You can’t judge a book by its cover and you can’t judge a person by their ink.
The stigma surrounding tattoos is on a constant decline as events like the Calgary Tattoo and Arts Festival continue to normalize seeing ink in the workplace.
Nearly three out of four employers say they don’t mind hiring people with tattoos.
“The tattoos — they don’t reflect how you are as a worker or how you are as a human being,” said tattoo artist Marissa Froning. “Just because you like to decorate yourself and have this art on you.
“Even artists I was surrounded by were like, ‘That’s a job stopper,’” said Froning. “But I haven’t really noticed that.”
The Calgary Tattoo and Arts Festival was held from Oct. 13-17 at the BMO Centre and invited over 650 local and international artists to the festival — really displaying the growth of tattoo normalcy in the country and around the world. For 20 years, the festival has been an initiative to gather tattoo lovers from all places to celebrate body art.
With it being the second time attending the festival, Froning was eager to see people getting more than just their arms tattooed.
“There is that old tattoo viewpoint of before you get your hands done you need to have lots of like tattoos on your arms and you can’t get your neck done and all this stuff,” she said.
“I try not to be too harsh on that depending on the design of like a hand tattoo, just because I got my hands done really early.”
Tattoo artist at Royal Tattoo and Atticus Tattoo, Kuljeet Bambrah, never thought this would be his career path two years ago after getting laid off during the pandemic. Anything black and grey realism will immediately spark his attention.
“Literally anything realism that pops up I’m like, ‘Yeah, I’m doing it.’ I don’t care what it is — it’s just the process of it is very enjoyable. You got to be very patient to do something like that,” he said.
“It’s like a reward at the end.”
Now working at Mockingbird Tattoos, Froning has grown exponentially as an artist since her first year in the industry — getting tattoos that only a few years ago would make a customer-facing job candidate less hireable.
“In my first year of tattooing, I ended up getting a lot more [tattoos] and I got both my hands done and that was kind of like a big one for me,” she said.
“I’ve never really felt like somebody has looked out on me for the tattoos unless it’s like an older generation that has like more traditional values.”
Although Froning hasn’t been faced with tattoo taboos during her time as an artist, other tattoo artists like Bambrah don’t believe the stigma has completely vanished yet.
“It is a thing where neck tattoos, face tattoos, hand tattoos, anything that’s visible outside of like corporate dress code isn’t really accepted, but people still try and get them,” he said.
“It’s a ‘play with the devil’ kind of thing.”
Tattoo regret can be very common, especially among younger people. Bambrah recommends to those new to getting ink done to start small.
“I get a lot of first-timers,” said Bambrah. “Some of them go big right off the bat — start small, feel it out, see how you like it.”
While tattoo taboos haven’t stopped Froning from following her passion — a passion which also stems from the pandemic, like Bambrah — she remains aware of the luck she’s had while doing what she loves. She also is grateful for events like the tattoo festival which have brought awareness to the amount of people around in the community who enjoy getting tattooed as a form of expression.
“I like, often get told that I’m really lucky that I’m in this generation of tattooing just for the reason that if I did want to branch off into something different, I would still be able to.”
The decline of tattoo stigma in the workplace continues to prevail and Froning hopes that a more relaxed approach is taken to the process of getting ink.
“Don’t take it too, too seriously,” she said.
“It’s on you forever but it’s not like it can’t be changed or evolved into something new as you grow as a person.”
Check out the Shorthand version here.
