“What about Stonewall?” the interviewer asks.
The conversation is part of an oral history collected for the Leather Archives & Museum by acclaimed leather writer and educator Jack Rinella. It’s between him and one of the most influential tattooers in American history whose success is owed, in large part, to involvement with gay Chicago. If Chuck Renslow was the heart of Chicago’s leather community, Raven was the valve. He shuttled the community’s ideas and influence into a career that elevated the craft and safety of tattooing; but soft-spoken and modest, a man of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” generation, Raven minimized this. By his own account, he was just a very busy tattooer.
Shortly afterward, he met Renslow and his partner Dom Orejudos, perhaps better known under his art monicker “Etienne” as a pioneer of the buxom gay imagery commonly attributed to Tom of Finland. It was 1959. Renslow and Orejudos were already running Kris Studios, a popular beefcake photography spot, and a gym that kept them amply supplied with sculpted models. Raven brought Renslow some of his erotic drawings, hoping Kris might have a use for them. Instead, he got invited to an orgy. Quickly, something blossomed between Renslow and Raven, and Renslow asked Orejudos if he could bring Raven into their home as a second lover. Not a thruple, he explained, but part of their family. Orejudos gladly accommodated, and “The Family” was born.
Contrary to popular lore, Raven did not assume his surname as a nod to Sparrow or other tattooers with bird monikers. Tattooing was not considered respectable work, and many used pseudonyms to separate their personal and professional lives, especially to spare families any shame or embarrassment their work might cause. Through a queer lens, renaming can be viewed as an act of self determination—a separation from a life on other’s terms vs. a life on one’s own. Raven has never remarked on this. What he has said is, growing up, his father explained “Ingram” meant “Raven” in Old English. If being a tattooer was his most authentic self, he still held his birth family close.
Chicago’s gay grandaddy of tattooing
Under Renslow Family Enterprises, he set up his first solo shop, the Old Town Tattoo Salon, in a storefront of their apartment building on Larrabee Street. When they lost the building to gentrification, they relocated to a rundown spot on Belmont and opened what eventually became Chicago Tattoo Company, which is still in business today. This is when Raven started to feel removed from, as he would say, the “ins and outs and intrigues” of a larger gay scene, but his community was always his life force.
That kind of mindfulness is what put health on the forefront of Raven’s mind. Until the late 60s, tattooers made their own inks and needles. These were highly protected trade secrets that distinguished some artists over others but also made tattooing a little unpredictable and even dangerous. Allergic reactions and infections from ink were common, as was reusing needles and inks because of the time and labor required to make new ones. With the help of then co-owners Buddy McFall and Dale Grande, Raven started Chicago Tattoo Supply, one of the first companies to mass-produce inks and needles. While tattooers had mixed feelings on wider equipment distribution, the growing availability of supplies forced them to confront ways they had been failing clients.
