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It took Dutchess Lattimore nearly 20 years to discover that she possessed the skills to be a tattoo artist. The star of VH1’s hit reality series, Black Ink Crew thought she would get an “easy A” in college by registering for a drawing class. Unforeseen by her, the class would inspire her to leave behind an opportunity to work in marketing, at an architecture firm, to enter the world of needles and ink. The North Carolina native finds that a lack of access to arts education in communities of color leads many to potentially miss their own calling.
“Where I am from they took all the art programs out of public schools so I had no access to knowing I was talented in that area,” she said. “It wasn’t until college that I found something I really love.”
Stories like Dutchess’ are cited as one of the main reasons there exists underrepresentation of people of color within the tattoo and body art industry. Despite the cultural popularity of tattoos in the African-American community–from athletes (J.R. Smith) and rappers (The Game) to pop stars (Rihanna)–there are few documented licensed black artists. In fact, the statistics are near impossible to find on exactly how many black artists exist in this industry. TrueArtists, which calls itself “the largest association of certified tattoo artists in the world,” does not track ethnicity on its applications. And not one of the subjects interviewed for this article could identify a professional organization that focused on artists of color.
