Tattoo business leaves its (permanent) mark in age of free expression l

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Tattoo business leaves its (permanent) mark in age of free expression
October 4, 2010
By RUTH BAUM BIGUS
KansasCity.com

When Russell Gibson was doing his training in commercial art years ago at Wichita State University, he wasn’t planning on his primary canvas being people’s skin.

But that’s how it turned out for Gibson, who owns Skin Illustrations with his wife, Janis.

The Gibsons have two locations, in Overland Park and Lawrence. The Overland Park one, at 9954 W. 87th St., offers tattooing and body piercing. The Lawrence site, at 725 N. Second St., also offers hair-styling services. Annual revenues for the two locations total more than $500,000, the Gibsons said.

They got into the tattoo business in 1993 in Overland Park.

“My husband always had a passion for this,” Janis Gibson said. “After getting burned out from our other company — a marketing company — we put this together with our own financing. “

The couple started small.

“We were only going to be open a few days a week, and it just exploded,” she said. “We had to go to six days a week within about six months.”

Body piercing was added about the same time.

“The tattoo business was able to fund itself quickly, and we sold our marketing company,” Janis Bishop said.

The Kansas Board of Cosmetology regulates the tattoo industry, requiring all artists and establishments to be licensed and comply with sanitary rules.

The Gibsons are careful to follow them. Both facilities are licensed for tattooing and body piercing, and both Gibsons are registered as trainers.

“We do not reuse a needle, and we use an autoclave to sanitize our tools, elevating ourselves to hospital standards,” Janis Gibson said.

The Gibsons were determined to make their tattoo establishment different from the majority of shops they had seen over the years. Janis Gibson said most places they visited were dirty and smoky inside with unfriendly — even rude — employees.

“We wanted to be friendly, kind and courteous to our customers. That’s all we needed to be successful,” said Janis Gibson, “and give a fair price to our customers.”

Russell Gibson is a self-taught tattoo artist.

“He started on himself with a huge dragonfly on his leg,” Janis Gibson said.

He has refined his art. Today Russell Gibson has about 60 tattoos.

The Gibsons opened the Lawrence location in 1995, which Janis oversees, while Russell runs the show in Overland Park. The Lawrence store started downtown, “but parking was difficult,” she said. With a move in between, the Gibsons bought the building on Second Street, across the Kansas River from downtown Lawrence, and moved there a few years ago.

The Lawrence store has three tattoos artists and Overland Park two. When customers come into either shop, the first order of business is to pick a design of a flash, as it’s known in the industry. Skin Illustrations has about 1,000 designs from which to choose. Flowers are popular with women, and animals and lettering with men.

“Most customers want to combine ideas if they don’t bring their own in,” Janis Gibson said.

Pricing is determined by the size and detail of the flash, the amount of ink to be used, the time it takes for the design to be tattooed and what body part is used. At Skin Illustrations, prices start at $60.

“The average tattoo takes about two hours for a small one,” she said. “People usually don’t want to sit longer than five hours.”

Chris LaHue, one of the Lawrence artists, has been tattooing for almost 10 years. Over time, LaHue has seen a lot of customers, including such well-known University of Kansas basketball players as Sherron Collins, Tyshawn Taylor and the Morris brothers, Marcus and Markieff, as well as some football players.

“Anywhere they go they’ve got people pointing out who they are,” LaHue said. “I just try to let them be them. It does bring some … business to me and the shop.”

About 60 percent of Skin Illustrations’ business comes from the tattoo side. It is extremely popular at the Lawrence location.

“You can tell when basketball season is over, because they’re all in here getting tattoos,” Janis Bishop said of the KU players.

When the Gibsons added hair styling to their business mix in Lawrence, it proved to be challenging.

“We thought we could just hire stylists and manage their appointments,” she said. “But we were always losing someone and having to find another stylist.”

To fix the problem, Janis went back to cosmetology school to be trained as a stylist. Having finished her training, she is now available to do hair and fill in when another stylist is gone.

The Gibsons have marketed their business using the “Hot Sheet” newsletter, online resources, radio and the Lawrence newspaper.

“Word of mouth has been our best advertisement,” she said.

Over the years Janis Gibson has seen the tattoo industry change.

“The inks and pigments are much brighter and last longer today,” she said. “And there are more women getting tattooed — people we would never had gotten before. We had an 85-year-old grandmother come in on her birthday to get tattooed.

“You wouldn’t believe what some people have.”

SKIN ILLUSTRATIONS

9954 W. 87th St., Overland Park; 913-642-7464

725 N. Second St., Lawrence; 785-841-8287