Tattooing in the Church between Coffins and Christmas Trees

Under paintings with biblical scenes, Christmas trees and bells, the visitor to the third Alkmaar Tattoo Convention will find painted coffins with images of Buddha and an Egyptian pharaoh. The entrance to the huge Gothic St.Laurenskerk in the centre of the city could not be more grandoise. Every tattoo fan can’t fail to be impressed by this beautiful environment. A tattoo convention in a church from 1400, that’s a unique venue. About 2000 people visited the tattoo church on the weekend of 18th and 19th December, just before Christmas. 

Alkmaar lies in the Northwestern part of the Netherlands, 50 kilometres above Amsterdam, and is famous because of its cheese market. It’s also the city where the studio of Ron Rijks is located called the Tattoo Centre. Ron Rijks is a Dutch old timer and has been on the tattoo scene for more than 20 years. Above the painted coffins, I saw old school posters with ‘A man’s ruin’ emblazoned on them. With a picture of Ron together with his daughters and with Johannes den Boom, singer of the Dutch rock & roll band; The Shavers, who was also the speaker at the convention.

THIRD CONVENTION

I am impressed by the organisers’ enthusiasm. In this way the art of tattooing gets an enormous stimulus. When I made my first walk around the church I saw plenty of tattoo artists working under beautiful stained glass windows. In a room where normally the verger works, I met Ron Rijks for a short interview. ‘This is the third convention in Alkmaar. The other two were some years ago’ he tells me. ‘They were held in the summer and organised outside and in pubs but that was too dependant on the weather and in Holland you never can trust that. Whilst travelling, I visited an art exhibition in this church, I thought: this is the perfect place for a tattoo convention. The whole organisation went without any major difficulties.’

BIG NAMES FROM HOLLAND

Ron Rijks succeeded in getting together the big names from the Dutch tattoo scene, including; Eus, Rob Admiraal, Sieto van der Velde (Yugen Tattoo), Leslie Reesen, Burning Heart, Endless Art, Rinus Souisa, Koos Schouten (Fine Tattoo Works Breda), Bianca Tattoosolution, Herco Roelofs, OK Coral Amersfoort, Tattoo Jan (Needle Art Breda), Brian (Needle Art Girnchem), Molly, Tattoo Mick, Tattoo Peter and many, many others. From the piercing scene, Miranda from Rotterdam was present. From Belgium Ron Rijks had invited The Needle Doctor, Guido Custom and Calypso Tattoo Luik, from Germany, Wild Thing and from Spain, Tattoo Pluis. Also two Maori artists, Tuane and Nehe, who are working in Holland, came along to show their tattoo skills in Alkmaar. 

According to Ron Rijks, the Belgian airbrush artists Mistral and David de Graeff fit very well in the tattoo convention scene. ‘What they do with an airbrush, a tattoo artist does with his machine. David is a very productive artist, and he exhibited only a third of his whole collection.’  

PAINTED COFFINS

Ron Rijks is not only a tattoo artist, he is also is a prolific painter just like Sieto van der Velde. Together they painted six big coffins and two small ones. Ron: ‘After some funerals that I had attended, I thought: I have to make those coffins more colourful. Those coffins make people familiar with a fact we all have to cope with. It’s very confronting. 

On Saturday the Dutch flamenco artists of The Gipsy Swing played in between the coffins. On Sunday the Celtic folk musicians of Rapalje (from Groningen) posed in and out of the coffins before the photographers in their Scottish kilts. They played a strange array of instruments like the Gitouki, which looked like a Greek bouzouki, bodhran (a hand drum from Ireland) and violin. They played a folk version of Manowar’s heavy metal song ‘The crown and the king’ and songs like ‘Drunken sailor’ and ‘Whiskey in the jar.’ With their kilts and their long hair they looked like the old Celts from the past. Singer William also has Celtic tattoos: two dragonheads weaved within each other and a Celtic knot. To the sound of their music the audience could dream away to the Scottish highlands or the Irish countryside. It’s the first time I’ve seen folk dancing at a tattoo convention. The music from Rapalje is the perfect music for a tattoo convention in a church.

BACKPIECES, BRASILIAN GODS AND A GIPSY WOMAN

A very special spectacle on Saturday was the photographs made up of 43 back-pieces. Three prizes were handed out, all to back-pieces tattooed by the master of this tattoo art: Filip Leu. 

I came across the booth of Brazilian tattoo artist Andre Sparta. He showed me his colourful drawings of gods, Orixas, from a Brazilian religion that has its roots in Nigeria but was transported by the slaves to Latin America. ‘This is a new development in my work’ Andre tells me enthusiastically. Hopefully we will hear more about this in the future. 

At the booth of Robbie from Leiden I witnessed the tattooing of a family crest on the body of Vincent Kalkman. Whilst I was looking on, I saw Maika pass by. Together with her husband Mark, she owns a tattoo studio in The Hague ‘On Edge’. She also wears many colourful tattoos, including flowers near her breasts. And two women tattooed on her hands. ‘These women were tattooed by Chris Conn from San Francisco she tells me. ‘One woman is Florence Nightingale the nurse, the other is a gipsy woman. The first characterizes the good woman, the other, the bad woman. And on my fingers you can see ‘Mans ruin.’ And that’s the woman’ she adds seriously.

JAPANESE AND BIOMECHANIC

King Ferry of Tattoo Palace, Amsterdam has tattooed a Hanya-mask on the back of Ronald. Ronald: ‘On one side I wanted a biomechanic design, on the other, a Japanese design. The biomechanic part is grey, the Japanese part in colour”. Ferry: ‘I tattooed the outlines in October during the tattoo convention in Emmen. I then finished the tattoo here in four and a half hours. We were just too late for the Best of Weekend contest.’  Guido Custom won that prize. ‘It’s the image of a devil on the calf of Kevin, one of my customers. I tattooed over two days in ten hours.’

Piercing queen Miranda and the Tattoo Club Holland (TCH) were in the line-up of judges. The TCH were also present with a stall showing an extensive bookshop. The prizes were designed by Evert Rijks (no relation) of Gallery Fidonc, also located in Alkmaar, opposite the studio of Ron Rijks. ‘The statuettes are little covers of coffins with the image of Terracotta on it. Who is the patron of Death.’ 

Luckily the art of tattooing is more alive than ever, with shows like the Alkmaar convention. Ron Rijks will not be organizing this event every year. Maybe in about two years time there will be another one. But for now we can look back and remember a very special tattoo event held in a gorgeous environment.