Full-time tattoo artist Ricco Diamante speaks slowly, with a casual, focused tone, to his personal secretary-turned-client, Danielle Carroll, an IPFW student, age 23. She is, in one sense, the canvas that will soon contain a permanent – by most means – work of art, to be worn for the rest of her life.
In the basement of Revolution Tattoo Gallery, located on the southeast corner of Fort Wayne’s Broadway and W. Jefferson Blvd., Diamante touches his hand to his chin and leans back in a black leather swivel chair.
“So, stand up. Let’s get one more look at this piece,” Diamante says, referring to a stenciled portrait of what appears to be a futuristic pin-up girl – with long eye lashes, intricately waving, multicolored hair, an orchid in the layers of hair and feathers dangling from looped earrings in the form of dream-catchers – that was set to the side of Carroll’s torso, spanning from low on her hip to the middle of her ribcage.
He considers the stencil, which will act as a guide when the actual tattoo machine is applied, with a notable amount of concentration. He examines the feathers and points out that they should appear to have some lift to them, as if being brushed by the wind, so that they will correlate with the implied motion of the hair.
He is the classic personification of an artist at work.
Diamante wasn’t always the co-owner of Revolution Tattoo Gallery. In fact, a few years ago, he wasn’t yet a tattoo artist, but corporate sales manager of luxury lifestyles, in Sedona, AZ. – what he calls the “mecca of fine arts galleries.” There, he undertook secondary employment – an apprenticeship at the first tattoo shop to have opened in the city of Sedona – in order to access an environment where he could draw and create at a regular pace. Having observed signs of collapse within the corporation he’d worked for, Diamante eventually resigned altogether, which happened to be a mere four days before the company went bankrupt.
“All I had at that point was my money, belongings and my tattoo apprenticeship,” he reflects. “When I started, I did not see [tattooing] as what I was going to be doing full time.”
He had begun the apprenticeship just as the recession began marching the nation into economic crisis, and felt as though he needed to create his own success, rather than depending on another corporation.
In the studio, he takes his time, careful to know the image thoroughly – to consider possibilities while extinguishing others, before leading Carroll upstairs to a corner of the art gallery where there sits a body-sized, leather table beside a chair and desk. On the desk, the tools are already in place. The colors of ink, paper-towels, mats, a tattoo machine, gloves and lighting are set up. A laptop is set nearby, opened to display a reference image for the piece – a plastic sheet covers the keyboard.
Carroll says, as Diamante washes his hands in a nearby sink, “I’m scared,” displaying a common uneasiness toward the task ahead.
But the music playing is that of a soft voice, singing, and a lightly strummed a guitar. And Diamante’s confidence is ever-prevalent and calming.
Carroll asks, “Are you going to make the feathers like you made that one feather?” referring to a previous, heavily detailed piece Diamante had made.
His reply provides some perspective, as he reminds her that that particular feather had taken him five hours to create. There are three feathers drawn in marker on Carroll’s side, presenting an effort that, if rendered in equivalent detail, would likely take approximately 15 total hours to complete.
Even further before becoming a fine artist, Diamante was a graduate of Homestead high school, which he credits for having introduced him to the idea of pursuing a career in arts in the first place. He became a student at Bowling Green State University, studying graphic design and working in the university gallery, where he first learned to hang and install art shows. While at BGSU, his academic adviser encouraged him to focus on fine art, and after two years there, he enrolled to study abroad in Italy. After spending some time visiting many major museums and galleries there, he returned to Fort Wayne to attend the University of Saint Francis, where he graduated with concentrations in drawing, painting and print-making.
Carroll says, quietly, “I don’t like that,” as Diamante begins outlining an area around the hip.
In the first 10 minutes of receiving a tattoo, the brain is in the process of producing endorphins that act to counter the discomfort of a solid needle injecting ink into the skin at the rate of 50 to 3,000 punctures per minute – and Diamante calls it the most difficult portion of the process for a client to get through. From there, the artist charges ahead, trudging onward with a constantly held amount of concentration and devotion to the art-form.
According to Diamante, his worst experience as a tattoo artist occurred when an image of his drawing work had been taken from his profile on MySpace, given minor alterations – merely by adding red coloring and removing his signature – and was then used as another shop’s logo. He was later contacted and threatened by the shop owner with legal action unless he agreed to remove the image from the site after it had been copyrighted.
Viewing his work in both painting and tattoo as a source for exploiting art is an appalling notion. Particularly where credit is not given. However, others are able to find something else in his art – people such as IPFW art student, Jordan Lindsay, 18, a client from two weeks prior to Carroll’s own session.
“He’s a super-entertaining, and friendly guy,” she said.
“With this amazing talent … Ricco’s work has actually been inspiring to me.”
Lindsay wears, on the left side of her mid-section, two large, bright lilies above a pink ribbon that appears to lift from her skin as if it were swaying in a breeze. A careful combination of shading and color allow for the piece to seem as if it were not only a tattoo, but one reminiscent of a high-contrast water-color painting.
Diamante recalls being told that the detail of his work in the fine arts would not be able to transition into tattoo art, and that he had, from then, made a point to explore the reasoning behind that idea.
Both Carroll and Lindsay agree the theory has been disproved.
Carroll’s skin swells against the tattoo machine’s strokes, and Diamante divulges a professional’s insight. Throughout the array of strokes, lines and smudged marker, the scene on the skin can seem, at times, a mere blur, and the work that has been done up to that point seems hidden from a perspective – particularly when lighter colors are used. However, Diamante explains that the angle of the light emitting from a nearby flexible lamp is such that the swelling in Carroll’s skin is made so precise as to become its own stencil. He uses the fine-lined shadow cast by the swelling as a guide when the original stencil disappears in the process.
Over the span of four hours, Diamante sets in place an intricate outline of the piece and begins to introduce some details in a few sections. The colors of the lines shift between pinks, purples and other bright, vibrant colors – creating a colored map for this particular series of sessions.
That is to say, a map to last between all the other series of sessions that will be shared by many other individuals seeking the talent and prestige found in every corner of his shared gallery.
Nearly every day, Diamante creates new, enticing work – a demanding task for any artist. And he places that work on living, human canvases – people who depend upon his capacity to remain focused, and execute something that they can both be proud of.
Drawing from his own sources of inspiration, in that sense, is key:
“It is important that every day when I go to work I feel inspired to create art that is on the same professional level as my co-owner, Ryan Hadley, who is a world renowned tattoo artist,” Diamante explains. “Together, we have created Revolution Tattoo Gallery – where we look to each other for constant progression and motivation. Every day we are competing to be recognized for the art we create, both locally and internationally.”
