Tattoo Me
THE JOY OF INK
STEVE MAZZUCCHI went from zero to 20 tats, fast, largely because he learned what all the fun was about
I SPENT MORE than three decades on this earth with nary a pixel of ink. Then one night, after one too many cocktails, I woke up with an anchor on my left forearm. I should explain: I was at an event with a free tattoo booth, it was the coolest classic piece of flash available, and, being something of an opportunist, I took the plunge. The next day, I had no regrets. The sting felt kinda good, the lines were strong, my reflection in the mirror looked about seven per cent more badass. I was hooked.
Over the next few years, I would wake up with another, and another, and now I have 20. After some other traditional staples – a nautical star, a swallow – I graduated to more creative stuff: nods to memories and passions that I could see playing nicely with other pieces, loosely interlocking like a jigsaw puzzle.
Twenty years ago, my level of needlework might have unfairly maligned me as someone’s caricature of a sailor or a punk-rock drummer. But these days, I’m hardly alone. The tattoo industry is already worth $1.2 billion and grew by 23.2 per cent between 2020 and 2021, according to IBISWorld analysts. From
