Black And Gray ... And Brown: A Tattoo Style's Chicano Roots
Tattoos are no longer taboo. According to a Harris poll, about half of American Millennials say they have at least one, and so do a third of Gen Xers. Once you have one, data show, you'll get more.
Today, an increasingly popular style of tattoo art, is called black and gray. Black and gray used to be referred to as joint-style or prison-style, because of its roots in penal institutions, where inmates made homemade machines from ballpoint pens, guitar strings, needles, and parts from old boom boxes. The machines had one needle. No color ink was available in lock up, so the ink was black. But if you watered it down, it turned gray.
Rather than the thick black outlines and bright colors of traditional-style tattoos, black and gray tattoos have finer lines and subtle shading. These days,
