Christel Perkins is a veteran. She’s a veteran of a rather dull childhood in Wyoming. She’s a veteran of many long years in the food service industry. And she’s a veteran of nearly 20 years in Denver tattooing.
She’s been in Fort Collins for a few years, where she worked at a shop before opening her own. The most recent addition, Gingko Tree Tattoo, is an oasis for those seeking ink that focuses on illustrative realism influenced by American and Japanese traditional styles in a welcoming environment. “I specifically created this shop in opposition to the dark side of tattoo culture,” she said, adding that the place is decidedly inclusive, queer-friendly and woman-of-color-owned. “I opened this shop three years ago with a multi-tiered rebuttal on this industry. I wanted to create a safe and calm environment to foster creative growth and community on my own terms,” she added.
Perkins moved to Colorado to attend the Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design, where she got her bachelor’s in Fine Art Painting. “I came to Colorado to seek bigger opportunities, to seek my fortune,” she said with her typical wry humor. “The hope was to be a professional painter, but I was fairly realistic about it,” she added. It was only a matter of time before tattooing found her.
The road to Perkins’ career was not linear. “I ended up having a painting in an art show with one of my regulars from Benders. He (Ryan Deppe) was a tattoo artist as well. He offered me an apprenticeship. He gave me my first chance,” said Perkins.
Perkins’ initial attraction to tattooing came from the desire to bring fine art into tattooing. “I didn’t realize it could be an art form. As my mom said, tattoos are for sailors and street walkers,” she laughed. “I was trying to bring my education and apply my art in a boujee and pretentious way,” she continued, still revealing her endearing penchant for sweet but sardonic humor. “I realized I was being an asshat.”
She started her apprenticeship in 2007 under Deppe while he still worked at Mile High Tattoo. “At that time, I thought I was going to bring fine arts into tattooing as a way to make a living. I quickly learned that tattooing is way more about the people and the connection. It’s more about the human experience than it is about making art,” she said. This philosophy has continued to inform her style ever since, and is one of the many reasons to make the trip up north to experience Gingko Tree.
Perkins began the job bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, inspired and full of ambition. But on the first day of her apprenticeship, she fell through the shop’s rather janky attic and broke her back. “I was an apprentice for three hours,” she laughed. While not exactly a false start, she spent the next six months recuperating, spending most of her first year cleaning and running the front desk. “It gave me time to really consider what I was getting myself into. But I returned to that shop with renewed determination.” She said she spent the next year tattooing fruit and herself before she tattooed another person. “I was mostly learning to hold the machine.”
By 2009, she was tattooing other humans. “Having a fine arts background helped me with an understanding of composition and color palettes,” she said. Over the years, her perspective has evolved. “It gets pretty woo woo. I believe in tattooing as a means of connecting and especially of healing. It represents a person’s identity as an individual and their place within the context of their culture,” she said. “I like tattoos that are personal mission statements, mantras and reminders of strength.”
Perkins’ decision was no accident. “It’s a little slower paced. It’s maybe a little less competitive, there’s less beef,” she said. “It feels like it’s outside the toxicity of the Denver scene. The shops have room to do their own thing without the poison of comparison.” Perkins and her cohort, apprentice J Gonzalez, and “all but my business partner” Shiv Tuck, all agree that the goal for the shop is about removing stigma. “I had the misinformed presumption that a tattoo shop would be sketchy and dangerous. I think that having a clean and welcoming place is important. We make all bodies and identities feel welcome,” continued Perkins.
Throughout her career, Perkins experienced plenty of the nastier bits of tattoo culture. “I’ve heard from people about artists who didn’t listen or care. I want people to feel like their opinion matters. I want to make them feel safe and seen,” she said. These darker elements were part of the reason Perkins left the city to continue to do great work, not 90 minutes from the state’s ostensible body art capital.
“Denver is a city where the gates guarding tattoo culture stretch for miles, cast in iron bars forged by decades of tradition, lineage and ego,” said fellow 303 Magazine writer Kat Todorovic in her insightful piece on Conspiracy Theory Tattoo. “While gender representation and acceptance have grown since the Sailor Jerry era, pockets of resistance still staunchly remain. The rise of self-taught tattooing has boomed alongside social media’s expansion, placing knowledge at everyone’s fingertips,” continued Todorovic. Many of these frustrations have been echoed by Perkins as she watches tattoo culture shift, potentially for the worse. “AI has made it so I can’t find reference images that are real. If I’m trying to draw something that’s based on innacurate information I’m fucked. But I do have the benefit of a lifetime of experience that some of these younger artists might not have,” said Perkins. “That being said, I’m not trying to sound like a crotchety old gatekeeper, but I think the culture is normalizing bad tattoos.”
Over the years, Perkins says she’s probably done roughly 4,000 tattoos, even celebrating her 1,000th piece by tattooing the image of a paper crane on her own leg. Perkins’ books are technically always open, but she says it’s generally a six-month process between the initial inquiry and getting ink to skin.
“At the end of the day, we just like to have fun, enjoy each other’s company and continue to learn,” smiled Perkins.
Gingko Tree Tattoo is located at 4020 South College Ave # 10, Fort Collins. It is open by appointment, but Christel and Shiv say that they’re generally there.
All photography courtesy of Christel Perkins.
