(energetic music) - Tattooing is a traditional custom that existed, seems like pretty much everywhere in North America.

- What attracts people to a place like Portland or to a place like Oregon, I think is also kind of what attracts people to tattoos.

There's a lot of killer tattooers that live in this town.

- You have to be right in the moment, and you're right in the moment with another person, too.

It's an interesting experience to have somebody trust you with that.

- For some people, they have said that it feels like their armor and a way to face the world.

- [Matthew] We're a destination.

People come here to get tattooed.

- I think the Northwest just has that spirit.

- People want to come here and be wild and free.

And that usually includes getting tattoos.

- I've always loved tattoos.

In a world that's always changing, it's bold to make a permanent mark.

And in Oregon, my home state, a lot of people are choosing to get inked.

More and more artists are getting licensed each year.

The number of licenses issued by the state has steadily increased year after year since 1996.

From 2019 to 2024, Oregon saw a 77% increase in the number of tattoo licenses at the state level.

I'm Francisca Benitez, and I wanted to know why?

What makes Oregon a tattoo hotspot?

What are the stories behind the tattoos?

Why are the people of Oregon tattoo people?

When talking about the history of tattoos in Oregon, it's important to recognize that tattoos are a lot older than Oregon.

Polynesian tattoo goes back at least 2,000 years.

And the body of a man with 61 tattoos was found frozen in the Italian Alps and dates back 5,300 years.

People have been tattooing throughout all of human history and all over the planet.

In Oregon, before colonization, the land was home to dozens of tribal communities who spoke 60 to 70 different languages and had diverse tattoo practices.

- I am of Miluk descent which is one of two Coos Bay bands.

I work on our tribe's languages, and since we're a confederation, we have three of them.

Xam is a word for tattoo marks.

And in Siuslaw Umpqua it's pishchii'i.

(uplifting music) This group of people from Coos Bay to Yaquina, they had the custom where after a girl's womanhood ceremony, over the course of several days, like, tattoo lines or dots on the back of their wrist and hand.

And these were supposed to symbolize that a woman would always have strong hands.

One of the absolutely universal tattoos, though, throughout the whole region was the money tattoo where they would put lines on their upper arm.

It was a way to measure dentalium strings because dentalium shells were used as a form of money.

Individual men and women, if they had dreamed something or just something had a lot of meaning to them, they might put a tattoo on their legs or a different kind of tattoo on their face.

People, of course, as people always are throughout time, are very inspired by nature.

So, we're very drawn to all our neighbors, the rest of the living world.

Who doesn't think butterflies are beautiful, right?

So, butterflies was one of the things that would be an inspiration, as well as ferns.

(river murmurs) When the first settlers came out here in the 19th century, they were a no tattoo people.

(chuckles) Along with another good long laundry list of nos.

You know, a lot of people went to boarding schools, and so maybe their parents or their grandparents had traditional tattoos.

After their boarding school experience, they never went through whatever ceremonies, life events, where they would've gotten a tattoo and the custom almost died out in a lot of communities around North America, this region included.

People didn't wanna stand out by speaking Native languages.

If you had visible tattoos, that would mark you.

And now we've finally reached a change where there isn't quite that intense social pressure.

And people say, "You know what?

These traditions, they're not bad and they're not embarrassing.

And, you know, we should take pride in them."

(dog barking) (tattoo machine buzzing) - I'm Wampanoag, Okanagan, and Ojibwe and Black.

Every tattoo has like a cultural tie of some kind, whether it's from the last 10 years to the last 2,000 years.

- This is maidenhair, which the black is used as black in our traditional baskets.

So, it's kind of like my basket making arm.

Reminds me of my sister.

(uplifting music) - For some people, they have said that it feels like their armor and a way to face the world.

We all are connected in some way to something, whether it's our local community and neighborhoods or the blood we're descended from.

I think a big reason why people get tattooed is to feel a part of something.

I started tattooing the first handful of tattoos when I was like 13.

I am in a long process of learning what I can about cultural tattoos and then my own tattooing in today's age.

But I do want to get a sense when tattooing people that they're honoring the work that they're getting for themselves.

And, like, understand what you're putting on your body.

