What do you get when you mix tattoos, paintings and haircuts?

Answer: The Studio, a combination tattoo parlor, art gallery and salon.

If not the first of its kind, the shop at 634 Vernon St. is certainly a rarity.

True, other pairings already exist.

There are tattoos and piercings, which businesses have long offered alongside one another.

There are tattoos and hairdos. Around the country, places have popped up where people can color their hair in one corner and color their skin in another.

And there are tattoos and traditional art – at least, bodies are seen as a different kind of canvas.

But to throw all these in one bag and call them The Studio? Co-owner Melissa Funk – yes, her real name – thinks it makes perfect sense.

“My desire is for people to see tattooing is not the scary back alley people think it is,” Funk, 45, says.

She calls herself a female in a male-dominated industry. At other shops, she has seen timid women walk in as though expecting an ambush. At The Studio, the art gives visitors something to see, and the salon (owned by BeeJay Everett) brings in guests who wouldn’t otherwise enter a tattoo parlor.

“We watch Baby Boomers get tattooed all the time,” says massage therapist Danielle Morris, 25, “and they’re referred by sitting in a salon chair and watching the tattoo shop.”

An open wall divides the tattoo parlor from the spa and salon. Customers have gone under the tattoo gun while waiting for dye to settle in their hair. Women in their 80s tell Morris they’ve always wanted body art but couldn’t muster the courage – that is, until they came by way of the spa and salon, which offers styling, massage, facials and waxing.

That last service is particularly fitting: the artists recommend getting waxed before getting inked.

But all of the services seem fitting to Funk, who traces an aesthetic link among them.

“People who are looking to spend money on their hair, or a massage or facial, are also willing to spend money on tattoos and piercings,” she says.

The entrepreneur needs less effort to explain the walls of art around her – she is a tattoo artist, after all. In fact, she’s never had a job that didn’t involve art, from picture framer to military illustrator.

Increasingly, The Studio’s artwork is coming from its tattoo artists, all of whom use paint, graphite, charcoal, water colors or welded metal to fashion visual attractions. But the place, a liberal den where images with penises and breasts can hang freely, also bears the efforts of local artists.

Funk describes her own productions as impressionistic with vibrant colors, unlike the tattoos she creates, which tend to be a grayscale form of realism and portraits.

Clients often return to see what’s new in the collection of roughly 100 pieces. But they also use the paintings to pick their tattoo artists, who interpret what guests want rather than photocopy a picture that’s brought in.

“The Studio is the only place I trust,” says Stephanie Martin, 19, of Auburn. “Everything that they’ve done is always way beyond what we pictured.”

She’s gotten piercings at other shops, which she didn’t find clean enough to do her tattoos. She has three from The Studio now, the latest a diamond on her ring finger to match her new husband’s.

Other clients include Studio employees, who trade time. In return for her tattoos, Morris has given the artists massages. And they need them. She says they contort their bodies in all sorts of positions to get the inking done, and that takes a toll on their muscles.

“I harp on them about their posture,” Morris says. “Tattoo artists are as bad as mechanics.”

Morris has some of their artwork at home, too, which Funk says customers buy because they like the craft, whatever the medium.

“They have a piece of art on their skin,” she says. “They also have a piece to hang on their wall.”

Lien Hoang can be reached at lienh@goldcountrymedia.com.

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WHAT: The Studio (tattoo, art, spa, salon)

WHERE: 634 Vernon St.

INFO: (916) 783-0303