A Diamond in the Rough; Wanderlust
Story and photos by Maria Myers
If you frequent the Starbucks in the center of Amherst, maybe you’ve noticed a ramp to the left of the store front. Head down this ramp, open the glass door and you’ll find Wanderlust Tattoos. The front room is adorned with black pleather couches surrounding a low table with binders full of tattoos, largely traditional. In the back right corner is a wrap-around stand where Ethan stands ready to help you find what you’re looking for.
“Hey,” he says nonchalantly, “What can I help you with today?”
Ethan has been with the tattoo parlor for around two years now, starting in 2016. He’s used to customer service, having been the assistant manager at a Family Dollar for two years, among other jobs. Bosses have told him he’s the little heart- break kid. At the Family Dollar, older ladies would come into the store and swoon, “Oh Ethan, where’s Ethan?” From his stoic demeanor and confidence, you’d guess he’s in his late twenties at least. He’s 21. “Yeah,” he told me. “Forty five in a twenty-one-year-old body.”
At the age of 17 Ethan dropped out of high school in order to work to pay for his then girlfriend’s baby shower and other expenses for his daughter, Charlotte. After she was born, he started frequenting an adult learning center and got his GED. Before that he floated from friend’s house to friend’s house, having moved out of his own at 15 because of the double A’s - absentee father, alcoholic mother. Now he’s got his own apartment and he’s got his own car. Acura R6 type S. Two doors, six speeds. And it can fit a car seat in the back. I ask him if he would have been as responsible if he hadn’t had a kid. “I mean I still would have grown up,” he says, “but I wouldn’t have done it as quick, you know what I mean? I wouldn’t change having her for anything in the world.”
“I love seeing us strive. I’d love to see us grow and expand one day.” Ethan says. “And I love riding with the guys . . ..”
Being the first face you see or the first voice you hear when you walk in is a big responsibility. Ethan’s done the math; he estimates that after about a year of working there, he’s brought in around twelve thousand dollar’s worth of clients. A customer came in the other day and walked up to the owner, told him that the reason he was there getting the tattoo was because of Ethan. Ethan was the one who gave him the courage and confidence to come in. Since then he’s come back three times and gotten hundreds of dollars worth of work done.
“I love seeing us strive. I’d love to see us grow and expand one day.” Ethan says. “And I love riding with the guys . . ..”
That includes Steve, owner of the parlor. He’s owned shops before but this one almost didn’t happen. Steve was living in Cape Cod on his way to moving out to Boulder Colorado when his mother called. Called him to come home; she had lymphoma. He nixed Colorado. A week or two later a friend called, piss drunk. “I can’t find it,” he kept saying over and over again. “I can’t find it.” “What? What can’t you find?” Steve asked. “Your keys? What can’t you find hommie? What’s going on?”
The next thing Steve received was a text, a picture of a ‘For Lease’ sign.
The next thing Steve received was a text, a picture of a For Lease sign. The day after that Steve called the number on the sign. “Are you calling about the Craigslist add?” the voice on the other end asked. The owner hadn’t put it up but ten minutes before. Steve immediately told him to take down the sign. After three hours of driving he arrived in Amherst and rented the place out immediately. Thus the previously named and known Amherst Tattoos became Wanderlust Tattoos.
Tattooing isn’t Steve’s parents’ cup of tea. When he got his first tattoo of Celtic spirals on his shoulder at 18, they were less than pleased. “They knew it was gonna happen,” he says. Born in Utica New York, Steve was adopted into a military family. After moving around to several bases, Steve’s father was stationed at Westover Air Reserve Base in Chicopee, where he later retired. Though not appreciative of Steve’s body art, both his parents supported his dream of owning a tattoo parlor. Until 2001, only a licensed healthcare professional could tattoo in Massachusetts. The ACLU took the issue to court and won, claiming that tattooing was a form of self expression sanctioned under the first amendment. Steve opened his first shop, the Route 202 in Granby, in 2008. Eventually he closed that shop because he felt stagnant. Being in a small town like Granby doesn’t give you much exposure. “This is . . . a career where . . . if you’re not learning your kind of dying,” Steve said. “You’re not getting any better, you know? And I didn’t want to be that guy.”
“This is . . . a career where . . . if you’re not learning your kind of dying. You’re not getting any better, you know? And I didn’t want to be that guy.” — Steve
Wanderlust keeps things flowing, especially when the students are in town. A revolving door of new young adults helps supplement a roster of townies and regulars. All types walk through the door — mothers and daughters looking for matching tattoos, first timers picking out flash pieces on the wall, simple small designs often used as promotions. It’s Friday the 13th? Come get a small tat for a few bucks less. A young man came in a week or two ago asking for a face tattoo; two ovals connected, kind of like a cross. Steve refused. His reasoning was you have to earn that kind of tattoo. “I don’t even have my face done or my hands done …,” Steve said, adding, “… and I have been tattooing for a very long time.”
