ART OF NEEDLEWORK TATTOOS NO LONGER JUST FOR BIKERS FROM DOCTORS TO LAWYERS, BODY ART IS GAINING FANS.

Byline: Brad A. Greenberg Staff Writer

A lawyer shopping for his first piece of body art recently called Kirk Alley, a tattooist who charges $240 an hour and whose planner is booked until early May with clients who are architects, doctors and entertainers.

``You gotta be kidding me. I charge $150 an hour,'' the lawyer said, and hung up.

Alley is no normal tattoo artist. He's one of L.A.'s sought-after inkers who works by appointment only in an almost arcane studio on Ventura Boulevard. As tattoos have become more socially acceptable, his business has grown and his customers have become less predictable.

``Guys that you see on the street and you have no idea what is going on underneath their clothes,'' Alley says. ``It's very rare to see a Harley- Davidson in front of my store.''

He works Wednesdays through Saturdays, one client a day in a three-hour session. Hours like that make even the French workweek seem arduous. But staining skin is a lot different than pushing papers. It's as much science as art, and well-done tattoos demand a controlled hand.

So goes the work of a guy who discovered doodling as a boy, but eventually found a tattoo machine to be his instrument of choice and flesh to be his canvas.

Fifteen years ago, tattoos largely were reserved for ``bikers and prisoners and sailors and loose women,'' said Chuck Eldridge, historian for the National Tattoo Association. But they've become the decor of professional athletes and soccer moms, often permitted in the workplace.

``Sometimes they are very appropriate and accepted and attractive,'' says Donna Farrugia, a vice president for professional staffing services at Robert Half. ``It's like an accessory or a haircut - it's a trendy thing.''

One in six Americans has a tattoo, according to a 2004 Harris poll. Even Christians, who long opposed body markings as unbiblical, have joined the fray; the Christian Tattoo Association has 380 members, mostly tattooists.

Howard Singer is 53. He has a shaved head and wears a navy tank top, light jeans and white sneakers. He stands in Alley's private studio waiting for another session to begin.

He was 17 when he had his first tattoo done above his shirt sleeve. He was afraid to flaunt it. ``My friends were too,'' the North Hills chiropractor says. ``We wanted to keep them covered up.''

That's not a concern anymore. Singer regularly adjusts spines and knees and shoulders in the comfort of a short-sleeved polo shirt. He doesn't worry about what his patients - children, seniors, rabbis, priests - might think.

``The worst thing they say to me is, Wow, that's new, Dr. Singer. When did you get that?''

Occasionally, a patient or a patient's friend proudly shows Singer a new tattoo.

``They come in with these cheap $45 or $50 tattoos - and that's what they look like. You get what you pay for,'' he says.

Contrary to the common parental warning, tattoos are not necessarily forever. They can be removed with the help of lasers that pass through the skin and into the ink. The laser breaks the pigment into smaller pieces, allowing the body to dissolve it. That process is described by some as more painful than getting the tattoo.

``I would say the majority of people have buyer's remorse,'' says Dimitrios Alexiou, coordinator of the Tattoo Removal Program at Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in Burbank.

The program is a service to those whose body-art choices affect their social and professional options. Though it is free, participants are required to perform 16 hours of community service or attend additional schooling for each laser-popping session; most tattoos demand five to eight treatment sessions.

Alexiou estimates that about 65 percent of program participants are former gang members. Their bodies display tattoos pretty much everywhere. One guy had devil horns; another had tombstones on his forehead and ``(expletive) HAPPENS'' above his upper lip. Alexiou's favorite story is about the nun in training who was covered in tattoos.

``People should take time to think about are they going to want this in five years,'' he says. ``Are you still going to be as proud of it at age 80 as age 21? If you are, by all means.''

Singer's first tattoo, a rose with H-O-W-A-R-D across it, is long gone, buried beneath the dark ink of a black bear's head, which was covered by the green-and-black petals that now engulf his left shoulder.

Three tattoos on his left arm have become one, joined three hours at a time during the past eight months. Neither the artist nor the ``artee'' can explain exactly what the sleeve of ink means.

``The most common question is what does it mean? It doesn't mean anything,'' Singer says. ``It's art.''

Mainstream tattoo shops - what Alley calls ``street shops'' - have drawings all over their walls. A customer walks in, spots the stencil he or she likes and sits down for a bitter hour or two.

Alley began in a Sunland shop in 1992. He was 29, having floated around the music industry since high school, and was looking for a way to capitalize on his passion for art. He had spotted the boom occurring in the tattoo industry.

In 1997, he opened F. Kirk Alley Private Studio, a 15-by-15 room on the second floor of a yellow retail building in Studio City. The tattoo wall of fame displays some of Alley's proudest work.

The frames hang on purple walls that he painted blue and gold with wallpaperesque detail. The crown molding is black with gold flowers. The room has a couch, a desk, an examiner's table, a 1920 Koken barber's chair and bookshelves with the likes of ``Gray's Anatomy,'' ``The Japanese Tattoo'' and Playboy.

Most of his business comes from referrals. He doesn't advertise and even tries to keep his studio out of the phone book, though that has proven futile.

Alley himself has too many tattoos to count, though his skinny arms, legs and back have lots of available acreage. He's had to trust the branding to others' hands.

``When you ask someone why they got a tattoo, it is almost impossible to come up with a halfway intelligent answer,'' Alley says. ``We just like the way it looks. Some women get their ears pierced, we like to get tattoos. It's just decoration.''

Brad A. Greenberg, [phone]

brad.greenberg(at)dailynews.com

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2 photos

Photo:

(1 -- 2 -- color) At left, tattooist Kirk Alley applies a tattoo to the arm of chiropractor Harold Singer of North Hills. Below, behind the pair, pictures of Alley's proudest works hang on the walls of his Studio City shop.

David Sprague/Staff Photographer