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Tattoo artist is all about the art

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Contributed by: Kevin Villegas/YourHub.com on 3/30/2007

At the age of 13, Larry Foussat gave himself a tattoo using only a hand poke device he fashioned out of a pin.

His mother didn't like it too much.

She made him rub it out with salt.

"It burned!" Foussat said, rubbing his arm while laughing and raising his voice so his apprentice, Doug Nicholaus, could hear in the back.

Foussat has been in the business for 11 years, and in this time, he estimates that he has down many hundreds of tattoos, from the exotic to the standard. His shop, Havana Street Tattoos, at 2712 S. Havana St., has been open at that location since January and is his first business.

Prior to owning Havana Street Tattoos, he worked on the west side of town and for the last seven years, he worked at a shop on Iliff Avenue and Buckley Road.

The shop has a welcoming sort of atmosphere and walking in, you might find yourself with the feeling that some of the regulars come in just to hang out. Foussat seems to be that type of person that you could talk to for hours without realizing the hours that passed.

On March 22, Foussat was working alone in his shop for the first few hours it was open. People filtered in and out, looked at the art on the walls, set up appointments for later and talked ink with the Foussat as he took a break from doing a tattoo.

While Foussat was working, he worked on a tattoo for Samrawit Asfraw. This was only her second time being tattooed, but she sat still and took it like a pro. He was tattooing her right arm with a tribal band, meticulously crafting each line under the lights.

Her first tattoo was done by also done by Foussat. It is a portrait of her mother.

"It looks exactly like my mom," Asfraw said. "I'm starting to do a lot more portraits," Foussat said. "A lot of them are like people getting nice life-like portraits of their kids."

Foussat attributes the rise in popularity of portraits to increased awareness of tattoos.

"They (the public) didn't know it was possible before," Foussat said.

Foussat said that he averages about four or five tattoos a day, but during the summer months, it doubles.

"What's cool about this job is you learn more about it every day," Foussat said. "It looks like an easy job, but it's not."

Although the shop is situated in a strip mall that may look like any other of the hundreds around the metro area, Foussat said that it's not the look of the shop that matters.

"People think that just because they're in a fancy shop, they're getting a good tattoo," Foussat said. The TV show Miami Ink has also proven to be a boon to their operation.

He said that people come into the shop looking to get a specific tattoo - and often times, him and the other artist in the shop, Lenny Borgeson, will recognize the design from something that they've seen on the show.

"It's good and bad because they're teaching people the difference between a good tattoo and a bad one," Foussat said.

Foussat said that his current favorite tattoo that he is doing right now is a wildlife scene on the back of a man. It has an owl, a wolf and other animals in a nature scene that Foussat is quite proud of.

And although the technology of tattoos doesn't seem to change very quickly, Foussat said that doesn't bother him.

"Even if you have the technical part down, art never stops," Foussat said.

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