Burlington's Starr Asylum to close after 21 years of tattooing: 'Time to find another adventure'

The low-frequency hum of Heather Starr's tattoo gun creates a disarming shroud of white noise enveloping her and her clients as rock music plays from speakers near the front desk of her tattoo shop.

"I don't know what it is about the tattoo chair," Starr told The Hawk Eye on a recent afternoon from the waiting area of Starr Asylum Tattoos and Trends on Jefferson Street in Burlington. "It's very intimate. It's very therapeutic to people."

It's an experience she said has turned countless clients to close friends over the tattoo artist's past 21 years spent in southeast Iowa helping people to express themselves through body art.

But come the end of October, Starr and her wife, Cass, who manages Starr Asylum, will close up shop as they prepare to relocate to Hattiesburg, Mississippi, to be closer to family.

"We'll miss clients the most," Starr said. "I'm sad about it, but it's time to find another adventure."

From rebel to contributing member of Burlington society

It was the mid-1990s. Tattoos were largely still taboo in mainstream society, and the majority of tattoo artists were men. That's when a 16-year-old living in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, decided she wanted to become a tattoo artist.

Asked what spurred her ambition, Starr replied with a single word: "Rebellion."

"Twenty, 30 years ago, tattooing was more about image, rebellion. And now it's art," she said. "It was more underground and people hid their tattoos. Now, people specifically get tattoos in places that can't be hidden. So the whole industry has evolved incredibly."

Art was also in her genes. Her grandmother was a watercolor painter and her mother was a freelance artist whose butterfly wrist tattoo remains a vivid part of Starr's earliest memories. Later, Starr would add another tattoo to her mother's canvas, a sepia-toned floral piece that cascaded from her shoulder all the way down her back.

"It's huge to tattoo your mother," Starr said. "That's the one that I think means most to me."

At 17, Starr got an apprenticeship under a couple who ran a studio called Virtual Reality, cleaning the tattoo parlor, scrubbing tubes and drawing pictures before advancing to tattooing small, simple works of art on her mentor, Jay Erdman.

"You start out with tiny, simple things, and I did a ton of little things," Starr said.

Having grown weary of Sheboygan's brutal winters and with more experience in the tattoo industry under her belt, Starr made her way south, stopping short of reaching the Missouri-Iowa border.

"I was looking for warmer weather, and then when I got around here, I was looking for a town small enough that my kids could play outside but big enough that I could make a living. And Burlington was amazing," Starr said.

She worked at a couple of tattoo parlors before opening the first Starr Asylum in Mount Pleasant in 2001. She remained there for two years before moving her studio to New London for a brief time. She brought Starr Asylum to Burlington in 2007, first to the corner of Angular and Ninth streets, then to the downtown location.

Everywhere she's been, she's made an effort to give back.

"(It started with) rebellion, and then somewhere along the line, I woke up a productive member of society," Starr said. "I don't know when it happened. All of a sudden I was paying taxes and I was a soccer mom."

She has set up haunted houses and organized underground concerts in Mount Pleasant and New London, educated students at Burlington and west central Illinois schools on the steps to take to become a licensed tattoo artist and piercist, done henna tattoos for students at West Burlington High School proms, painted faces at community events, given out hugs at Pride events.

"It's my community," Starr said. "We've always said we can't change the world, but we can change this little spot that we're sitting in."

"Every person who comes through our door looking for a donation for an event — cancer benefits, the VFW, everything — she donates to all of them," Cass said of her wife. "I don't think she's ever turned a single one away."

A 'soul catcher': Tattooing brings lasting relationships with clients

The atmosphere in Starr Asylum is one of acceptance and respect, where judgments are withheld and requests seldom rejected. Except for gang or hate symbol tattoos.

"We've always held everyone who walked through the studio to a certain level of respect," Starr said. "Acceptance is important in our vocation."

Dustina Fenton met Starr years ago when she went in to her parlor to get her daughter's name tattooed on her foot. She's lost count of the number of tattoos she has gotten from Starr since.

