Entertainment

Kat Von D creates a buzz with her disarming style on 'Miami Ink'

09:38 AM CST on Monday, March 13, 2006

By ANN PINSON / The Dallas Morning News

Kat Von D's body of work captures personalities – the happy innocence in a toddler's smile, the wily cunning of Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka, the sultry stare of a temptress.

"I think a lot of people don't know the quality of tattoos they can get," says the 24-year-old tattoo artist during a recent stop in Dallas. "People don't know that you can get it to look exactly like a photo."

Ms. Von D, who periodically works at Elm Street Tattoo in Deep Ellum, has started some buzz with her fun-loving antics and one-of-a-kind style during guest appearances on Miami Ink. The TLC cable show, airing Tuesdays at 9 p.m., follows the adventures of the crew at a tattoo shop, and it chronicles the stories behind the tattoos customers get. At the moment, the main cast members are all men, but the mix is set to change.

"She'll take on a more prominent role in the next season," says Matt Gould, executive producer of Miami Ink, who says Ms. Von D will be in the majority of the 20 episodes next season.

"Her art is just so stunning. She's also a really cool person."

And women who watch appreciate the presence of such a strong female character on the show, he says. As Ms. Von D points out, it's not just die-hard tattoo fans who are tuning in.

Brad Loper / DMN

Kat Von D, a frequent visitor to Dallas, says people are learning to appreciate tattoo art and its female practioners on Miami Ink.

"It is an interesting lifestyle, an interesting craft," she says. "It's pretty cool, everybody from grandmas off the street to 10-year-old girls come up and say, 'Hey, we love the show.' It's kind of opening up people's minds."

So, what's her Dallas connection? Ms. Von D's husband, Oliver Peck, owns Elm Street Tattoo with his business partner Dean Williams. And Kat (short for Katherine Von Drachenberg) works in the shop for about a week each month. Her husband travels to Ms. Von D's home base, Los Angeles, for about two weeks a month.

"We're both really busy, we both travel a lot," she says of all the commuting they've done in about two years of marriage. "It's not too bad. It gives us time to miss each other."

During her stop last week in Deep Ellum, she had the same easygoing vibe as she does on the show, as well as the bright-red lips and the platform sandals she favors. But when it comes to tattooing, she means business.

"Especially in Dallas, tattooing isn't as big, I'd say, as in LA, and I think it's nice to come here and educate people about how good their tattoos can look," she says.

She's known for her realistic black-and-gray portraits, and her own tattoos reflect her affection for that type of work. Her favorite is one of her father.

"My dad's my hero," she says. "It's on my forearm, I get to look at it every day. It's his high school graduation photo, so he looks like he's in the Beatles or something."

Her parents are from Argentina, and Ms. Von D and her siblings were born in Mexico while her parents were missionaries. How did her choice of career go over with her folks?

"I've been doing it for 10 years now, so my parents are used to it," she says. "They see that I take care of myself, that I'm successful. They're happy for me, I just think it took them a little while to get used to it. I come from a very religious family, and they're from another country, so they're not used to being Americanized or any of that."

She loved to draw as a child and, at 14, she was hanging out with punk rockers who liked to tattoo each other. A friend asked her to try her hand at tattooing.

"I was a 14-year-old kid, I didn't know what I was doing," she says. "But I loved it, and I decided that was what I wanted to do, so by the time I was 16, I got into a professional tattoo shop."

Nowadays, she works at True Tattoo in Hollywood, owned by Miami Ink tattooer Chris Garver. And when she's on Miami Ink, she keeps things interesting, whether she's getting a gold tooth or showing up unexpectedly to surprise the guys.

She's all smiles when she talks about the series.

"I think it was important for the show to have a female viewpoint, because there is a female viewpoint," she says. "Women are getting tattooed now, a lot of girls are getting tattooed, it's nice to see the other side of it. Too much testosterone can be a little bit rough."

E-mail apinson@dallasnews.com

Miami Ink
9 p.m. Tuesdays, TLC. 1 hr.