Girl Tattoo – Kat Von D, Tattoo Artist: Love, Ink and Rock n’ Roll

Tattoo artist Kat Von D has woven herself into pop culture consciousness while managing to attract those who exist on its fringe. Rock stars want to be her and clean cut housewives live vicariously through her. According to Kat herself, some of the most unlikely of viewers fervently tune in to her hit show, LA Ink, which chronicles her life and work as one of the world’s most celebrated tattoo artists. She knows this because they approach her on the street (and in the supermarket) asking for anecdotes about the many tattoos that adorn her highly decorated body, a body that was recently included in this year’s Maxim Hot 100.

At the age of twenty-six, Kat Von D is emerging as a full fledged brand and an icon for her lifestyle. She is reveling in the mainstreaming of tattoos and her contribution to what she considers a movement towards appreciation and acceptance of her type of self expression.

As an accidental celebrity who has been tattooing since the age of fourteen, Kat is humbled and amused by all of the attention LA Ink has brought her. Whenever I pose a question about her recent fame, she always deflects any notion of self importance and steers the conversation back to the art of tattooing; in fact, art in general. This impresses me.

During our conversation I find her to be part California love child, part punk rocker and part twenty-first century renaissance impresario. Kat’s demeanor is warm and disarming. She is genuinely sweet with a raspy voice and a propensity for speaking fast, with almost childlike enthusiasm. Most importantly, she tackled all of my questions head-on, like a linebacker in heat.

PR.com (Allison Kugel): Did you just start shooting the third season of LA Ink?

Kat Von D: Yeah, actually we just started two days ago. It’s kind of weird because we took a really long break. The first day of filming I was staring into the camera, like, ten times during an interview. It was weird, like, “Oh, I’ve gotta get used to this again.”

PR.com: What kinds of changes will there be in the third season of LA Ink, considering the way your company, High Voltage Tattoo, is evolving?

Kat Von D: If you saw the second season, I lost my main shop manager, Pixie, so I think it will be pretty apparent that I need help because so many things are growing, and so many things are happening. My team grew to be about ten tattooers. So, there’s a night crew and a day crew, and trying to manage that as well as all my projects that I have outside of tattooing, it’s kind of impossible without any help. I actually bring on a new cast member, a new shop manager. I’m pretty excited to introduce her. She’s been a good friend of mine for a long time.

PR.com: When you’re running a business and it’s also a television show, how much that we see is produced, and how much of it is a true documentary of what actually goes on?

Kat Von D: I think it’s pretty close to the truth from 9 to 9PM, because that’s when we film. It would be crazy to have the entire camera crew for 24 hours straight. Also I want to be open to the public at one point. When we do film for the three to four months we’re open from 9 to midnight and that’s when a lot of the crazy stuff happens too, and we miss some of those moments. It takes about a week to film a one hour episode. So, what the viewers get to see is a dwindled down [version]. They take the important story stuff and make a one hour episode out of it. So, you see the edited version and you miss out on the lengthier part of the process. But, it’s pretty close to true.

PR.com: You grew up in California. How did you wind up several years ago working in Miami, and how did the show Miami Ink first come together with TLC?

Kat Von D: It was interesting because at the time, before Miami [Ink], there really hadn’t been any tattoo shows. I was working at a shop in Hollywood for two of these guys and one of the guys was Chris Garver. I remember it was like, “Oh yeah, Chris is off to Miami filming some kind of pilot,” and I’m like, “What’s a pilot?” (Laughs) And I’m like, “For a tattoo show!?! That’s so boring!” I didn’t understand what it was going to be about, because all it is, is us sitting down with the, “raah, raah, raah, raah (imitating the buzzing noise of a tattoo needle).” You know what I mean? It’s just that buzzing noise. I didn’t understand the premise until the show actually came out. It was more based on the story behind each tattoo and the dynamics between the client and the [artist]. It was all guys and the network finally said, “We want a female. There’s too much testosterone.” Chris Garver called me and said, “Hey, we all want you to come down.” There’s not that many tattoo artists that are girls and that are also cool and don’t get offended, and who are actually good and have been tattooing a long time. The network approved me and I flew down there.

PR.com: How did you like living in Miami?

Kat Von D: I was there on the weekdays and then I would fly home on the weekends, so I never actually lived there. It was definitely a different vibe than L.A. I’m so used to living in Hollywood where it’s totally not a big deal to be tattooed. To be separated from that and put in South Beach, I got a lot of weird looks in a bathing suit (laughs). There was friction between myself and some of the other cast members. It didn’t end up pretty, and it was time for me to go home.

PR.com: Why do you think it appealed to TLC to want to do a show about tattoo artists in the first place?

Kat Von D: I think the age demographic thing was important, and TLC doing a lot more younger viewer friendly shows. I honestly believe nobody really knew how big it would get and how interested people would be. Once the show aired it was crazy! People loved it. It’s kind of like a car crash. People that would never get tattoos were tuning in because they could kind of live through either us or a client. Believe it or not, grandmas and soccer moms come up to me and say, “I love your show!”

PR.com: (Laughs) I guess they get to live vicariously through you. Before you were famous, had you encountered prejudice from people who would see your outward appearance and judge you, or treat you in a certain way because you’re heavily tattooed?

Kat Von D: Oh, most definitely. Four or five years ago going into a Dior store or, you know, you felt like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman (laughs). People would stare, and it wasn’t because they were curious. Going to the mall was pretty hard. I think for a female especially, because it’s so much gnarlier than [on] a guy. On a guy it’s like, “Oh, he’s a wild one.” If it’s a girl it’s all the bad stigmas. You’re a hooker, you’re a drug addict, you were in jail (laughs). It was actually kind of fun, because I consider myself to be a pretty smart person and you talk to people and they’re like, “Wow! You actually have a brain!” Or, “You’re actually kind of nice and pretty conservative!”

PR.com: What is it about tattoos that you love so much, where you don’t mind having your skin almost completely covered?

Kat Von D: It’s a form of self expression. I’d been listening to music on my own without my parents input since I was twelve, and getting into the punk rock scene. It just really gave me the attitude where I don’t get tattooed for anybody else but me. I didn’t do this as an attention seeking act of rebelling. It was more, I actually just like this and I want to get tattooed, and I want it so much that I don’t care if other people treat me differently. If they do then they’re probably the people that I don’t want to hang out with, so it kind of filtered it out. But, now it’s backfired, because people really like the show and even people who haven’t watched it are indirectly affected, and they become more open minded. So, they come up to me and ask me about my tattoos. Now I have to constantly talk about my tattoos, like… at the grocery store. I’m not complaining, but before it wasn’t like that.

PR.com: Who does your tattoos? You can’t do them yourself, can you?

Kat Von D: No. I used to do it myself when I was a kid, practicing, but not anymore. It’s too hard for me to concentrate. I’ve collected them from over thirty or forty different artists from around the world.

PR.com: Did you ever foresee yourself being a television personality or a celebrity when you began tattooing?

Kat Von D: Fuck, no (laughs)! When I first started tattooing I didn’t even know it was a job. I did it because I loved it. I think that attitude helps keep me grounded, because some of the friction that happened in Miami (on the show Miami Ink) was due to the fact that people got a little too big for their britches and just started losing focus about what it is you do. I’m a tattooer. I’ve made a choice to document my career on TV. I know there’s good and bad things that come with it. I tattoo everyday and that’s why my voice is fucked up (explaining her hoarseness). I filmed yesterday from 9AM to 9PM. Then from 9PM to about 1:30AM last night, I tattooed.