There’s always the chance that you’ll regret your personal body art. Steve says it’s like being a musician: When you see a guitar missing a few strings, or a broken pedal, there’s an urge to look at it and think I can rewire it. I can fix it and it’ll be amazing! The same goes for tattoos. Steve’s in the process of removing a dagger on his back. It’s a crooked knife slicing through a rose that’s surrounded by an entire bushel of leaves. Not ideal. “It basically looks like a Good Charlotte album cover,” Steve Says. “It’s 90’s pop culture terrible s*!#.” As of this interview, he’s had three sessions on his back. I’ve heard it’s twice as painful having tattoos removed compared to putting them on and takes three times as long.
John says it’s true. He’s another tattoo artist and the resident piercer who joined the shop around September 2017. He’s been in the process of removing the entire sleeve of his left arm. He started the sleeve in 94’ and was completely finished by 95’. Tribal arm bands covered the length of it. “I made the decision to hurry up and get it done thinking this is what I wanted,” he tells me as he works on one of his latest designs. His tablet pen whizzes across the face of the screen. In the end, it wasn’t. He tried covering the bands multiple times. Each time he either lost interest, or it didn’t work out.
I’ve heard it’s twice as painful having tattoos removed compared to putting them on and takes three times as long. John says it’s true.
The first time was insects, starting off with a long horn beetle. He discontinued that project. The beetle turned into a cockroach. The second theme was more elaborate; bubbles bursting out of a planet’s surface, rising up and slowly becoming eyeballs which would then turn into little babies, fetus’s or straight up cupids. On his back shoulder would be one of those old school purple Coleman bug zappers with babies stuck all over it. I look at his arm today. The once dark ink is now a pale blue from multiple sessions. I can barely make out the shapes. John snickers to himself as he continues working. “I mean every body has this big idea that tattoos are supposed to be serious, so at some point, I guess my rebellion was like, ‘Maybe they should just be funny?’” he says.
It’s not the most outlandish thing he’s thought up. Or seen. John first started tattooing in 95’ in North Carolina. After he moved down to Orlando Florida with two other friends exiting the Marine Corps, John started tattooing in Daytona for a real character. He still remembers his old boss’ tattoo. It’s one of his favorites; Jesus smoking crack in jail, located on his inner arm, done in an industrial green color. The smoke wound around Jesus and his full pipe. Jon smiles: “Holy cow it was great man.”
“I mean every body has this big idea that tattoos are supposed to be serious, so at some point, I guess my rebellion was like, ‘Maybe they should just be funny?’”- Jon
John’s old boss had other body modifications as well. They included gold teeth on either side of his mouth; one engraved with the SS lightening chevrons. The only book his boss ever owned was one he’d stolen out of the law library that held his court papers for pistol whipping a cop to death. “I wanted to tattoo and was willing to do anything and everything to actually tattoo. . .,” John said of his old boss’ reasoning. “I didn’t want to work at Ruby Tuesdays forever.”
After about a year he moved on and out. Connections beget connections and John ping-ponged around the country … Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Michigan, Utah. At certain points he lived out of his car, periodically heading back to his main hub in Florida to recoup and head off again. He frequented Vegas. He made a good chunk of money in the Black Hills of South Dakota. During Bike Week in Sturgis there’s quarter of a million people in the woods for a week, drinking and riding motorcycles. A real hootenanny, but with less folk music and more engines.
John doesn’t travel as much any more. Harder to do with a kid. His daughter is in high school now, already knows what she wants her first tattoo to be. It’s been her phone background image for the last two years, a sort of lotus. John figures 16 is a reasonable age to get it done.
I ask what he’s working on right now. I lean in over the tattoo bed he’s sketching on to see. It’s a crescent moon with lavender and willow flowers, a bee buzzing through it all. He’s drawing the tattoo six to eight inches in diameter though it probably won’t be any bigger than four to five inches. Easier to take away detail than add it in.
Josh, the final artist at Wanderlust, knows all about this. His personal tattoo designs are more abstract, geometric shapes. Like all of Wanderlusts’ tattoo artists, he has a genuine overall knowledge and will tailor to your wants. Stippling is his preferred form of shading; a grouping of small dots that feel like intense bee stings as opposed to the constant pressure of the average tattoo line. The end result is worth the extra pain. Josh originally noticed it online from tattoo artists overseas. A couple of shops in Barcelona, a couple in Germany. He appreciates other artists’ work but never directly copies them. This is an underlying rule of most accredited shops.
The tattooing community is small up here. Steve and Josh have known each other for a while, having apprenticed under the same artist. Before his apprenticeship, Josh worked at the seafood department of a Big Y in Northampton for six or seven years. If they hadn’t closed, he’d probably still be there. The way he talks about his art feels like he’s talking about his kids. “I love it,” he says. “I love art. Love the idea of putting something on somebody forever. It’s a very personal thing . . . kind of a part of you is in their life now. You know what I mean?”
Maria Myers is a Div Three student at Hampshire College. When she’s not haunting tattoo shops or low-dive bars looking for undiscovered blues singers, she’s interpreting reality through her writing.
