It doesn’t take long to realize that tattoos are popular in Wicker Park. Neighborhood folks of all types seem to have them, and there’s no shortage of places to get them. The tattoo industry is growing, according to local tattoo artists, a literally colorful group who have seen business change over the last few years.

“It’s more mainstream, definitely,” said Jeremy Gibson, 34, owner of Infamous Ink (1606 W. North Ave.). Gibson has been tattooing professionally for 16 years, and, like several of his peers in the neighborhood, he credits some of the popularity to increased exposure on TV, especially on MTV and in professional sports. Patrick Cornolo, 42, who owns Speakeasy Custom Tattoo, 1935 1/2 W. North Ave, agrees.

“It’s become very pedestrian,” said Cornolo, who has been inking people for 17 years. “I can remember being scared to death to go into a tattoo shop. I don’t think it’s like that for anybody now.”

Part of the reason tattooing has become less intimidating is increased regulation by the state of Illinois. Gibson, who, prior to moving to Chicago, helped lobby for the legalization of tattooing in South Carolina, said that state laws governing tattoo shops have minimized the health risk of getting a tattoo.

“The old stereotype is you go in and wonder what you’re coming out with besides a tattoo,” he joked.

As tattoos have become more popular, the artists have also seen new trends crop up. Justin McCrocklin, 33, who works at Tatu Tattoo (1754 W. North Ave.) and has been tattooing for five years, has noticed an increase in people getting tattoos of words, such as song lyrics, Bible verses and statements of character, such as “I am strong” or “I am smart.” He admitted his own taste is more for images, but he said that he’ll only refuse to do a tattoo if a customer is “being a jerk” or if he thinks the tattoo is a bad idea. Plus, “I stay away from the face,” he said.

Other artists explained that they also generally try to dissuade customers, especially younger ones, from getting particularly prominent tattoos, such as on the neck, forearms or hands. That said, young people are asking for tattoos in these places, traditionally the last to be tattooed, increasingly often, Cornolo said.

“It’s an easy way to look badass really quick,” Cornolo explained. “It gives the illusion you’re heavily tattooed.”

He added that he thinks that’s a “poseur move.”

For Wicker Park’s tattoo artists, it’s obvious why that sort of appropriation might be discouraging: Each one has an obvious passion for the art, and all have worked hard to make it to where they are. Tattooing is a profession passed on by apprenticeships, and each artist has a story trying to break in. Derek Mullins, 42, who owns Metamorph Studios (1456 N. Milwaukee Ave.), explained that he used to hang out in a tattoo shop on Lincoln Avenue and “bugged them until they let me have an apprenticeship,” he said.

He sold everything he owned and slept on the floor of the shop for a year while he learned the art. But it paid off — being a tattoo artist is a social art, and it comes with its rewards.

“The enjoyment you see from a person when you do something touching to them, that keeps me going,” Gibson said.

Each artist voiced a similar feeling, pointing out that tattoos are always significant.

“Every tattoo is a story for somebody,” said Robin King, 33, an artist at Metamorph who has been tattooing for 10 years.

There certainly is no shortage of stories among the artists themselves, where accounts of tattooing range from the entertaining to the heartfelt. Gibson once did tattoos for the rap group Crime Mob. Mullins explained that he once gave a blind man a tattoo of a mug of beer, which he loved based solely on his daughter’s description of it. Cornolo had a moving story about a man he had tattooed 10 years earlier returning for another tattoo as he was dying of cancer, to commemorate his battle with the illness.

The biggest concern among Wicker Park’s tattoo artists is that tattooing may be beginning  to lose some of that significance.

“It’s become so popular. People think of it as a commodity, like going in to buy a pair of pants, but it’s not,” said McCrocklin.

Cornolo voiced worry that the craft aspect might be disappearing with the increased ease of learning about tattooing online, and he emphasized the importance of the master/apprentice model.

However, the artists remain enthusiastic about their work. After all, as King pointed out, there’s one particularly obvious draw to the art.

“Doing tattoos, in general, is [bleep]-ing cool,” she said.

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