Zephyrique Ereth, of Minot, watches while Bill DeNovio does a custom-designed tattoo on her left hand.

Ereth is getting a tattoo that includes the time of her daughter’s birth. DeNovio, with 2D Ink in Minot, has been a tattoo artist for six years.

Tattoos are artwork. About two generations ago, tattoos were mostly limited to sailors, bikers and carnival workers. Today, many people of all types of work and professions as well as students have at least one tattoo around one-quarter or more of the population between 18-50, according to one survey.

Tattoos go back thousands of years ago when people had designs added to their bodies. In later times sailors’ tattoos can be traced back as far as the 1700s when British explorer Capt. James Cook sailed and came across the Maori people in the South Pacific. His crew got tattoos as a memento of their visit.

Jordan Ross owns 2D Ink and is one of four tattoo artists at the downtown Minot business. They also do extensive fine art painting and sell prints at the business. Besides Ross and DeNovio, Chris Ross and Suanne Galloway are tattoo artists at 2D Ink.

Their primary customers for tattoos are from 18 to 35 years old, said Ross. Anyone under 18 must have consent of both parents.

The tattoo artists said an 85-year-old woman and an 87-year-old woman have the record for being the oldest persons to get tattoos at 2D Ink.

People get tattoos for a variety of reasons.

“It’s the same thing as wearing anything flashy. You’re wearing a tattoo, you’re wearing a nice piece of jewelry. It’s more functional art basically,” Ross said.

Ross said he learned the art of tattooing as an apprentice in Austin, Texas. Other tattoo artists in the shop also have been apprentices. He said tattoo schools are rare and there are none in North Dakota.

“I always did art and it feeds my family,” said Ross, explaining why he got involved in tattooing. “Starving artists is a term that is pretty real as far as art goes. It’s hard to pay the bills by painting. You can do wonderful paintings and you still don’t put food on the table. It’s very rare.”

Indicating a photo on the wall, Ross said a friend of his in the photo came up with the name 2D Ink for the business now at 23 2nd Avenue SE. “We stuck with that name,” he said.

Quality is a priority at 2D Ink, Ross said. “We mingle with the best in the U.S. and hang out with the best in the U.S. and tattoo by the best in the West,” he said. He said two world recognized artists come to the shop in a guest capacity to work for a short period of time. “That’s very rare for this state especially the quality of artists that come here,” he said.

The First District Health Unit in Minot oversees the tattoo businesses and tattoo artists in the area.

When it comes to popular tattoos for their customers in this area, the tattoo artists said dreamcatchers are are quite popular.

“There’s not one reason why one person gets something. Just like everything else, everything’s different,” Ross said. “Some people get tattoos because they’re memorializing a loved one or something that just means something to them. I get tattoos just because I really dig the art of it. I like goofy paintings and goofy art, and I dig it.”

A military brat, Ross moved to Minot in 1998. He graduated from high school in Minot. His wife, Megan, was born and raised here.

When he worked at Minot Air Force Base for a time Ross said he met a couple of older former Marines working there who had overseas tattoos from the early 1950s. “I liked the nostalgia of that. It was really neat,” he said.

Tattoo pigments, often referred to as inks, are used for tattoos.

“We primarily do custom-drawn art pieces, we’re not really a replication shop,” Ross said.

Replication shops refer to shops where the staff doesn’t have a strong art background so tattoos are replicated. “They do the physically tattooing skin whereas we do all the techniques and technical tattooing. We gear more toward custom drawings so everyone’s walking around with a unique piece of art basically, and that really sets us apart from a lot of people,” Ross said.

He said the more contemporary shops are tending to move toward custom tattoos and the more traditional, older shops do the “sailor tattoos” or the more replicated designs.

After a person gets a tattoo, Ross said they need to keep it clean and keep it hydrated just as if they were treating a scrape. “The better you condition or take care of your skin, you reap the rewards if you have a tattoo or not basically,” he said. He said tattoos take about two weeks to heal to the point that a person can go into a pool or hot tub.

The tattoo artists sometimes are asked to remove someone’s tattoo.

“We primarily do cover-ups. That’s really tricky to do,” Ross said. “You’ll take a picture of their tattoo and sketch on paper how to disguise what they have underneath. There’s a very limited amount of people that do that well.”

“There’s a lot of removal methods. We typically do coverups,” he said.

When a person gets a tattoo, Ross said they are putting micropigment cells on living, breathing tissue, so when the tissue moves, dies, ages, the pigment cells are doing the same. “If you take care of your skin, the tattoo is going to reflect that,” he said.

Those who have never had a tattoo might wonder if it hurts to get one. Ross said there’s some discomfort depending on a person’s health that day.

The cost of a tattoo ranges from a minimum of $50 and up.

Overall, the tattoo artists said there’s not a certain kind of person who gets a tattoo. It’s people from “every walk of life,” Ross said.

“It’s definitely opened up to a lot more,” said Chris Ross, Jordan’s brother, a tattoo artist at 2D Ink. “Personally, I’ve probably tattooed more girls than guys easily four girls to one guy. Not too long ago we had like six of them come in and all wanted tattoos for a night out.”

“Females are twice as likely to get tattooed but guys are twice as likely to get large tattoos,” said Jordan Ross.