Laura Craver stroked blue and green ink into a tattoo on a recent Friday that holds a lot of meaning for her client, Alex Johnson. The piece covers the bulk of his upper arm and is split into several sections, each representing memories from his 20 year relationship with his husband.
The design includes a sequoia tree the two got married in, a scene from where they first met, and their adventure paddling the Yukon River. It’s a years-long work in progress. He’s built a friendship with Craver, and said their connection keeps him coming back.
“It's a very vulnerable act to get a tattoo,” Johnson said. “To do it with someone who makes you feel comfortable, makes you feel safe, and makes you feel beautiful, like that's a really incredible gift.”
If you wanted to get a tattoo in Anchorage a few decades ago, you likely visited a male owned shop. But that’s changing. Now, female tattoo artists are easy to find in the state’s largest city, and customers say female tattooers tend to create welcoming environments that make them feel at home.
The Alaska Board of Barbers and Hairdressers, which licenses tattoo artists in the state, doesn’t keep statistics on gender. But anecdotally, tattoo artists in Anchorage say the number of female owned and operated studios in the city is on the rise.
Craver has worked in the industry for over a decade. She said she decided to open Brightside Tattoo in 2022 because she wanted a space that felt different than the average studio, one where she could curate an experience for clients and felt safe for all identities.
“All we want to do is just make people happy. Everybody who comes in the door is excited to be here, and so we want them to have this really fun and comfortable experience,” she said.
The baby pink walls are covered in sheets of tattoo designs, traditional Alaska Native artwork and framed pinned insects.
Four artists share the studio in South Anchorage and they’re known for bringing their identity to their tattooing. Brightside prioritizes hiring women, BIPOC, and queer artists, Craver said, because they can face additional hurdles in the male-dominated industry.
The studio attracts clients who want to see themselves represented in their artist, she said, and in the art they create.
“I think that there are a lot of our clients who very specifically only feel comfortable being tattooed by a woman or by a queer person or by a person of color,” she said. “They specifically gravitate towards this space because they know that that is what they're going to have access to.”
Elizabeth Gittlein opened The Coven for similar reasons. She wanted a studio that was relaxed and client-centric.
“People can walk into this space and know that it's time for them. It's not my space. These four walls can be anything that you need it to be, and I'm just here as a facilitator for that,” she said.
Gittlein’s designs focus on nature and life cycles. They include lots of mushrooms and are often tattooed on intimate parts of the body. Getting tattooed in an intimate spot is powerful and she said it often makes customers feel more confident and beautiful.
The majority of her clients are mothers and queer people, she said, who often give her creative freedom.
“That results in the best art when we can really collaborate in that way, and someone can provide a canvas and a story, and then I can transmute that into art that they can wear. That's like, chef's kiss, most perfect combination ever,” she said.
The Coven will host flash days for Friday the 13th and to celebrate Pride Month, along with a walk-in day at the end of June. Flash days are events where clients can choose from pre-drawn tattoo designs at set prices.
An overwhelming majority of parlors in Anchorage were owned by men when Gittlein started tattooing in 2019, but things have changed.
Debra Yarian agrees. She grew up an aspiring artist in New York City drawing with dry mediums— charcoal, pencils and pastels. She opened Eagle River Tattoo in 2008 with her husband Don Yarian.
Women tattooing, and wearing the art itself, was seen as immoral when she started almost half a century ago, she said. But that stigma has faded, which means more people want tattoos.
“Society’s perception has changed. It has gone a totally different way. I mean, now everyone is tattooed,” Yarian said.
The number of Americans with tattoos has more than doubled over the last 25 years, according to data from National Geographic and the PEW Research Center.
It’s not just machine tattooing seeing a shift. There are a growing number of female traditional tattooers in Alaska, said Holly Mititquq Nordlum, an Inuit tattoo artist from Kotzebue. She started traditional tattooing about a decade ago, when she struggled to find a female artist.
“I really couldn't find anything that suited what was most traditional, which is like women for women. It really wasn't happening in Alaska at the time,” she said.
Now, she said there are eight Inuit tattooers, mostly women, spread across the state in Anchorage, Cordova and Utqiagvik.
Instead of a buzzing machine, Inuit tattooing uses hand-stitching and hand-poking techniques.
Women make up the majority of Nordlum’s customer base. She particularly enjoys tattooing generations of women- grandmothers, their daughters and granddaughters. There are a lot of reasons people come to her for tattoos, she said, many centered around culture.
“I would say 80% of the girls who come in wonder if they're Inuit enough or native enough to wear the markings, because they've been so colonized that they feel like they're not enough on either side,” she said. “I deal with a lot of identity crises, and I think that's where the magic happens.”
At Eagle River Tattoo, Yarian said she’s worked to create a safe space for women tattooers and clients. And that mindset has taken over the industry in Anchorage, she says.
“We're fortunate that a lot of studios here are pretty inclusive and safe places for all people,” Yarian said.
She encourages tattoo artists to build a relationship with their clients- to make sure they feel comfortable, and safe.
