Kenny Brown, a Fredericksburg tattoo artist, is featured in December's National Geographic magazine.

By LUCIA ANDERSON

Date published: 12/10/2004

Tattoo artist featured in National Geographic magazine

Kenny Brown grew up thinking he wanted to be a comic book illustrator.

That was before he started tattooing people. Now, he wouldn't consider doing anything else.

"It's the most powerful medium I've ever worked on," Brown said. "I can't think of another that has the same impact."

Brown, one of four artists at Honky Tonk Tattoo in Fredericksburg, is featured in this month's National Geographic magazine. The connection is Brown's use of National Geographic photos as a resource for his designs.

The magazine's detailed photographs of wildlife, in particular, are invaluable, Brown said.

He lists National Geographic stories about eagles, scarab beetles, spiders, moths and undersea life as among his most useful reference materials.

Brown, 30, said he got into tattooing through his childhood buddy, Scott Junkins, who had always wanted to be a tattoo artist.

"In seventh and eighth grade we used to put tattoos on our friends," Brown said. "They weren't real tattoos, but we were poking them with needles."

When they were in high school in central Pennsylvania, Junkins got a job in a tattoo parlor there, and Brown used to hang around while Junkins worked.

"I'd always wanted to get tattoos, but I didn't think I could do tattoos," Brown said.

He'd spend the time drawing, instead. When the shop owner saw his artwork, he offered Brown a job.

He's been tattooed as well, collecting the work of artists he admires on his body.

"Some have called tattoos a blue-collar art collection," Brown said with a grin.

Tattooing is something that has to be learned through an apprenticeship, Brown said. He had to learn about how muscles move under the skin, about blood-borne pathogens, about the best way to use color to create vivid designs.

Most of his artwork had been in black and gray, he said, so color was a whole new area for him.

Brown came to Virginia in 1995, working at a shop in Manassas. That was where the National Geographic story started, three or four years ago.

A National Geographic employee came to Brown to get a tattoo on the back of her neck. She wanted a scarab, and brought with her the February 2001 issue of the magazine that had an article on scarab beetles.

Date published: 12/10/2004