About
The Parlor
The Tattooed Lady offers high-quality tattooing services in the home of a Fine Art Gallery. Owned and operated by all female staff, all of our artists are artistically educated and offer an array of services and goods. Our space exhibits art from local and internationally
known artists. Located in historic downtown
Zimmerman, our space is open to the public
to enjoy.
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Outside of our gallery, we offer social painting
classes, local exhibits, and other local events. Not to mention we can also help you from logos to websites, commission work to tutoring services.
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Learn more about what we offer below!
We love it all.
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Meet Olive
Who is that in our logo?
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Not a Hell on Wheels character! Well almost. Meet Olive Ottoman,
Born 1837. Olive and her younger sister witnessed the brutal killing of her
family members by a local native tribe as they made their way across to the
west coast. The young girls, Olive 14, and Mary her sister 7 were kidnapped and
enslaved by the tribe for over a year. Later Olive and her sister were traded to a more
peaceful tribe, the Mohave. The Mohave tattooed both girls with a traditional chin
tattoo, a very common practice and or tradition of this tribe. However we know,
Olive’s chin tattoo was blue in color.
Mistakenly the mark was accredited, later on, to be a slave marking.
However, this is contrary to the practices of the Mohave. The marking was only applied to
their people and would ensure their spirits to have a good afterlife. Making this practice an exclusive practice. Olive was returned to the white society by force when she was traded for a white horse and some blankets. Once returned, rumors spread that she was once married to a Mohave man and gave birth to two boys.
She denied this claim and said her unusual marking was a way to identify her as a salve, arguably this story was created by her male narration or a way to make her transition into the white culture more acceptable. However, among the Mohave, only the married women had blue chin tattoos. Olive also earned a small income from being toured around as an oddity from her marking and tale. Many wrote on her behalf about her experience, which was often time sensationalized to sell books. However, Olive stayed true to her word and keep the information about the Mohave more secretive and personal. In any case, Olive gave birth and paved the way for other tattooed women to follow in her footsteps as Tattooed Ladies!