And this goes for almost any type of tattoo.

These tattoos have deeper meanings that I'm not sure a lot of people understand or research.

I think that's also a big reason why like I go more into like cultural tattooing is to give them a connection to hopefully maybe deeper into where they are and where they come from.

- The period from about the 16th century to the mid 19th century is known as the Age of Sail.

After seeing Indigenous tattoo practices, sailors began hand poking tattoos of their own.

By the late 18th century, around a third of British and a fifth of American sailors had at least one tattoo.

- This one has a lot of magic in it.

I don't think there's been a tattoo that I haven't used this on in the last 15 years.

(curious music) We actually did a flash day with the Navy for their 250th anniversary here at the shop.

Portland has one of the longest running fleet weeks in the nation.

So, we've had sailors coming here for a long time.

Sailor tattoos are generally bold designs, crisp lines and simple color palettes.

It's timeless.

It's very American.

It's like Coca-Cola and Levi's, you know, they're just a part of our culture.

Sailors can be superstitious.

And so a lot of those tattoos they were getting was for good luck to keep them safe.

A pig and a rooster tattooed on your feet, that was to keep you from drowning.

And the theory behind that was, like, when, say, a ship went down in a heavy storm, the livestock that they would have on board would be in like wooden crates.

So, if the ship went down, the crates would come up with a pig and a rooster still in them and they would survive.

A blue nosed bear, which means that you've sailed up in Alaska in the North Pole.

A nautical star is a symbol of guiding your life true like a captain guides the ship by the stars.

For every 5,000 nautical miles, you can get a swallow tattooed on you.

A little bit of Portland, Portland is the city of roses, right?

So, an anchor means that you've crossed the Atlantic.

And we added a rose in there for Portland.

Portland and the West Coast in general is way more accepting of tattoos.

We're well known for having amazing tattooers here.

I think you can't tell the story of American tattooing without Bert Grimm, and Bert Grimm is from Portland.

- Let's talk about American tattoo legend, Bert Grimm.

- The legend of Bert Grimm.

- Bert was, you know, the grandfather of traditional American tattooing, or at least one of them, right?

- Bert was an artist, tattoo artist, that basically covered all over the United States and opened up shops everywhere.

He just needs to be up on the top with the rest of the known tattooers in our history.

So, I'm really honored to be a part of that legacy.

- According to this 1979 feature in The Daily Astorian, Grimm got his start in Sailor Gus and Charlie Western's Tattoo Shops in Portland when he was just 12 years old in 1912.

Bert, a fourth grade dropout, had an illustrious career that took him all over the world.

He spent a lot of time in St.

Louis and Long Beach, but he grew up in Oregon and he returned home to retire.

He told The Astorian, "Outside of selling papers and shining a few shoes, it's the only job I've ever had.

I couldn't live without it."

Grimm met his wife, Julia, in St.

Louis and married her in 1931.

In 1947, The Post reported that Grimm was considered one of the six best tattoo artists in the world.

- His style is just so crazy.

Like, the dude was, I wish I could go back and like watch him draw.

Like, the dude was so prolific.

I love how crazy he is.

You know, girls with like lopsided boobies and like seven fingers on one hand and then, like, you know, it's just the best.

- [Matthew] I'm sure in any tattoo shop, you could see something that was inspired by him or it was him.

And some people don't even know it sometimes.

His stuff is ubiquitous everywhere.

- Tattooed Bonnie and Clyde and Pretty Boy Floyd, supposedly, like, we believe him.

We believe those stories, right?

- Bert Grimm died June 15, 1985.

He and his wife were buried in Warrenton, Oregon.

Bert Grimm's tattoo shop in Portland is still open.

It's moved, burned down, and changed ownership, but its website still proudly declares it is the oldest tattoo shop in Oregon.

Bert Grimm turned the shop over to Don Deaton.

Don Deaton passed the torch to Skot Ramsay, who owns the shop today.

- I met Don just kind of walking into the shop, really.

He was like a time traveling, gunslinging, ninja wizard, grandpa type dude.

We sort of both felt like cartoonists stuck in tattoo world a little bit.

He was such a father figure and he was like a grandpa.

