People, Places and Things: Pretty in Ink

July 17 is designated National Tattoo Day. Earlier in July and with the holiday quickly approaching, I was asked to do a story on one of Downers Grove older institutions, Downers Grove Tattoo Co. Some scheduling snafus prevented me from conducting the interview in time for the holiday, but a story about tattooing has timeless appeal and so it follows...better late than never.

What I knew about tattoos going into this interview was pretty close to nothing. I knew that they’re permanent, and often times collectible…for many people it seems like just one or two aren’t enough. I also knew that a “tramp stamp” (a name of which I don’t particularly approve) is what’s on the girl riding on the back of the motorcycle in front of you.  And I knew that people get tattoos for a variety of reasons including a love of art, a form of self-expression, to commemorate a loved one, to celebrate a special occasion,  or because they got really drunk and/or lost a bet.

During the course of my interview with Ray Youngman, the owner of Downers Grove Tattoo Company, he peppered our conversation with a rhetorical “You know what I mean?” You can, without exception, insert my standard reply, “Ummm…no. I really don’t.” For instance, I don’t really know the difference between a good tattoo and a bad one, I don’t understand why getting tattoos is spiritual, and I can’t comprehend why people would get tattoos on body parts that are or should be covered by the most minimal clothing (By the way—apparently areas of the buttocks are very sensitive to pain)” Still, I believe to each his own, and some tattoos are very interesting if not attractive. Personally, I’m fickle and often times suffer buyer’s remorse, so having a tattoo wouldn’t be a reasonable consideration for me. And as an aging baby boomer, I worry about the evolution of a tattoo as the inevitable wrinkles set in. But perhaps that’s just me. In any case, I hope everyone had a happy, healthy and colorful National Tattoo Day.     

Downers Grove has the dubious distinction of having an abundance of tattoo shops. You’d think none or just one would be plenty but anyone driving down Ogden Avenue or doing a quick Google search knows we have more; some complimenting their tattoo offerings with body piercing services. Apparently though, not all tattoo shops are equal, and Downers Grove has the additional distinction of boasting one owned by a legend in the field. Downers Grove resident Ray Youngman has been a tattoo artist for more than 40 years. His shop opened in Downers Grove in 1985.  

“We were the first tattoo shop, we are the largest and we are internationally award winning artists. We have worked with all of the best and continue to work with the best throughout the world,” he said.

Youngman recalled that he first realized his artistic talents at the age of eight, when one of his drawings was published in a local newspaper. He recalled that ironically, it was a drawing of a “beatnik type artist” which Youngman noted, “kind of ended up being me.”  Growing up post World War II in Spokane, Wasg., Youngman said that he was attracted to  the “romance of the Pacific and sailors” and eventually to tattoos. As a kid, he said, he started drawing on some of his neighbors, and then progressed to using India ink and sewing needles and threads.

“I made a hand instrument that I could hand poke kids with,” he said.

Youngman’s father moved his family to the Chicago area in the mid 1960’s.

“This was like a playground for me. Everyone was cool. They were greasers and freaks and had bikes and hot rods and stuff like that. I saw this as the best place to grow up. That’s when I made my leap into the tattoo medium of art so to speak.” 

Youngman started doing electric tattoos in 1968.

Youngman is simultaneously amazed and disgusted by the dramatic growth of his industry. When he started inking, he said there were only about 35 tattoo artists nationwide. 

“Then by 1980 there were only 225 legitimate artists in this country.  Now there are about 225 in every neighborhood, in every kitchen and every basement, bastardizing the entire industry, wrecking it for all of the people who paved the roads who made it what it is today,” he said. “They’re doing it out of their houses, doing it out of their kitchens, they’re doing tattoo parties. You know they’re taking an industry that isn’t even theirs and wrecking it for the professionals that are in it. Because now the sh*t they’re doing is acceptable as ours. Do you know what I mean?”

Youngman said that he is a firm disbeliever in schooling and he doesn’t at all approve of apprenticeships. You either have the ability to be a tattoo artist, or you don’t, he said. 

"No one teaches protégés. Frank Zappa, Jimmy Hendrix didn’t go to guitar school. It was in them. You don’t go to school to become what you are. That’s kind of phony. If you have to go to school for something you shouldn’t do it. It’s not part of you. Do you know what I mean?” he said.

Since his foray into tattooing, the art form has become what Youngman said is “my whole soul. It’s like my whole being. I’m consumed by it. All of it. The whole scene. Seeing tattoos, doing them, rebuilding them, changing them. It’s all pretty exciting to me.” Youngman compared creating tattoos, to “creating someone’s dream.” 

“When working with a customer it’s like your souls are combined. I mean it’s almost a sexual thing. There’s a real intimacy thing involved, you know what I mean? And an innocence of relationship of yourself and God. That’s why most people do this.  Because they have to.  It’s something they have to do. It’s like an alcoholic. They don’t drink because they want to. They have to. You know what I mean?” 

People who get one or two tattoos, according to Youngman, do so to “show off”.  His own torso and presumably his nether regions are covered with tattoos, but his arms and calves are not. Consequently, you can only see his tattoos when his shirt is open or off. 

“You can’t see any of mine if I don’t want you to. Do you know what I mean?’ he said. “People who get only one or two never really had it. They didn’t get the one or two they had for the right reasons to begin with. It might have been a fluke or something. Why would you stop if it was you, you know what I mean?”

Youngman said that despite the fact that as much of his body is covered with tattoos as he’ll ever want, it’ll never be a finished project. 

“I’ll have some recolored or gone over. My old shells are just a backdrop for new stuff,” he said.