"It's so much more personal" than other kinds of art, he said.
Spencer was among 600 tattoo artists from around the country who packed the Convention Center Friday through Sunday for what the promoters billed as one of the world's biggest tattoo conventions.
The event coincided with the opening of an exhibit of tattoo art at the Independence Seaport Museum, and some patrons went back and forth.
On Saturday, people eager to get inked snaked several blocks from the Convention Center entrance at 11th and Arch Streets.
Sunday crowds were tame in comparison, with the wait to get through security about 20 minutes.
Inside, Denise Bishop of North Jersey was getting a geisha imprinted on her side because "it's different."
(New Jersey pride appeared in full force, judging by the man who got a tattoo map of the Garden State on his left side.)
Japanese-style tattoos were a fairly common request, according to Rich Meggison, a tattoo artist from York.
Tastes are different back home in central Pennsylvania, said Meggison's wife and partner, Cecily. Star patterns are what clients there want most often, she said.
She said she was weary of stars, which are easy work.
"I am completely over it," she said.
Business was brisk for the Meggisons, and they had "an absolutely absurd line" 11 people deep at one point Saturday, she said.
Some of the people strolling the convention hall - many in their 20s and 30s but spanning all ages and races - had only one or two tattoos.
Some, like Joe Maksin, had most of their bodies covered in ink.
With a chest covered in previous tattoo-work, he decided to drive from Tabernacle Township, Burlington County, to get a rooster and a hen tattooed under his left armpit - one of the few spots left on his torso.
"I'm just filling space now," Maksin said when asked what inspired the agricultural artistry.
