Megan Hoogland, of Mankato, Minn., and Victor Policheri, of Seattle, both 31, recently exhibited at a tattoo artists' convention at the Salt Palace.

They talk about getting their first tattoos.

Hoogland: I got my first one about a month after I started tattooing [in 1996]. I was taught by a biker. I was drunk when I got it - it was the whole cliché. None of that ever happens anymore, but it used to happen all the time when I started. . . . It was vampire bites on my neck. It faded. Nobody ever notices it anymore.

Policheri: Mine was razor blades - five X-Actos strapped together, and you dip them in ink. Pretty good looking tattoo, actually. Doesn't look like a 12-year-old razor-blade tattoo. It's a sun, around it are six hands with phases of the moon in it.

Hoogland: It hurts. Kind of depends on the person and where you get it. Usually it's nothing you can't handle. I use Bactine on people to take the edge off.

Policheri: I talk people out of cliché tattoos all the time. Taz was a big cliché for a long time. . . . I fix people's regrets all the time.

Hoogland: I wear tattoos because it's what I do. . . . I probably have 13. I know so many artists that do it, that if there's somebody whose work I really like, I get them to do it - or I figure out what I want to get and I pick who I want to do it.

Policheri: We're tattooists, and we have that as an excuse. For most people, when you get your first tattoo, you have a realization of wearing art on your body - and you want more.

-As told to Sean P. Means

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