Under The Skin

How tattoos illuminate a connection between an artist and soul

Story and podcast by SAMUEL BIEHN

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Chris Murphy’s tattoo studio in Chameleon Ink is flooded with images of his past work. Different sketches of previous pieces and designs are hung on the white walls, directly behind the tattoo bed he sets up for his clients.

“Surrounding yourself with artwork, and especially the work that you’ve done, serves as a good reminder of technique and what you’ve done in the past,” Murphy said.

I walk in and take a seat, looking at the back wall covered with drawings. Each one different from the last, but all contain the same detailed line work. On the right, a design of Rocket Raccoon from “Guardians of the Galaxy.” On the left, an array of floral arrangements.

Below the drawings sits a boomerang and a framed picture of artwork from Australia, where Murphy was born.

The environment feels like a home, lived in, a space where family gets together. This is a place where people come to meet and talk about their everyday lives, challenges and struggles.

Murphy stands in the center of the space and begins to set up his equipment for the job. One step after the next, each part is performed meticulously. He pours the blue and white ink into separate containers and makes sure the needle for the tattoo machine looks just right.

Murphy, in a black shirt and black jeans with tattoos on his arms and neck, has a calming presence. His voice is a soothing narrator in an otherwise stressful environment.

Sitting in the studio, I felt at ease.

While setting up, Murphy sprays down the paper towels with strong-smelling alcohol cleansing materials. This solution is used to wipe down and disinfect punctured skin.

The smell is strong, but familiar. I’ve gotten tattoos before, so the process isn’t one that’s new to me. Even though it’s familiar, today is a new experience.

I’ve never sat in on another person’s tattoo appointment, and in my head I wonder if the person who came through that door and into the studio would be comfortable with me being there at all, in a moment that seemed better spent in private.

Then, Angela Pommarane steps through the curtain.

She’s covered in tattoos that stretch from her chest to her arms. Wearing a big smile, she and Murphy reconnect like old siblings seeing each other for the first time in years. Having driven up the highway from the Oregon coast, she’s come a long way to sit in that chair.

Pommarane is one of Murphy’s longtime clients, as the two have known each other for three years.

She exudes a certain kind of loving spirit, one I quickly connected with. Her colorful artwork and buzzed haircut drawing me in, it felt as if I had known her for years.

She’s open, confident and willing to show off Murphy’s artwork, letting each piece tell its own story.

A ghastly demon figure comes alive on her upper left arm. On the other, a portrait of her mother and below, a blue and white tiger.

“All I have to do is tell him what [the piece] means to me, and he can come up with the art,” Pommarane said.

Pommarane shows me her left forearm displaying a dark rose, with grey accents on the petals and dashes of red scattered along the design of the stem. It looks bloody, like the flower stabbed someone in the heart.

“It’s like a love I can’t have,” Pommarane said. “This person in my life that I’m in love with, I’ll be in love with forever but I can’t ever be with this person, so it rips out my soul.”

Murphy has an emotional connection with his art, one that dates back to when he displayed his early paintings in an art showroom.

Before tattoos, Murphy often spent long periods of time working on a variety of pieces, becoming personally invested in the art he created.

“They were like my babies,” Murphy said. “I just had all these emotions about the paintings themselves and poured myself out onto this canvas.”

A lot of his work was abstract painting, which tended to be influenced by his own experiences.

“I wasn’t really trying to paint anything,” Murphy said. “It’s just flat out color theory. It’s putting down raw emotions and what was going through my head at the time, and it’s not for anybody else, it’s just for me.”

After selling the pieces, Murphy felt like he was losing something close to him. Something was lacking for him in that environment.

“There’s no relationship there,” Murphy said. “Your work is just gone suddenly.”

Tattoos for Murphy, in that case, were a step in a different direction.

“I still get to do my art, but there’s a story there,” Murphy said. “And I am giving away a part of myself, but it’s going onto somebody else and they’re taking it with them.”

Today, Pommarane is continuing her story in ink. She’s getting a piece touched up on her hand, a blue and white blooming rose.

She gets settled onto the bed and relaxes with her hand out toward Murphy, placing it on a raised black cushion. Murphy begins to shave her hand, and then wipes down the skin with the cleansing solution.

The persistent, light buzz of the tattoo machine begins, and the needles of the machine finally go under Pommarane’s skin.

“I would describe it as kind of like if you were getting scratched by a blackberry bush or something,” Pommarane said. “If you were walking through a blackberry bush and you just got scratched, but that’s happening continually.”

It surprises me how comfortable and relaxed Pommarane seems. I figured she would be trying to avoid discussion with me, but it ended up being the polar opposite.

After watching curiously as Murphy touches up her flower, shading the petals with blue accents, Pommarane talks about what the piece means to her.

