Skin Deep: Tattoos, the Disappearing West, Very Bad Men, and My Deep Love for Them All

Believing herself a daughter of the West, Karol Griffin took the myths of the place-and of the outlaw-on faith. When she walked into the Body Art Workshop in Laramie, Wyoming, she found what she was looking for: a culture on the fringe of polite society, complete with outlaw signature. Soon Karol was a full-time tattoo artist, an occasional outlaw, and a tattooed woman looking for love in all the wrong places. By the mid nineties, the West had been invaded by suburban culture; and tattoos had become a mass commodity of coolness, compelling Karol to go even farther to find the authentic outsiders she romanticized. She eventually hooked up with a real old-fashioned Wyoming outlaw, complete with felony convictions and out-standing warrants-which is how Karol wound up looking down the barrel of a gun held by a tattooed caricature of true love.