You can guarantee losing a wager if you bet you’d ever catch Shanghai Kate Hellenbrand crocheting frilly poinsettias into lavender quilts with GOP grandmas in the muggy rural South. She detests Bush and the retirement capital of Florida.
But if the enterprising 62-year-old ever did decide to begin quilt making, she would create ominous demons, commemorative eagles, oriental-designed cherry blossoms or creepy, crawly insects akin to her style detailed in her extensive portfolio.
“I’m too adventurous to stay working in one style of work,” she explains. “Lots of artists get stuck working in just one style.”
Shanghai Kate might indeed have the most interesting resume of any male or female tattoo artist in the country. She’s worked plenty of side jobs from a graphic designer, art gallery promoter to an influential columnist. The revered artist and entrepreneur of 35 years keeps herself in perpetual motion by promoting her work and meeting fans at tattoo conventions throughout the country.
“Fate just plucked me — fate has been extremely kind,” she admits. “I’ve never been girly. I’ve worked really hard whether working on the farm or for the government.”
While her original works appear in all major tattoo magazines, she also enjoys repairing old, faded and often sloppy prison-like designs by drawing over the lights and darks of skin and ink, using the former ink as means of shading to conceal unwanted work. She’s even covered a tattoo of a client’s ex-girlfriend with a deadly grim reaper.
Her notable clients include Howard Stern, the lead guitarist of Pearl Jam, Casey Affleck, Summer Phoenix, CEOs of fancy companies and many SoHo models. But she is not one to play favorites; all her other clients are just as important to her. “Everyone is a celebrity to me when they see me,” she adds.
Shanghai Kate’s career began with her admiration for the famous tattoo artist and pioneer Sailor Jerry. She apprenticed with him before his death in the early 70s. Sailor Jerry, also known as Norman Collins, is particularly known for creating distinctive pin-ups and bold animal designs. He took Shanghai Kate under his wing because of her passion and eagerness to work long hours despite being young and a woman at the time.
She was so inspired by his commitment and innovation to the practice, she soon became a serious tattoo artist herself. She tattooed Sailor Jerry’s eyeball on her right arm so she can fondly remind herself of him.
“Sailor Jerry embraced me. He built machines for me,” she says. “He enjoyed being warm around me.”
Shanghai Kate has been an audacious migrant ever since abandoning her farmhouse roots in Utah during the 60s. She took a backpack and eventually breezed through every state and major city in the United States during the next few decades. She’s tattooed in many various places; from bars in Spain and Norway to Chinatowns in Honolulu and Philadelphia — part of the reason she was nicknamed “Shanghai Kate.”
She even recently put up her popular Buffalo, N.Y. shop, Seven Seas Tattoos, for sale because she simply doesn’t want to settle down.
Her plans include spending her winters in Arizona and somewhere cooler in the summer. But she’s ready to take on quite a few side trips. She wants to see as many blue glaciers, redwood trees and jagged sierras as she can.
“I’m never going to settle down because we have one shot here,” she says. “Too many people get stuck in one place.”
