The “Venus De Milo” and a tribal design. The “Mona Lisa” and a heart with the word “mom” inside it.

These images don’t seem to relate to each other, but in the eyes of a tattoo artist, they should.

“Creating images is what art is about,” said Robert Parr, a tattoo artist at Lasting Impressions. “It’s not about who is or isn’t an artist.”

“You may not call it fine art but it certainly falls within the realm of art,” said Bruce Smith, professor of art and design. “I don’t see how you can leave something like that out; it’s part of the history of ornamentation.”

Historians believe tattooing has been around as long as humans have. They once served many different functions including therapeutic purposes similar to acupuncture, to designate royalty or to mark an important event in that person’s life. But no longer.

“It doesn’t really have a utilitarian purpose,” Parr said. “It’s not like a craft or hobby or anything. People get tattoos for a lot of reasons, but the reasons are all artistic.”

“There’s an actual picture done when the tattoos are over,” said Clint Sletten, tattoo artist at The Asylum. “A lot of stuff I see that’s called art has no rhyme or reason to it. It is art; but to me it’s not visually stimulating.”

Although they are both considered art, it’s almost impossible to weigh the similarities and differences between the fine arts and tattoo art.

“I think the intent is very different,” Smith said. “The fine art is typically not trying to serve a customer. The motivation behind creating such works is very different.”

At tattoo parlors, the customers usually walk in with an image in their mind of what they want. If they don’t see what they want from the flash art that is already displayed on the walls, or if they want a drawing slightly different, the artists will custom draw the tattoos to fit the customer’s needs.

“I have people that will request custom pieces that I spend hours drawing,” Parr said. “I ask the people what they want and work with them to create the design.”

“This shop is kind of known for [customers] being able to come here and have us draw what you ask us to draw,” said Mump, tattoo artist at The Asylum. “We’ll do it any way they want . but we’ll draw it within the style that we’re used to.”

The job comes with a lot of down time. Busy periods can be stressful, but off hours provide a lot of time for drawing new flash art or just having some fun.

“Everybody thinks this job is so easy; they think we just sit around,” said Sletten, also known as Hot Rod. “We do a lot of sitting around and a lot of goofing off. But some people don’t realize that even with the smallest tattoo, even the size of a dime, a ton of stress is put on you as soon as you pick up that tattooing machine.”

Adding to that stress, tattoo artists create their work on a human body, as opposed to a canvas or other medium. People don’t sit still, Sletten said.

They bleed, they scream and they pass out.

The artists try to transfer that image despite this.

And if they screw up a line in the image, it’s always considered their fault, Mump added. Mistakes are permanent. Covering up their mistakes is more time consuming and more costly than touching up a painting or drawing.

Tattooing is a very meticulous job. Creating a practically irreversible image on somebody’s body means not only can they not make any mistakes but symmetry and proportions also become extremely important – perhaps more important than in the fine arts.

“They don’t judge other art as harshly as they judge what we do here,” Mump said. “They don’t have to stare at it everyday. I think this is more exacting than people realize.”

Tattoo artists are already considered artists, but not every artist can be a tattoo artist.

It’s not as easy as picking up the machine and coloring on someone’s body.

“There’s a certain type of drawing that translates better than others,” Mump said. “There’s a lot more to this than just being able to draw.”

A few of the local tattoo artists studied art at Iowa State. Both Hugo and Sletten, co-owners of The Asylum attended college to study art before deciding to pursue tattooing full-time.

Parr graduated from Iowa State with a bachelor’s degree in fine arts.

“I was just basically doing the one thing I knew I could be successful at, and that was art,” he said. “I wanted to be a tattoo artist before I went to school.”

Paintings need to be restored after time, just as a tattoo needs to be touched up. Artists use creativity in forming sculpture as well as in applying a tattoo.

Abstraction can be just as important in photo imagery as it can be in creating a meaningful tattoo.

And although tattoos are not sold on auction for thousands of dollars or hung on the walls of museums as a part of the permanent collection, tattoos can certainly be considered an art form, and tattooists as artists.

“Sure it’s not as scholarly as painting and sculpture, but it’s been around as long, if not longer,” Parr said. “There are some really good tattoo artists out there producing some good work.

“Why would someone say it’s not art? I don’t know. I don’t know why someone would say that.”