The night before Tracy Grazianno was scheduled to get tattooed by a stranger in front of television cameras, her boyfriend of a few months was walking home on Long Island when he was struck by a car and killed.
Shocked by grief, Grazianno almost canceled her appearance. But she decided instead to turn it into a tribute to her heavily tattooed boyfriend, who had been excited for her to be a part of “Ink Master” — the TV show that’s considered the “American Idol” of the body-art world.
In fact, the tragedy helped Grazianno, who already had six tats, finally settle on the design she wanted: a feather to symbolize her Native American heritage, in which traditional burials include placing a feather on the dead.
“It was terrible and awesome at the same time,” says Grazianno, 31, of Port Jefferson, LI.
She is just one of the dozens of “human canvases” who donate their bodies — sometimes no-questions-asked — to be tattooed on Spike TV’s “Ink Master,” the tattoo-artist competition that debuts its fourth season Tuesday.
While the show’s drama focuses on the 17 artists battling for a $100,000 grand prize, the canvases are the key element that makes the whole thing possible. Each has their own reason for signing up: Some, like Grazianno, are “experience junkies,” while others are just out for a free tattoo. (Canvases are not paid to be on the show, and while they get to pick the tattoo in some challenges, they have to be up for anything in others.)
But the volunteer canvases, who only appear in a single round each, can make the whole thing unpredictable: Last season, one walked out mid-tattoo after arguing with the artist over a phoenix design.
In those cases, even the judges sometimes can’t agree on who was in the wrong.
“I felt this girl was being argumentative and being difficult,” host Dave Navarro tells The Post. “Other judges felt it was up to the artist to give her what she wanted and calm her down.”
He adds: “I don’t look to my artist to be my therapist — I look to my artist to be my artist.”
During last year’s finale — a marathon 35-hour tattoo split into five sessions — a canvas walked out after just one session, saying the image of a woman with a Native American headdress wasn’t something he wanted on his back for the rest of his life. Artist Tatu Baby had to start from scratch with a new canvas but no additional time.
Only one other canvas, from Season 1, walked out in the middle of a tattoo, but it was because she was too sunburned to take the needle. Producers paid for her to get the tattoo completed after the show, a Spike TV spokeswoman says. Other canvases have vomited from pain, but soldiered on (a medic is always on set just in case).
“I feel like I dodged a bullet,” says Flushing resident Ronnie Fernandez, a canvas on Season 3. “There were a couple people on my show who didn’t get the greatest tattoos, and I could have been one of those.”
During an Asian-detail challenge, in which Ronnie received a devilish Japanese theater mask on his neck, another contestant got a similar tat on his lower back. Only it wasn’t very good: A jury of canvases, who get to weigh in on some of the challenges, voted that tattoo the worst of the bunch, because it lacked the detailed artwork the tattooer was supposed to accomplish.
Fernandez, a 31-year-old real estate agent who has two other tattoos, says he wouldn’t change a thing about his “Ink Master” souvenir. But he won’t be signing up again anytime soon.
“I think I got all caught up with the whole being on TV thing,” Fernandez says. “I don’t think I’d do it again.”
Navarro says tattooing is always a gamble, even outside a reality show, unless you meticulously research your artist and their portfolio.
“I’ve definitely cringed a multitude of times” on the show, he says. “I’ve also cringed when I’ve walked out of tattoo shops myself with things that have been done on me. That’s just kind of the way it goes.”
Navarro has tattoos decorating his arms, legs, chest and back, but will never get any removed — even the “CE” on his sternum from his now-defunct marriage to Carmen Electra — because each is a chapter in his diary of life experiences.
Signing up for a competition in which 16 people get sent home is “a pretty strong indication that you may not be happy,” he says.
The new season kicks off with an intense convention-style challenge, in which the artists are presented with dozens of canvases. For that round, the canvases get to choose their design.
The judges — Navarro; Chris Núñez, an artist who starred on the reality show “Miami Ink”; and Oliver Peck, a famed Los Angeles artist — critique the tattooers both on quantity and quality.
In the following elimination round, the canvases are at the whim of the artists, who have free rein to show off their specialties. That’s how Nick Mariconi, of Chester, NY, ended up lying face down on the tattoo table for six hours while artist “Gentle” Jay Blondel drew a large skull with roses in the center of his back.
“He wasn’t drawing Snoopy on me, so I was OK,” Mariconi, 35, says.
As for the skull? He’s happy with it, though he’s planning to do some touch-up work and add more art to the background.
“I probably would have picked a different design,” says Marconi, who already had several inkings. “Maybe like a sword going around my back. [The skull’s] kind of badass, but it’s not really my kind of badass.”
Would he sign up again? “Heck yeah,” he says.
The judges generally eliminate one contestant per episode, leading up to three competitors battling it out in the finale. The challenges change each season, but most are timed exercises in specific tattoo skills, such as creating a geometric design, tattooing on an eyelid or shading a tattoo that covers a scar.
The show isn’t like some East Village tattoo shop you can just drop into: Human canvases undergo a multi-step screening process, in which producers ask about their pain tolerance, number of existing tattoos and whether they’re willing to sit for hours at a time, sometimes with little input.
But the show clearly isn’t looking for people to just play dead the whole time, says J.P. Piteo, a 32-year-old grocery store manager who lives in Bushwick and a canvas this season. She got an interpretation of a Buddhist mandala symbol on her thigh in a geometric challenge round.
“You don’t want to concede too much because you’re not there to help them win — you’re there to get a good tattoo,” says Piteo, who was a fan of the show and signed up to have a cool story to add to her collection of 40 tattoos. “The first time we saw any [artists] on the show, it was all right there on the spot. There was no behind-the-scenes stuff.”
The show can be just as tense for the artists, who are used to spending hours getting to know their clients and planning out designs with them. The frantic pace of “Ink Master” provides no such comfort.
“It’s actually pretty nerve-wracking,” says Lydia Bruno, 34, an Albany-based artist and contestant this season. “You don’t know anything about [the canvas]. You just get thrown under the wolves and hope for the best.”
One of the contestants on the upcoming season, Severn, Md.-based tattoo artist Halo (real name: Sean Patrick), knows the troubles of a bad tattoo. He’s undergoing laser treatments every two weeks to remove some of his many tattoos — he started getting them at 14 and has lost count of the exact number he now sports. “They’re awful,” he admits.
“[The show] isn’t a proper avenue to get a guaranteed good tattoo,” says Halo, 30, who wouldn’t put himself up to be a canvas. “You’re testing your fate and your body.”
But then again, there is the allure of getting a tattoo on a show that’s popular among tattoo artists and aficionados, especially when your artist ends up winning.
“It was kind of the whole experience that intrigued me,” Fernandez says. “I definitely don’t fail to mention that I got it done on ‘Ink Master’ and that the guy won the whole thing.”