"Most of them are big pieces, so it's a lot of sit-down-and-talk time," Fenton said, explaining the two hit it off immediately and remain close friends. "Starr is a soul catcher. She'll catch you when you're falling."

Starr has tattooed generations of family members, with clients she tattooed previously bringing in their children and grandchildren for their first tattoo or piercing.

It was also tattooing that brought together Starr and Cass, who first became a client of Starr's in 2009 and returned for numerous tattoos. The two married in 2019.

From Tasmanian devils to watercolor: A look back at changing tattoo trends

Starr has seen ever-evolving trends, styles and technology throughout her career.

"Tribal was huge (when I started), and so was the Tasmanian devil," Starr recalled. "In every profession, in every sport, in everything — Tasmanian devil, to the point where I even worked at a studio that had a sign on the door that said we won't do Tasmanian devils. That's how many Tasmanian devils there were to be done."

It used to be that people would walk into a tattoo parlor and select an image from a flash sheet in a book or hanging on a wall, but preferences have diversified with the rise of the internet, social media and smart phones.

"Most tattoo shops don't even keep flash anymore, which used to be the drawings on the walls," Starr said. "That used to be the way most people found a tattoo. Nobody even looks at them anymore.

"In today's technology world, tattoos are easy. They're easy to find, they're easy to see. Everybody's getting them. Instagram is full, TikTok's full, Google is full."

Starr said people have also grown more intentional about what they want in a tattoo after having spent hours or more scouring the internet for ideas.

"When they get here, I no longer have to walk people through the process," she said. "When they walk through that door, they already know what they want and they're very specific, whereas back in the day, it was, 'meh.'"

Starr said any time an influencer or celebrity gets a new or recycled style of tattoo, she can expect to be giving a similar one in the near future.

"You might as well set your clock to it. They're going to be coming through that door," she said.

Tattoo trends tend to recycle every 10 to 15 years, though the Tasmanian devil has yet to make a full comeback. New styles are always emerging, made possible in part by advances in technology, better ink quality that make the prospect of watercolor-style tattoos less frightening to aging clients and new generations of tattoo artists.

"Every couple of years, new styles emerge that I think 20 years ago we would have never thought were possible," Starr said. "The big difference now from then is the talent. Every new generation of tattoo artists that show up are 100 times better than the one before them," she said. "I see some of the younger ones, the 18-, 19-, 20-year-olds that are coming out now, and the work they can do is inspiring. It's mind-blowing."

Starr has had about a dozen apprentices throughout her time in southeast Iowa. Her current apprentice, Cheyenne Connolly, is learning how to do piercings and hopes to one day have a business where her daughter-in-law can do tattoos.

Starr's advice to clients on finding a new tattoo artist in Burlington

Starr's work days usually consist of three to five tattoo appointments "and a sprinkle of piercings." But those clients soon will need to find another artist, unless they want to journey to Mississippi.

"What I typically say to clients when they ask about other shops is all the licensed studios in Burlington are good, clean tattoo studios, and if you like their style and their artwork, you can't go wrong," Starr said.

She suggested checking out their work ahead of time by going to their social media pages or asking artists to show samples of previous tattoos and piercings.

"Tattoo artists should always be ready or willing to show you their work and answer questions," she said.

While Starr and Cass are ready to embark on their next adventure as they move on to warmer weather, they said they'll miss the people they've met along the way.

"I am overwhelmingly blessed," Starr said.

They'll be equally missed.

"The thought of me not being able to go down there and run in there and give her a big hug, it's going to be rough, but it does make me smile because I know that wherever Starr goes, she was meant to go there, and I'm sure there's going to be many people that Starr's still got left to touch," Fenton said.

Michaele Niehaus covers business, development, environment and agriculture for The Hawk Eye. She can be reached at mniehaus@thehawkeye.com.

This article originally appeared on The Hawk Eye: Starr Asylum to close after 21 years of tattoos in southeast Iowa