Writer Anthony Taylor visited Vern Stice at Black Magic Tattoo and lived to tell the tale, right here in dsm. Writer: Anthony Taylor Photo: Betsy Rudicil Sitting in a padded chair at Black Magic Tattoo, I find myself acutely aware that I have no frame of reference for the sensation I’m about to experience. In the days leading up to the appointment for this, my first tattoo, my previously inked friends had given me a number of metaphors and approximations in an attempt to provide some context, but at the end of the day, I’m still walking into this more or less blind. Why now? If I’ve gone this long without getting a tattoo, what got me sitting in a chair on a pleasant day in the middle of my 49th year? Well, I’m here for Vern. Veronica “Vern” Stice is Black Magic’s owner/operator, and she’s spent the last decade developing a devoted list of clients from Central Iowa and beyond. They make pilgrimage to the East Village for her personality and style as much as her linework and attention to detail. So I’m here for Vern, and you wouldn’t write about a restaurant without tasting the food, would you? But still, the question nags: what’s it going to feel like? I try explaining all of this to Stice as she preps my forearm. She responds with a laconic, arched eyebrow. Before its current iteration as the bastion of downtown living and local shopping, the East Village had a decidedly more blue-collar history. There were theaters and shops, to be sure, but the closer one got to the Capitol and the railroad tracks, the more one found oneself surrounded by bars, auto repair shops, warehouses and tattoo parlors. Even now, in the midst of all the new facades and public art, there are some holdovers. The Locust Tap and Beechwood Lounge are appropriately divey, but there’s no place in the East Village that straddles the line between showcasing what the neighborhood was and defining what it is better than the legendary Blazing Saddle at 416 E. Fifth St. And if you were to do a shot at the Saddle, step outside and walk about 20 paces to your right, you’d find yourself standing at Stice’s front door. “I feel very lucky that I got into this spot,” she said, standing outside the plate glass window that looks in on her chair from the sidewalk. “It seems fated.” After high school, Stice spent much of her early adulthood bouncing between Iowa and Arizona, including a four-year stretch when she was shuttling between the two states every two months, trying to juggle clients in both places. She cut her teeth in the profession in a manner that will sound familiar to many tattoo artists: She got her first tattoo at 18 and became the Kid Who Wouldn’t Leave. “I made myself indispensable,” she recalled. “Answered phones, helped with the floors, cleaned everything I could get my hands on.” All the while, she continued drawing. She’d always had a passion for art but never considered it as a career until she began hanging around that shop. And while it’s possible there’s some alternate universe out there where Young Vern never gets her first tattoo and settles into a quiet life as an art teacher somewhere, here in the known world, Stice watched those artists spend their days drawing and getting paid for the things they created, and something just clicked. A decade later and Stice is here, chatting with her East Village neighbors as they pass by on the sidewalk, waiting for the next client to walk in for the day. Black Magic is small: a couple of chairs on one side of the space, a little reception area with a couch and a table on the other. When the doors are thrown open to the air, the space feels more like a patio than an enclosed room. The chair Stice sat me in for my tattoo is barely 3 feet from the sidewalk. That’s intentional. Having as much of her work as possible taking place close to the streetside windows is more than just good advertising for her services. It also makes the parlor feel like an extension of the sidewalk, like a visceral, connective part of the neighborhood. “I think that a tattoo shop can really fill a similar role to a barber shop in a community,” she said. “It can be kind of a social center, where people feel comfortable coming in and just hanging out for a while.” Stepping into Black Magic, it’s quickly apparent the place has more in common with the Saddle than just proximity. It’s a space that embraces the seedier elements of the East Village’s past, while being a firmly welcoming, safe space for the neighborhood’s current residents and clientele. “Tattoo shops now, compared to 20 years ago, are a lot different,” Stice said. “I think you’re going to find a lot more women and queer people in that space.” Black Magic’s artists and all but a few of its staff identify as female, which isn’t unique but is certainly rare. And while women have been tattoo artists for as long as tattoos have existed, a woman-dominated space inherently offers a different vibe, regardless of the context or setting. “I hear that a lot when people come in. … They say they feel so comfortable and everyone’s nice and it smells good,” she said with a laugh. “But aren’t these just things that we all want? Give me some pillows!” Maybe they are things we all want. Black Magic’s walk-in Saturdays are always packed affairs, and booking time with Stice herself is usually done months in advance. But even a cursory look at the finished products makes it easy to see why she’s worth the wait. Stice’s style is more traditional, although she can work well from reference images. But where her talent really shines is in the details. Crisp fine lines and edges, clear lettering, and clean shading are all hallmarks of her work. And while that gorgeous work is the ultimate goal, I’ll steadfastly maintain that it’s not what keeps people coming back for a second, third or 10th tattoo. It’s the woman. “She opened that shop completely on her own,” repeat customer Janae Ingles said. “She saved and paid for every part of it. Her story is inspiring, and her style and personality are unmatched. She’s just a great human to be around.” Over and over again, the women I spoke to — some of whom had been tattooed by Stice, others who just know her like you know a neighbor — glowed about the energy she radiates. “Hardest worker I know.” “An amazing artist and a better human.” “A symbol of beauty and softness in a sharp world.” For the record, my tattoo felt fine. I wouldn’t call the buzzing, scraping feeling pleasant or relaxing, but “pain” is too strong of a word. Stice chatted freely as she worked, and a gentle breeze blew through the open door. She knocked out my tattoo, a Blackwing 602 pencil, in about 40 minutes. I got a tattoo because I wanted to find out more about the artist. But my lasting takeaway came from a moment outside of the chair. Standing on the sidewalk, leaning against that plate glass window, I asked her about Black Magic’s legacy. She says she’d love for her little shop to become an East Village institution, like the Saddle, right next door. I ask if that means she’ll be here, tattooing when she’s 80. She laughed again. “I think . . .” she started, before pausing for just a brief moment. She looked up the street, eyes focused on nothing in particular as tree branches dappled the sunlight on her face. “If you would have asked me even a couple years ago, I probably would have said I’d work until I’m dead. But as I go down this path and understand more and more what it means to participate in this community and understand the impact I can have outside of this, I don’t know,” she said. “But for however long as this lasts, I think people will always have fond memories of it. And that’s my idea of a legacy. The end goal was always to own my own shop. Through my life there have been different versions of what that looked like to me, but I’m definitely happy where we landed.”