Bonnie Jean
Bonnie Jean has been a part of Tattoo by Design since helping the
original owner, Nanette Savage, open the studio in 1985, and then purchasing
the shop from her four years later. Bonnie Jean grew up in Hawaii,
and got into the tattoo world when she met Taunee Beekman in Lahaina,
owner of the original Skin
Deep Hawaii,
back in the late 1970s. At the time, Bonnie Jean owned Candelabra,
creating exquisite hand-carved candles. She’s had many
other jobs in the arts, including building stained glass, painting
t-shirts, and performing as a musician at The Whale’s Tail on
Front Street in Lahaina. Comparing notes with fellow business
owner and artist Taunee, Bonnie Jean realized that maybe tattooing
would be a better place to express her artistic interests and her love
of working with people. A few years down the road, she started
her apprenticeship with Nanette here in Eugene, and has been part of
the tattoo world ever since.
When Bonnie Jean took over Tattoo by Design,
she wanted to create a shop that really welcomed all kinds of tattoo
enthusiasts, and represented the tattoo world as the artistic field
it is. She’s worked
hard to create a shop with high standards of art, health and customer
service. In 1993, Bonnie Jean was a member of the first class
on disease prevention given by the Alliance
of Professional Tattooists,
a trade group for tattooists which is focused on prevention of disease
transmission. Every artist she hires is required to follow strict
health standards, and to join the APT. Bonnie Jean is has also
been a member of the National
Tattoo Association since
1995; NTA is one of the most respected tattoo organizations in the
world.
Bonnie Jean was part of bringing Oregon tattooing into the modern
age when she sat on the original committee to create tattoo regulations
in Oregon in the early 1990s. The choice was harsh: Oregon
was going to shut tattooing down altogether, or regulate it, due to
bad sanitation practices in so many shops. Bonnie Jean has been
a licensed tattooist in the state of Hawaii since 1986, and with her
experience in the APT, the health officials wanted her to help them
design the regulations. Bonnie Jean, not wanting to lose the
career she’d grown to love, was honored to be one of a few tattooists
from Oregon chosen to help the Health Licensing Office and legislators
design tattoo regulations. She continues to encourage Oregon
to maintain high health standards for our tattooists.
In 1997, Bonnie
Jean opened a second studio in Yachats, on the central Oregon coast. Yachats
is a small arts community, where people come to both vacation and retire
in a setting free of the more hectic parts of most coastal tourists
towns: there are no arcades,
no crowded beaches, no port, no endless storefronts of cheap souvenirs. Yachats
is the kind of place where people walk on the beach, visit with family,
and appreciate life – quiet, and a perfect place for a quiet,
private tattoo experience. That’s just what Bonnie Jean
provides at Turtle Island Tattoo,
a state-licensed appointment-only studio just half a block from the
Pacific ocean.
These days, Bonnie Jean spends most of her time on the coast in Yachats
at Turtle Island Tattoo, and is in the Eugene studio for appointments
with her clients there, and to work with students in Tattoo
by Design’s
state-licensed tattoo pre-licensing program.
She continues to be fascinated with tattooing as a healing art form. In
her third decade as a tattoo artist, Bonnie Jean’s favorite thing
is helping her clients put their spiritual beliefs into visual imagery.
