News

Jul 17, 2023

Tattoos, piercings quickly growing in popularity — and acceptance

On a recent afternoon, Gabriel Martinez was applying a tattoo with a wireless

On a recent afternoon, Gabriel Martinez was applying a tattoo with a wireless rotary pen to the calf of a customer's leg at his shop in downtown Deming.

The 25-year-old artist has operated the Endless Ink studio for nearly three years and recently moved from his original space on Spruce Street to a roomier shop on E. Pine Street.

Just a block away, Ruben Valenzuela's shop, Resurrection Tattoo, is going strong six years after opening, and now offers body piercings by apprentice body artist Ashley Nuñez.

Her workspace is a nook near the studio entrance, with art hanging on a turquoise wall and a cabinet loaded with studs, needles and other equipment and, of course, jewelry.

Both in their mid-twenties, the two spoke to the Headlight about forging pathways as professional body artists at a time when attitudes about tattoos and body piercings has rapidly evolved.

Nuñez, 27, has a five-year old son and works as a server at Irma's Restaurant while she progresses toward completion of her professional license under Valenzuela's supervision. Her body is adorned with visible tattoos, multiple studs on her face, lips and tongue as well as a nose ring, plus an elaborate hair style with silvery threads and jewelry woven into her hair through long braids resembling dreadlocks. Earlier this year, she promoted her distinct look as a contestant for a spot as cover model for Inked Magazine.

Ashley Nuñez is pictured in her workspace at Resurrection Tattoo in downtown Deming. (Headlight staff photo by Algernon D’Ammassa)

It was a distinct turn from an experience she reported from just a few years ago, when she worked at a local hardware store where a female patron told Nuñez she would not return: "She told me she would never shop there again because she didn't want to see my face."

Nuñez got her first piercing at 14 and by 18 she was performing them on herself, experimenting with different ensembles of jewelry, hairstyle and clothing as a venue for self-expression and creativity before selecting it as a profession.

"I’ve done pretty much everything aside from, like, below the belt," she laughed. "Dermals, tongue, nose, eyebrows, ears — just kind of everywhere."

In her own working life, she has seen attitudes about body art change rapidly since she went to college. The stigma against visible tattoos and piercings was strong, and still occasionally provokes reactions of disgust or suspicion, but as the generation born in the mid- to late-1990s approaches their thirties, visible body art is growing more familiar, including workplaces.

"Back in the day it was more of a hidden thing because they weren't accepted then," she said. "Everyone had them everywhere but their hands and face, and now it's like the reverse: Everyone starts off with their hands, faces and necks.

"Nowadays, I think it's gotten a lot more lenient — in a positive way, where it's more accepting," she continued. "I see more younger kids come in and their parents say, ‘I’d rather you get it professionally done.’"

While surveys suggest that negative associations with body art are strongest among older generations, Nuñez said even that has given way to curiosity and growing admiration among customers at the restaurant and neighbors in the community.

And she said older people are opening up to decorating themselves. Her oldest customer, she said, was 90 year old woman.

At Endless Ink, Martinez's customer was sitting for a leg tattoo commemorating a recent trip to Los Angeles with his wife. His tattoos are a travelogue of places the two have experienced together.

"It's a sacred type of thing to people," Martinez said as he worked, reflecting on tattoos’ ancient origins in contrast to 20th century stigmas that associated them with criminality and marginal subcultures. Coincidentally, after remarking on how police officers were once generally forbidden from bearing visible tattoos, a Luna County sheriff's deputy stopped by to request an appointment.

Gabriel Martinez is seen at his shop. (Headlight staff photo by Algernon D’Ammassa)

Tastes vary: Martinez said he has tattooed images of crosses, St. Jude, praying hands and symbols with sacred meaning as well as purely decorative works of art. Names of spouses and partners have grown less popular as fashions change, but he still gets requests for that as well.

Martinez recalled in his high school years, less than a decade ago, a visible tattoo often grabbed the wrong kind of attention. "It was like, ‘Oh, that guy definitely did soething crazy,’" he said. "Nowadays, I think more people are seeing it as an art form."

That has extended even to facial and neck tattoos, once widely associated with criminal gangs, in part because tattoos on tender parts of the body like the neck indicated status or showed endurance. "People used to have to earn the tattoos that they got, like prison style," he said.

Those connotations are changing, he said, thanks to growing acceptance of visible body ink, not to mention numbing creams and sprays that make the procedure more comfortable.

Martinez said his customers come from various walks of life and professions, "from construction workers to contractors, regular people just off the streets," as well as professionals and public sector workers.

Like Nuñez, Martinez said he sees older generations experimenting more often as well. His eldest customer, he said, was a woman nearly 80 years in age, accompanied by her daughter.

"She got a heart, with her name," Martinez said.

Algernon D’Ammassa can be reached at [email protected].