- I was a punk rocker kid just hanging out, listening to music and stuff, but I also started picking up jobs doing art for bands and doing flyers and just trying to make my way.

And then taking up Don's offer to be an apprentice.

He was such a crazy character.

An amazing illustrator.

Freehand tattoo artist.

Like, he was able to freehand anything on you.

He was a writer, an amazing storyteller, definitely one of those like charismatic people.

He was a ninja.

He was a karate expert.

He dressed up in pirate costumes, which just kind of brought more to the character of Sea Tramp itself.

- He really wanted to keep going.

People love Sea Tramp.

You know, it's been around a long time.

I really did feel like it should stay open.

And I think everybody else did, too.

It has like a weird magic where it really still feels like it's like early 2000s, '90s type stuff.

Kind of has this magical time machine type quality.

So, I think I still love that.

I don't know if I could do it another way at this point.

- [Mikki] It's just this archive of old tattoo designs and flash.

So many years of artists having come through and leaving their mark there.

- When it comes to tattoos, there's another reason Oregon is unique.

It's one of the most heavily regulated states in the nation.

In Oregon, artists must have a high school diploma or a GED, complete the required tattoo school curriculum, and practice hours to get licensed.

These tattoo schools cost thousands of dollars in tuition.

And in March 2026, Oregon became the second state to explicitly ban the use of topical numbing creams and sprays for artists.

- Not for the better.

There's tattoo schools that are, in some way, open the door for more people to get into it, but people aren't getting, I think, the best information.

- Oregon's regulations are different in that we have them.

A lot of states don't have regulations.

We have a health board, and so our licensing is through the Oregon Health Licensing Office.

I think the regulations have affected apprenticeships and that they're not done as much.

I think that's really important for our craft.

Oral history can be passed down by older tattooers to younger tattooers.

And I think that connection is something that's missing in Oregon because of the licensing program.

Not a lot of the history has been passed down.

It's all like oral traditions and stuff.

We don't have like a guidebook.

- Yeah, it needs to be rebooted.

Right now you've got people that are spending 10 to $20,000.

They get a license.

They're not getting taught how to really tattoo.

They're just getting taught to how to pass a test.

Maybe that's the last of their family's money and they go to invest it in this idea that they could be tattooers and then they're put out in the streets and they can't get a job.

We don't need the state to come in and regulate us, but there needs to be something that is changed with the state because it's just on a crash course to damage, you know?

- The history of tattooing in Oregon is generations deep.

Tattooing survived colonization.

Sailors formed a culture and a language of tattoos and brought it to the rest of the population.

Today, more and more people are honoring tattoo traditions or starting new ones of their own.

- I think we can come in through here and do a nice line.

Could come down further onto your hand and do some kind of design.

I'm a tattooer because I do love to draw and I do love to work with people.

The connections you can create with people are awesome.

The things that it does for people, they can start feeling like more of themselves by getting tattooed.

- Working in a street shop, you have to learn that there's more than just traditional.

There's like realism.

There's, you know, abstract.

There's everything on the wall you should be able to do.

It's a love-hate relationship.

As it's changed over the course of my career, there's been times when I didn't like it.

The art of tattooing has always brought me back just because the freedom of being able to express myself and then help other people express themselves is pretty rewarding.

The human connection part of it is really, really awesome.

- I think as I get older, I've been retreating into fantasy to escape my real world problems, you know, makes it a little easier.

(laughing) And yeah.

And I just love getting tattooed by Mikki, so.

I was like, give me the biggest one.

Give me the biggest Mikki piece.

Slowly but surely.

No, I love how it's coming out.

- I think it's really like connecting with people, which I think is probably the whole history of tattooing since the beginning of time.

To be able to help people with celebrating something or maybe in mourning.

And it's a permanent art form, but nothing's permanent, right?

Like, I'll joke with clients sometimes who are like, "Oh, it's on there forever."

And I was like, "No, just for when you're alive.

Not forever."

(laughing) - We're OPB.

Independent, nonprofit.

And yeah, a lot of us love tattoos.

We can only tell deep dive stories like this thanks to our members.

Learn about us at opb.org.