second wife’s dislike of tattoos, Carmichael resisted his urge and went a decade without getting inked. As time passed, however, he longed for the buzz of the tattoo gun.

In the fall of 1996, Carmichael found a listing in the phone book for Sacred Heart Tattoo. After calling, he drove to the second-story shop in Little Five Points. It had been 23 years since Carmichael tattooed his forearms in Augusta. In the interim, he’d only been tattooed once.

In 1984, Carmichael had been inspired after producing a segment for Channel 5 about the popularity of tattoo art. The segment was shot at Ace Tattoo and focused on Painless Paul and his shop. The tattoo that Nelson gave Carmichael was a blue, green and orange braid on his left ring finger - a tattoo easily concealed by his wedding band. It was small - but enough to sustain his desire.

More than a decade later, Carmichael would spend an hour hanging out at Sacred Heart talking to an artist named Colette Thompson about his next tattoo. Carmichael studied Thompson’s books, checking out dozens of Polaroids of past customers - their tattoos still red and swollen in the pictures.

Thompson, who specializes in intricate color work, is part of a trend in tattoo art that has seen shop owners morph from self-taught bikers to art school graduates (or, in many cases, art school dropouts). She grew up in the Philadelphia suburbs and was educated at Parsons School of Design in Manhattan, the University of Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and the Atlanta College of Art.

She was 23 years old when she took an apprenticeship with “Whirlwind” Walt Clark at Tornado Tattoo on Highland Avenue, starting out in a position she calls “shop bitch” - sweeping the floor, cleaning the glass, sterilizing the tubes and making the needles.

A year-and-a-half later, Thompson left Tornado Tattoo to apprentice under Olivas at Sacred Heart. She paid $5,000 for the opportunity. After four months, Olivas hired her to work as an artist in his shop, and she stayed for a decade. (Thompson later would open Holy Mother Tattoo in Little Five Points.) She was at Sacred Heart the day Steve Carmichael decided to once again scratch his tattoo itch.

Carmichael wound up leaving the shop with a blue spiral armband around his right bicep. It was the first of many tattoos Thompson would give Carmichael. Over the ensuing years, the two would find themselves alternately bickering and collaborating.

“My view is that, if you’re in it for the long haul, you develop a relationship with an artist,” Carmichael says. “When I’m ready for it and I have money, I’ll call Colette and say, ‘Why don’t we do some more work on my chest?’ Sometimes she will just take off with the needle and do whatever she wants to do. It’s fun letting an artist have license to do what they want.”

Carmichael soon would get both arms “sleeved,” with ink covering all of the flesh from the wrist to the shoulder. By that point, there was no going back - though Carmichael did try.

His wife tolerated the armband tattoo, but the sleeves were hard to ignore. She asked him to consider having his tattoos removed. Though Carmichael loved his tattoos, he hated how much they bothered his family.

He searched Google for tattoo support groups but found nothing. Eventually, he set up an appointment with a surgeon to have his tattoos erased by laser.

“I agreed to have my tattoos removed just to create some peace at home,” Carmichael says. “My wife didn’t give me an ultimatum, but it meant a lot to her that I tried to have them removed.”

But the laser treatments did not go well. Carmichael got large, itchy welts on his arms. He discontinued the treatments, and after several months the welts went away.

“I went back to Colette and she was furious,” Carmichael recalls. “She said, ‘You’re messing with my work. I’m not going to redo what you’ve ruined.’”

After much pleading, Carmichael convinced Thompson to tattoo his arms again. And he returned to her, over and over, to get his back and chest done.

Dr. Charles Schuster, professor of psychiatry and behavioral studies at Wayne State University and the former director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, thinks he has an explanation for Carmichael’s obsession.Schuster explains that the body’s response to pain, such as that of a tattoo needle’s prick, is to self-medicate. So the brain signals the pituitary gland to release endorphins, which are a type of homegrown morphine. These endorphins cause some of the same pharmacological effects - euphoria, tingling and numbness - brought on by opiates. Schuster says individuals who might be mildly depressed could find relief in the mood-altering properties of endorphins released while getting tattooed.

“Whether one chooses to run a marathon to reach an endorphin high or chooses to get tattoos, it probably has more to do with who you are and what your friends are doing,” Schuster says.

Carmichael doesn’t doubt Schuster’s theory about endorphins and the role they play in his obsession. But he says he doesn’t care.

“I’ve been to a therapist and we did talk about, among other things, my tattoos,” Carmichael says. “I’ve talked to a lot of people that are heavily tattooed and some of them agree that it is an addiction. But nobody is looking for a way to stop. I have yet to run into somebody that says, ‘Please help me. Start a 12-step program.’”

Carmichael doesn’t deny he was looking for attention when he got his first tattoo. Nor does he deny that the same desire carried him back to the tattoo chair. But he says his motives for continuing to get tattooed run deeper.

For Carmichael, tattoos are a means of escape - despite that his tattoos have long caused unease among those closest to him. His wife has voiced her opposition. His daughter from his second marriage, now living in London and working for a legal publishing company, doesn’t like his tattoos any more than her mother does. She hasn’t seen her father’s face since it’s been tattooed, and she says she doesn’t want to.

Carmichael’s son from his first marriage also joined the Navy, but he didn’t get any tattoos. Carmichael says his son never mentions the ink that has taken over his father’s body.

“I don’t imagine he cares one way or another,” Carmichael says, “though he hasn’t seen my face. When he sees it, he may very well say something.”

Carmichael is checking out his newest tattoo in the full-length mirror on the wall behind the artist’s station at Holy Mother. His face is swollen and sore. His earlobes, which are stretched out by 1-and-a-half inch plugs, wiggle as he turns from side to side, admiring his new face.A branch with red-orange leaves runs along Carmichael’s hairline; another branch curls from the bottom of his jaw up toward his chin. One stray red leaf is suspended in the middle of his forehead, while smaller green leaves run above and below his right eye and down his jaw.

Even for a guy like Carmichael, who is covered in ink, a face tattoo is a big deal. Hiding that ink is going to be a lot more complicated than putting on a turtleneck. In the future, Carmichael will wear a thick layer of makeup, called Dermablend, whenever he visits his mother or daughter, or goes to a business meeting or formal social function.

He says he regrets that his tattoos displease his family, but the decision to continue getting inked has been something he feels he has to do - for himself. It has come down to his love for the process and his desire to pursue that love, regardless of anyone’s opinion.

“I guess I just decided I had to quit worrying about what other people think about it,” Carmichael says. “It’s not immoral. It’s something for me, something that I want to do. It’s like making a fairly radical change in the way you wear your hair.

“Except this won’t grow out.”

Coley.ward@creativeloafing.com