When Jeremy Corns started tattooing in the early 2000s, it was a hard skill to learn.
"All your references were magazines, even books," he says. "Information was really hard to find. It was still a very word-of-mouth, handed-down trade at that time."
Despite the excess of internet searches and social media posts available today, Corns still thinks tattooing is a career worthy of time, education and hard-earned respect.
Corns and his wife are owners of Anchored Art Tattoo, a high-end tattoo parlor with locations on the east end of downtown Spokane and the South Hill. Since it first opened in 2011, the business has become a magnet for artists and clients from all over the world. The shop's high-quality tattoos are a direct result of its artists' deep knowledge of tattoo history and their dedication to preserving and improving the tradition carefully handed down to them.
"Tattoos are popular. Yes, they're cool. And yes, they have a place in modern society and popular culture nowadays," Corns says. "But you will never understand the gravity of tattooing until you do a memorial tattoo on somebody who has lost somebody that means the world to them. That's what I mean by 'tattooing is serious.' You should really have respect for what you're doing. And if you don't, maybe you don't have any self-respect."
Corns is well-groomed and poised, compassionate and controlled. He can easily discuss many luminaries from the past century of tattooing, from Charlie Cartwright, a 1960s Los Angeles artist nicknamed "Good Time Charlie" who's considered the godfather of modern black-and-gray tattoos, to Don Ed Hardy's years studying with Japanese masters in the '70s, to the early 2000s which Corns considers the start of the "modern tattoo renaissance."
Corns says he holds his shop to a global standard. He's constantly exchanging ideas at tattoo conventions across the world, and then inviting international artists to come guest spot in Spokane. Recently, artists from Las Vegas, Spain and Poland have taken him up on his offer. Coveted apprenticeships at Anchored Art take years, because that's how long it takes to teach some of what Corns knows. His intense drive attracts other artists who also want to dedicate their entire lives to improving their craft.
The whole point of all this is providing the best experience and tattoo for the client. Tattoos have always been deeply entwined with identity, Corns says, and that's not something to disrespect.
"A tattoo can make or break someone's self-confidence," he says. "That's extremely important to understand when you come into tattooing. You should be focused on quality. You should be focused on trying to provide a good customer experience and take care of your client while they're with you."
If a tattoo parlor is focused on experience above everything else, it will always be a place for everyone, Corns says, regardless of politics, gender, class or religion. The only person he won't work on? Someone with a bad attitude.
"Just have a good attitude, get a good tattoo, give a good tattoo, and everybody wins," Corns says. "There's a [tattoo artist] named Mark Mahoney who coined the phrase 'where the elite and the underground meet.' That is in tattoo shops."
That means tattoo history is helpful not only for understanding the craft, but for understanding all kinds of people, places, cultures and religions. To help preserve and share that history, Anchored Art is donating to the first ever accredited tattoo museum in Long Beach, California, which was initiated by the Tattoo Heritage Project. The museum hopes to trace the history of both ancient and electric tattooing. Not only does it catalog a history previously considered taboo, but it places tattoos on the same pedestal that paintings, drawings, sculptures and other fine art have enjoyed for centuries.
By supporting the museum, Anchored Art is putting its money where its mouth is to "leave tattooing better than you found it," as Corns says. Corns even preserves history with his own body — the black letters "GTC" are on the inside of his right hand, tattooed by Good Time Charlie himself when the godfather was 83 years old. It's a constant reminder of the tradition Corns has been entrusted with.
"The way Charlie says it is, cavemen have been fascinated with tattoos since the first guy turned and poked somebody with a burnt stick," Corns says.
But the artform has come a long way since then, and there's always more to learn.
"It's a lot more than just grabbing a tattoo machine and putting a mark on the skin," he says. "It's so much more than that."♦
CORRECTION: As of May 10, this story has been updated to correct the timing of Corns' initial start in tattooing, which was the early 2000s.