“I have a lot of scars on this hand,” Pommarane said. “This hand was the first hand I used to cut on when I was 14. So this piece for me was kind of like a closure of one chapter and the beginning of another.”

It’s the connection with art and real life experiences that continue to pull Murphy in.

There’s a feeling of vulnerability here in this space you can sense in the air, amongst the artwork, the mirror and various posters.

Soon enough, that buzz of the tattoo machine becomes calming. The presence of each of the factors here, in this room, are more welcoming than intimidating.

For Murphy, art has long been the outlet to get more in touch with himself and how he was feeling. Those emotions would come out in some of Murphy’s earlier works.

It came out in different ways — a reflection of different experiences he was going through at a certain time, good and bad.

“It’s not all angst as an artist,” Murphy said. “Some of those paintings came from some of the best times that I had here in Bellingham as a painter.”

Rather, it was a multitude of experiences that found their way into Murphy’s artwork.

“Some of that [emotion] was a reflection of just this whirlwind of meeting new people and seeing new ideas,” Murphy said. “And others was the frustration of living with other family, and [from] being a father, and being a husband, and pressures from work.”

To help support his family, Murphy had to take up jobs outside of art, to do what he could to provide. He was always drawing, but he also was in the Navy and worked in retail before breaking into ink.

Throughout whatever job he had, Murphy said he was still incorporating artwork. That includes working with Crystal Mountain Resort, creating art for calendars and greeting cards, children’s books and writers.

Eventually that path got him to tattooing, which reignited something that was missing in his previous endeavors.

“I needed something visceral to bring me present and wake me up,” Murphy said. “You get into that lull of nine to five and it’s easy to kind of watch months or years go by and you’re not really doing anything.”

And after walking into a tattoo shop in Bellingham to get a piercing, Murphy realized the next step in his artistic endeavors was becoming a tattoo artist.

“All of a sudden I’m starting to put two and two together,” Murphy said. “And I’m like, ‘This could be an out, this could be something I could do and explore and see if I’m good at.’”

Now he’s here tattooing professionally at Chameleon Ink.

And turns out, he’s pretty good at it. At least if you’re taking Pommarane’s word.

“The compliments I get on my artwork just gives me goosebumps,” Pommarane said.

Even though the work for Pommarane is only a touch-up to a piece he completed for her in the past, there still seems to be a connection that builds between the two.

“I’m very comfortable,” Pommarane said. “It is kind of like a therapy session, for me, even if we don’t talk.”

As Murphy continues to work on Pommarane’s tattoo, one thing becomes clear to me.

Tattooing, here, in Murphy’s studio, is something personal. An extension not just of creative expression, but an ability for different people to connect with one another.

It’s something Murphy said is practically tradition not only in tattooing, but also in humanity.

“That goes back tens of thousands of years,” Murphy said. “We’ve been marking each other in one way or another, tattooing, for as long as we’ve been around. And for kind of the same reasons. It’s such a human experience.”

Human. Natural.

These are words I associate with the tattoo appointment I was a part of with both Murphy and Pommarane. Somehow, even the tattooing itself took a backseat to the stories behind the art.

The shared experience between tattoo artist and client has resulted in new relationships for Murphy.

“The great majority of people that I’ve tattooed I’m still good acquaintances with,” Murphy said. “Some have become fantastic friends. It’s just been amazing.”

As the session continues, and as a person with tattoos myself, I feel a connection with both Murphy and Pommarane. Maybe not the same one they share, but one that has been bolstered throughout the duration of the appointment.

And maybe that’s the point — to go beyond looking at someone’s artwork and have a sense of empathy for where they came from and the personal experiences that fuel each piece.

It’s what Murphy has helped do for Pommarane. Tell more of her own story, through his artwork.

“There is a difference between coming into a tattoo shop and getting a tattoo and then coming into a tattoo shop and creating a relationship with a tattoo artist,” Pommarane said. “This is something that you have for the rest of your life. This experience, it never goes away.”

For Murphy, tattooing has fulfilled something in his artistic career that might not have been achieved otherwise.

“It’s just so much more personal,” Murphy said. “And that was like the missing element, that’s one thing I don’t look back at the galleries scene and miss at all. This was the missing part.”

Soon enough, we get to the end of the tattoo appointment. The shading and the touch-ups are about to be finished, but Pommarane leaves me with a point I now find difficult to refute.

“Everybody comes into your life for a reason,” Pommarane said. “Even chance encounters just like this. There’s a reason that we’re here today. Whatever that reason may be for you, you’re welcome.”

The reason, for me, may have just been to see the connection between artwork and the building of unforgettable relationships. With that, I’d say everything came full circle.