Walk into The Shaman’s Den on Washington Street and you will hear the sounds of music blasting and the tattoo guns buzzing away. For Alie Kalb, those sounds are all part of her job.
Kalb has been the lone female tattoo artist in the Downtown Binghamton tattoo shop for the past year and a half.
‘[Tattoos were] always something that I was drawn to,’ Kalb said as she leaned over a client’s back in her room at The Shaman’s Den two weeks ago. The purple walls of her workspace are dotted with tattoo-inspired art, and Casie Folli, her client, is straddling a chair as Kalb etches black ink into her skin.
‘Even when I was younger, like kindergarten or first grade, I can’t tell you how many times I was getting yelled at for drawing on myself or my friends,’ Kalb said. ‘For some reason I just enjoyed looking at my skin with something on it.’
After years of putting off her dream, Kalb decided to pursue a career in the tattoo industry around three years ago on Long Island, N.Y.
‘I thought to myself, ‘this is something I’ve wanted to do my whole life and I’m going to do it,’ she said, wiping excess ink off Folli’s back.
‘If it doesn’t work out, then it doesn’t work out, but at least I’ll be able to say that I tried,’ she said about starting her career.
As a woman, Kalb faced some challenges when trying to break into the industry. After getting an apprenticeship in a tattoo shop, Kalb had to prove herself as an artist in an industry that has been dominated by men.
‘I had a lot of people ‘ even when I was looking for an apprenticeship ‘ that didn’t take me seriously because I am a girl, and people that thought I couldn’t do a good job because I’m a girl,’ she said. ‘And I would think, ‘how do you know I can’t do it?’
Some people may have negative feelings about a female tattoo artist, but Kalb said the idea of being tattooed by a woman puts some clients at ease.
After finishing her apprenticeship on Long Island, Kalb made her way to Binghamton in March 2006 and has been developing a client list in the area for the past year and a half. Throughout her career as an artist, she has tattooed several pieces.
‘At the end of the day, I’ve done some really special tattoos for people,’ she said. ‘And you see when you are done with their tattoo that they have a tear in their eye and you think, ‘Oh my God! I made such a huge difference in somebody’s life.’
Kalb’s client, who is from Vestal, N.Y., is getting a memorial tattoo for her father.
‘Our father passed away in 2001 and this is his nickname that I’m getting,’ Folli said. ‘He always wanted one, so I figured I would get one with his name.’
Her sister Samantha sat by her side as Kalb inked the black outline of the heart-shaped tattoo with ‘Magic’ written inside.
The importance of getting a meaningful tattoo with a particular artist has been explored through television programs like ‘Miami Ink’ and, more recently, the spin-off ‘L.A. Ink.’
The shows have gained popularity by portraying the day-to-day reality of tattoo artists and parlors.
As a tattoo artist, Kalb has watched these shows and believes they are helping the industry by exposing audiences who might have misconceptions about tattoos.
‘A lot of people have this really horrible stigma about what a tattoo shop really is,’ Kalb said. ‘The shows are good because they show that a tattoo shop can be clean and the people that get tattooed are real people. Overall I think that they’re not bad.’
Though ‘L.A. Ink’ features Kat Von D (a female tattoo artist who used to be on ‘Miami Ink’) and a shop full of female artists, finding women in the industry is still uncommon.
That’s not, however, stopping Kalb.