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Blu Steel Studio expands its reach By Jim Flint Aug 22, 2022 12:45 AM A A Medford tattoo studio is moving its school to Eagle Point Tattoo artist Jen McLellan works Friday with Kayela Cabrera, of Medford, at Blu Steel Studio in Medford. [Jamie Lusch / Mail Tribune] Blu Steel Studio is not the dark, smoke-filled, back-alley tattoo parlor some might envision from back in their grandfathers’ days. It is a modern downtown Medford establishment with eight resident artists offering a suite of services ranging from body art to permanent cosmetics, eyebrow enhancement, scalp micropigmentation and areola restoration. Located at 132 W. Main St., suite 102, the business also operates a tattoo school. Blu Steel Tattoo Institute will be housed in the firm’s second location, at 178 W. Main St. in Eagle Point, which opened Monday. The Eagle Point studio will also offer a range of tattoo services. The school offers a curriculum for tattoo artists leading to a body arts practitioner license, required to practice in Oregon. Tattooing has been around since at least Neolithic times, although the technology has advanced considerably. Blu Steel uses state-of-the-art techniques. Brothers Ricardo and Johnny Herrera started the business in January 2019. Ricardo, 40, went into tattooing in his late 20s. “I was a freelance artist, but I wanted something steadier and more reliable,” he said. “I also wanted a bit of freedom.” He moved from Medford to Portland to attend a tattoo school, with none available in Southern Oregon at the time. Ricardo has been an artist from an early age. “I went to art school to study animation and was working in an art department for film and in retail before I got into tattooing.” His biggest reward is the gratitude shown by clients who are moved emotionally by his work. “One gentleman who had no hair on his body due to a medical condition teared up after I had done a restoration finish on his eyebrows,” Ricardo recounted. “He told me how people would often stare at him and that it was even worse when he tried to draw eyebrows on himself.” Ricardo creates traditional body art but also does a lot of permanent cosmetic procedures. His biggest requests are for ombré brows and eyeliner. Ombré brows are a series of many fine dots that vary in concentration, giving the look of a powdered brow. Another method, microblading, involves making short, hairlike strokes. Both add pigment to the skin. Sometimes brow enhancement involves a combination of the two techniques. “We offer almost everything — lip blushing, areola restoration, microblading, even freckles,” he said. Areola restoration customers are typically those who have undergone surgical reconstruction after breast cancer. Most permanent cosmetic procedures take two to three hours, but some, such as eyeliner, take much less time. “Healing time is generally two weeks,” he said, “but we do not do any touch-ups or follow-ups until week six, when the skin cycle is complete.” There was a time when tattooing was regarded as a sub-cultural activity. Today it has become almost mainstream. “The world is a lot more open and connected,” Ricardo said. “What was once taboo is now interesting. And it’s gotten attention on TV shows, social media and from inked celebrities. Sylvester Stallone is covered in tattoos.” How much can a tattoo artist make? “That depends on the artist’s drive, passion and dedication,” he said. “Marketing plays a role. We are service providers, and pay depends on demand. Some new artists tattoo part time until they have enough clients to go full time. Some of the best artists are booked out several years and can make over $1,000 a day.” Wanting a change Johnny Herrera, 37, came to tattooing much later than his brother. He was at a point in his life when he needed a change. “I almost went to work in the dental field,” he said, “but I wanted more of the freedom and creativity the tattoo world offers.” He wasn’t interested in competing with his brother and friends who had been in the field for a long time. He wanted to develop his own specialty. “I wanted to do something different, where I had a chance to stand out,” he said. “So when I enrolled in tattoo school, I also signed up to learn permanent cosmetics.” Bringing that specialty and scalp micropigmentation skills to the table made the partnership with his brother a logical next step. The two have enjoyed building the business together. SMP uses specialized needles and pigments to create a pattern that mimics shaven follicles. To achieve depth, various tones are used to match the skin type, and layering done in subsequent visits adds to the illusion. The SMP service most frequently requested by both men and women is adding density to thinning hair. Some procedures fill in thin spots. Some bald men opt for full-scalp SMP that achieves the look of a buzz cut. “We are working with impressions, not dots,” Johnny said. “Layering and impressions follow a natural follicle pattern to create a three-dimensional look.” Like Ricardo, Johnny gets a lot of satisfaction in easing clients’ distress and solving problems. Doing SMP on a woman who had suffered from alopecia since the age of 14 is an example. “After I finished doing SMP density for her, she happily told me that for the first time she was able to walk through a store without a single person staring at her head,” he said. From the beginning, Blu Steel Studio had a mission of helping those in need. “My mother was our first client,” Johnny said. “In the past, she had suffered through stage 4 breast cancer. Since then, we also have offered several pro bono procedures. In the future, we hope to work with other organizations to be able to provide more of those services free to those in need.” Johnny has worked with some of the best SMP trainers in the industry. “I’m currently a trainer with Leaders SMP Academy, owned by Picasso Jeff and Masoud,” Johnny said. The SMP Academy is the largest in the world, with training centers in several countries. “I have been working closely with them, looking to bring the academy to the Rogue Valley,” he said. Tattooing for 36 years Jennifer McLellan is one of the artists who works at Blu Steel. With nearly 36 years of experience in the business, she specializes in reworking or covering up old tattoos. “I love taking something the client hates and turning it into something they love,” she said. “I love creating something my clients can enjoy for the rest of their lives. And it can’t be lost or stolen.” “Painless Jen,” as she is known, was fascinated with tattoos at an early age. “When I was a little girl, I always hoped there would be a fake tattoo in my Cracker Jack box. And I used to draw on myself, much to my mother’s distress,” she said. At 14, she started doing hand-poked tattoos on herself. At age 20, she was offered a tattoo apprenticeship by Steven “Pops” Saller at American Tattoo in San Pedro, California. “It was very hard being a woman who tattooed in the mid-’80s,” McLellan said. “I met a lot of resistance from certain male tattooists back then. But there were also people like Pops. He had brain cancer and wanted to teach a woman to tattoo before he died.” There were other male tattooists who also were supportive. “Jack Rudy, Scott Sterling and Dennis Dwyer went out of their way to teach me how coil tattoo machines work and make sure I knew how to maintain and tune them,” she said. The basic techniques have remained the same over the years she’s been in the business, but the equipment has changed considerably. “I rarely use my coil machine anymore,” she said. “I use a rotary machine 99.9% of the time.” Rotaries are quieter and smoother. Another change she’s noticed is that more women are getting tattoos. “In fact, the majority of my clients are women,” she said. “That’s a huge shift from the early days of my career when it was primarily men who got tattooed.” McLellan is known for her very saturated, bold color work, but the client typically has something specific in mind when it comes to the art. She says sometimes it can be difficult to get excited about creating art in a style or subject matter she’s not interested in. “But I put my heart and soul into each and every tattoo I do,” she said. With that attitude and her experience, McLellan was the obvious choice to run the tattoo school, which she’ll continue to do at the Eagle Point studio as part of her job. For more information, see blusteelstudio.com. Reach writer Jim Flint at [email protected].