No longer for bikers, sailors or inmates, the appeal of tattoos has spread to all segments of society.

"We tattoo everybody, from drug dealers to female pastors," said Chris Williams, 33, a tattoo artist who rents a booth at Creative Designs tattoo parlor in Lemoore.

The reasons for getting them vary just as much as those who get them.

Williams said his customers' reasons for getting tattoos range from those wanting a permanent memorial of an animal, family member or friend who has passed on, to those who want to celebrate an achievement or those who just like art.

For many, the tattoos tell a life story.

Hanford resident Cliff White, 22, is a regular customer at Creative Designs. He returned Friday afternoon to get some shading done on his left arm. He plans to have a full sleeve at some point. Currently he has 11 tattoos on different parts of his body.

White admitted most of the images on his left arm are morbid.

Centered in the middle of his left forearm was a blue woman with a curvaceous body and the head of a ghoul. He describes the tattoo as a "dead pin up girl." Tattooed in other places along his arm are a gravestone, a suicide victim and World War II planes.

He said the tattoos "describe a lot of stuff I've gone through."

Williams agreed that tattoos help document times in life.

"They're like bookmarks to me," Williams said. I can sit there and remember what I was doing at that time of my life."

Williams' arms are awash in colored ink. He points out two symbols on his chest that look like eight-pointed stars.

"They symbolize chaos," Williams said. "For a long time my life was kind of chaotic."

Williams said the age ranges vary, too. Creative Designs gets customers from age 18 to 85.

He said they will not tattoo minors.

"Tattoos are permanent and a 16- or 17-year-old might not know what they want," Williams said. He also added that it is against state law to tattoo minors.

Friday afternoon around 1:30 p.m., Creative Design's two tattoo artists, Williams and the shop's owner, Dan Bumpus, were both working on customers, one of which was Coalinga resident Vernon Biggs, a correctional sergeant from Coalinga.

Biggs, 49, was having some color added to his right arm. Biggs didn't get his first tattoo, a tribal armband, until recently. He said he decided to get the armband after his mom passed away a few years ago.

"I wanted one before, but my parents disapproved," Biggs said.

He had his mom's initials tattooed in the middle of his armband.

Hanford resident Lela McKenna, 74, said she decided to get a tattoo at age 65. She got hers at another Lemoore tattoo shop, Lou's Tattoos.

McKenna has a little flower with a butterfly and a hummingbird tattooed on her chest, near her left shoulder. She said she had always wanted one.

"My husband passed away and I didn't know if he would approve of it if he was alive, so I just decided now's the time," McKenna said.

She said some of her family members were very upset because they didn't approve.

McKenna said she got the tattoo for herself, not as something to show off.

"It's just pretty," McKenna said.

"I don't wear low-cut blouses, but I don't mind showing people if they ask me about it. I'm not ashamed of it."

The reporter can be reached at 582-0471, ext. 3052

(Feb. 18, 2007)