THE insistent, insectoid drone of the needle as it drives black pigment 3mm beneath the skin is the only sound in Partick tattoo studio Irezumi. The noise is relaxing, numbing even, though perhaps less so for Tony Inker, a 36-year-old microbiologist
who is having a Japanese demon tattooed on his right calf. Lying flat on the table, he pushes his head into his arms as Steven Wrigley, the tattoo artist, applies shading with a needle like a tiny fork.
Inker is used to it, though. "Soon, I'll be in happyland," he says. He's been getting tattoos for a decade, and has them on his arms, legs and sides. He is addicted and couldn't say how much he's spent beyond confirming it's a lot. "But I don't think about the money. It makes me happy. It makes me feel good." First there's the endorphin rush as the body deals with the pain. Then there's the delight in seeing himself transformed. "Anyway," says Wrigley, looking up from his work, "you don't ask fat people how much they've spent on cakes."
His point is that pleasure laughs at purse-strings. Wrigley is 39, his arms a writhing mass of colour. I spot a sexy pirate girl and the name of his wife, Lorna. He has a dragon on his stomach and a demon on his neck. He got his first tattoo at 18, a bird of paradise on his chest, and has been tattooing ever since. "I grew up in it," he says. He is the son of the late Terry Wrigley, a well-known artist, particularly in Glasgow where Terry's Tattoo Studio, now run by eldest son Stuart, is iconic among those who appreciate the gritty heritage of the city. Terry began his career in the 1950s, tattooing Blackpool tourists; in the off-season, he migrated to Manchester, inking thick-limbed millworkers. He moved to Glasgow in 1963 and set up in Parkhead. It could be tough, especially on match day when there was lots of fighting, but Terry loved it and decided to stay. He lives on through the work that adorns the arms of Glaswegians of a certain vintage.
Steven grew up regarding tattoos as the norm. "My mum and dad were covered in tattoos, and when his friends came round they were usually covered too. If somebody came to the house and they didn't have tattoos, that was quite odd. You'd be pulling their sleeve up, looking for them.
"I began going into the shop on a Sunday when I was about nine. It got me out of Sunday school. I would hang out and watch my dad work. It was fascinating."
His father offered classic tattoos of the sort that are now back in fashion – hearts, eagles, buxom broads, saltires, lions rampant and other patriotica. Wrigley recalls a skull with a dagger through it and the legend "Ma heid's nippin'". He looked at men's arms as his father worked, and all he could see was a big black mess. Then Terry would wash off the excess ink and the bold outline would be revealed. It was an enchantment. The shop, in which customers sometimes queued for hours, also had a rough magic – hot, busy and dramatic, grown-ups fainting with fatigue and fear, folk stoating in drunk and being stoated out again.
At 18, Wrigley began colouring in outlines drawn by his father, before graduating to full tattoos. He worked at this for a decade, until some kind of falling out. He hasn't spoken to his brother for years.
He set up Irezumi in 1999, specialising in traditional Japanese tattoos: intricate designs involving cherry blossom, peonies, koi carp and Noh masks. It can take three three-hour sittings to complete a "half-sleeve" – from shoulder to elbow – so most customers make appointments. On Saturdays, though, you can just walk in, and on those days the tattoo requests can be moving, offensive or downright absurd.
Wrigley said no to the man who wanted tattooed so it looked like a naked woman was embracing him. He said yes, though, to the woman who asked for a portrait of her husband sticking up two fingers with a joint held between them – apparently the man did it in every photograph so there was nothing else to work from. Now and then, someone asks for King Billy or another sectarian design, and Wrigley always declines. He also gave short shrift to the man who wanted "F*** the English" in really big letters down his forearm.
He never tattoos faces, and does necks and hands only if the client already has a number of tats. He sighs inside when someone wants a tattoo they saw on Jordan or Beckham. He also does "cover-ups", tattooing over the top of work the client dislikes. Sometimes, recognising the unwanted tattoo as the work of his father, he takes a photo for posterity.
People sometimes grit their teeth when they get tattooed; Wrigley bites his tongue -so as not to criticise the designs he gets asked for. "A lot of people believe tattoos have to mean something. All this about wanting three stars to represent your three children. If I hear that again, I'll scream."
Customers come in with yellowing photographs and ask for tattooed portraits of deceased family members, or a sailing ship because their father was in the navy, or an old-fashioned pocket watch set at the exact time their grandfather died. Maybe because intimacy and trust are built into the artist-client relationship, people seem anxious to confide their sadnesses. "But we aren't counsellors," says Wrigley. "We're not here to listen to your life story."
But even he was moved by the story of a man in his fifties who asked for a portrait of his late brother. The child had been run over by their father reversing out the drive one Christmas Eve many years before. The tattoo was completed by the words, "John, see you on the other side."
Wrigley has been tattooing for 21 years, has seen it all, and is as comfortable in Glasgow as a needle in an inkpot. "I have friends in Miami, and could work there. But why would I want to tattoo some young pole-dancer on South Beach when I could be sitting in Partick tattooing Tony here?" He grins, full of cheery irony. "Anyway, where in Florida would I get a Steak Bake?"
