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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tA tattoo of a Motorhead logo is seen on a man’s arm as Motorhead fans gather to commemorate Lemmy Kilmister, the Motorhead frontman, in Burslem, Stoke on Trent, England, Friday, May 9, 2025. (AP Photo\/Kirsty Wigglesworth)<\/p>\n
With Albertans dodging black cats, broken glass and pavement cracks, the store owner says she\u2019s gearing up for her Friday the 13th flash sale \u2014 a day that, for many tattoo shops, is almost as big as Christmas Day.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a big event,\u201d Horvath said, adding that Friday the 13th is on the calendar three times this year.<\/p>\n
Once an international day of \u201cbad luck,\u201d it\u2019s treated by some tattoo businesses as an informal holiday, with artists offering up small, pre-drawn body art, often at discounted prices.<\/p>\n
In the \u201990s, American artist Oliver Peck threw a 24-hour tattoo party to mark the day. And the trend took off.<\/p>\n
Horvath said early on in the trend, clients craved the dark, witchy and spooky. Freddy Krueger from \u201cNightmare on Elm Street\u201d and Jason Voorhees from \u201cFriday the 13th\u201d are still popular choices, she said.<\/p>\n
But gradually, clients and their art choices have changed. Instead of sailors and drunkards, it\u2019s now Olympic athletes and grandmas asking for tattoos of flowers and planets, Horvath said.<\/p>\n
On Friday, \u201cthe overall theme is more of a spooky (one),\u201d Horvath said. \u201cIt\u2019s taking that bad superstition, turning it into something more positive.\u201d<\/p>\n
She even has a corporate booking of six people coming in.<\/p>\n
Horvath said her love affair with tattooing started with her brother Matthew, the owner of Canadian Ink Studios in Edmonton.<\/p>\n
The pair worked together before he eventually handed her the keys to Aces N Spades.<\/p>\n
A welder by trade, Matthew Horvath said most of his family members either own tattoo shops or are artists.<\/p>\n
While the tradition gained traction in the \u201990s, he said flash designs \u2014 like those offered on Friday the 13th \u2014 hearken back to the Jazz Age, with artists such as Sailor Jerry in the \u201920s and \u201930s.<\/p>\n
\n\t\tWinnipeg Free Press | Newsletter\n\t<\/p>\n
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\u201cA lot of people always used that (number) 13 to ward off evil spirits,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
In his shop, it\u2019s common to see couples come in on Friday the 13th, he said. One person will get the number 1 on their hand, and the other will get the number 3, so it reads as 13 when they hold hands.<\/p>\n
One notable appointment, Matthew Horvath said, was with an 80-year-old man who waited until after the death of his mother to get inked, because she felt tattoos were only for \u201cdrunken sailors and prostitutes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSince then, he\u2019s had six tattoos,\u201d said Horvath. \u201cNever judge a book by its cover is basically all I could say.\u201d<\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 13, 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EDMONTON \u2013 Jaq Horvath is likely a shock to people who walk through the doors of her Edmonton…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":533526,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194294],"tags":[49,48,23752],"class_list":{"0":"post-533525","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-edmonton","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-edmonton"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=533525"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533525\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/533526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=533525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=533525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=533525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}