Monday, February 2, 2009

Latina author to share life of tatoos

A new canvas for Kat Von D
By TARA DOOLEY HOUSTON CHRONICLE Feb. 1, 2009

Kat Von D is a collector. Just look at her body.

In many ways, it’s a scrapbook of the tattoo artist and reality-show star’s life. She has tattoos of her mother and her father, a memento of her first boyfriend and odes to Mexican movie stars of decades gone by.

“In real life, I have a lot of journals going on at once,” the star of cable television’s L.A. Ink said last week. “…I write about every person I’ve ever tattooed. I like to be able to document everything I do.”

Much of that documentation is presented in High Voltage Tattoo (Collins Design, 176 pp. $29.95), a new book that chronicles her life from her birth in Montemorelos, Mexico to her career as a reality-show star in a field dominated by men and once associated with criminals.

Kat Von D arrives in Houston Tuesday for a book signing at Barnes & Noble, 7626 Westheimer. Her talk is sponsored by the nonprofit Nuestra Palabra: Latino Writers Having Their Say.

Kat Von D represents a departure from the group’s typical author, said Nuestra Palabra founder and director Tony Diaz. At one time, a tattooed woman might have been a pin-up for a stereotype the group wanted to discourage.

Kat Von D represents a departure from the group’s typical author, said Nuestra Palabra founder and director Tony Diaz. At one time, a tattooed woman might have been a pin-up for a stereotype the group wanted to discourage.

But in Kat Von D, Diaz sees a successful Latina business owner who persevered in a male-dominated field and a writer with a unique canvas.

“She is like a walking mural,” he said. “She has all of these narratives.”

Tattoos have largely shed their questionable associations, which means someone like Kat Von D can been seen as a role model to some.

That’s the reason she caught Veronica Stark’s eye. The 34-year-old middle school teacher is constantly looking for Hispanic success stories to present to her classes. When Stark saw Kat Von D’s show on TLC, she figured the tattoo salon owner fit the bill.

“I always find it inspiring for students to see someone who has made it big or someone to emulate, artists or writers,” Stark said.

The 26-year-old star was born Katherine Von Drachenberg and delivered by her grandfather, a doctor and missionary with the Seventh Day Adventist Church. Her family moved to California when she was seven and Kat Von D was raised in a religious home. She got her first tattoo at age 14. By 16 she was a professional in the field, much to her parents’ dismay.

“They were not stoked to say the least,” Kat Von D said. “My parents were not Americanized in any way. They associated tattoos, like a lot of people, with the stigmas of drug addicts or criminals or gangsters, which I was none of the above.”

In the decade Kat Von D has been in the business, her parents have come around, she said. They understand her career and now feel comfortable visiting her Los Angeles shop, High Voltage Tattoo, she said.

“My dad will never get tattooed, which is fine,” she said. “I like him the way he is now.”

Some of the most significant of Kat Von D’s many tattoos include a Beethoven tattoo, a reminder of her grandmother, who taught her to play the composer’s work on the piano. She is also fond of her 1940s Mexican movie stars, strong women and emblematic of Latina themes that run through her work, she said.

The stars on her face are also significant.

“It is a symbol of being able to be heavily tattooed and still carry yourself in a feminine way,” Kat Von D said.

tara.dooley@chron.com

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