Blog@GraceJunction

Every other Saturday, Joshua Haedelt leaves his home in Westchester County, NY, and makes the hour-long drive to Shotsie’s tattoo studio in Haledon, NJ. There, Joshua, a 28-year-old record executive, prostrates himself on a table for three hours while tattooist Juno Vassi pricks his back thousands of times with inky needles. For the next week, Joshua is miserable, bandaged, and sore. He won’t fully heal for two weeks and then it’s back to the drawing board.

It’s the most painful trend since whalebone corsets. Tattooing, the art of the primitive and the outlaw, has been moving steadily into mainstream. No longer are tattoos for the exclusive decoration of sailors, marines, and bikers. Tattoos are leaving a permanent mark on arms, legs, chests and other body parts of a growing number of celebrities and even normal people.

Depending on the point of view, tattoos are considered either vulgar or vogue, shocking or sexy, degenerate or de rigueur. As tattooing’s appeal catches on across the country, it’s becoming obvious that there’s more to this trend than meets the eye.

A tattoo is a permanent marking made by inserting ink into the layers of skin to change the pigment for decorative or other reasons. Tattoos on humans are a type of decorative body modification, while tattoos on animals are most commonly used for identification or branding.

In the past, tattoos have served as rites of passage, marks of status and rank, symbols of religious and spiritual devotion, decorations for bravery, sexual lures and marks of fertility, pledges of love, punishment, amulets and talismans, protection, and as the marks of outcasts, slaves and convicts. The symbolism and impact of tattoos varies in different places and cultures, sometimes with unintended consequences.

However now, people choose to be tattooed for cosmetic, sentimental/memorial, religious, and magical reasons, and to symbolize their belonging to or identification with particular groups, including criminal gangs (see criminal tattoos) but also a particular ethnic group or law-abiding subculture. Also, tattoos apparently show how a person feels about another person, or how they feel about a relative, preferably mother/father or daughter/son. Many people have tattoos that represent their life, their history, or their interests. They are also popular perhaps because being rebellious, adventurous, and noncomformist has always been popular. It’s a type of public announcement that the individual feels they are different, perhaps more adventurous.

Now making their way into colleges in India, tattoos are considered worth flaunting. “It’s like hundreds of tiny injections piercing my skin at the same time”, says Mayank Matta, a first year college student, as an artist runs the tattoo machine over his forearm to carve out his name. But “it’s worth the pain“, he quickly adds. “The demand for tattoos has definitely gone up. The colleges are about to open and a lot of teenagers who are either going to join college or heading back to their classes after the summer break, are approaching us to get a tattoo”, says Lokesh Verma, tattoo artist and owner of Devil’z Tattooz in Vasant Vihar.

Strangely, in erstwhile conservative India, tattoo artists say a majority of their clientele comprises teenage girls! The most common motifs among women are butterflies, tribal designs, flowers and angels. Some even get their names drawn in different scripts. Lower back, arms, back shoulder and ankles are the common parts where girls want to wear the tattoo. Piercing too is quite popular with teenage girls and the most common body parts where they seeks piercing are eyebrows, lower lip and belly button.

But all this flaunting and expression is not without its risks. “What’s anything if it has no risk!?”, they will retort! Well, if not done properly, a tattoo can lead to allergic reaction and in some cases leave a permanent scar. Similarly, piercing too can leave a permanent mark. One has to be careful with the tattoo, especially in the first two weeks. It should be protected from water, soap, sunlight and should be kept clean till it heals. And if it is not protected properly, it could get infected. Bacterial infection is very common and if ignored it can get serious and result in pus formation. Equally important is the choice of parlour or studio as chances of contracting infections like HIV, tuberculosis and tetanus are very high while getting a tattoo made.

It is also very important that the dyes are of good quality. Most of the dyes contain iron salt. To get different colours, copper sulphate is also used. If the dye is of poor quality, then one can have reaction to these salts. Moreover, people with sensitive skin can develop a complication called foreign body granulomas. This condition may lead to formation of lumps around the tattoo pigments. Such lumps can only be removed surgically.

Now many of them tattoo the names of their ‘love interest’ in outwardly seen (or shown) areas of their body and flaunt it and then unexpectedly for the couple, but not surprisingly for the people around them, the break up happens and then they run around for ways to over-tattoo it with some other image or remove it! Others are planning to tattoo their whole body progressively with all kinds of figurines and images and have already planned it well in advance. Since these procedures cost a fortune, now they are working for it. Yes, they are working and saving, not to buy that dream house, or the dream car but to have that dream tattoo! Still others have tattooed themselves beyond recognition.

All this, just to impress and express! I wish people recognised that they have more inside of them that they could show off! Yes, more on the inside, and that takes pain to bring out. I wish people took pain to build their character and make a respectable name. I wish they took the pain to work hard and gain things rightfully. I wish college students took the pain to focus on building up a society than be immersed in seeking pleasure for themselves. I wish teenage girls (and guys) chose chastity over promiscuity and profanity. It is painful to keep up these values especially when the whole generation is flowing down the gradient. It’s a swim against the wave and tide. But that kind of pain would really be worth it.

When they don’t take that kind of pain, a deeper branding (read tattooing) happens inside them (in their souls) ending up with scars that will not heal and a branding that cannot be removed. I wish that this generation finds better ways of impressing and expression.

Tags: Allergy, Bacterial Infection, Branding, HIV, Joshua Haedelt, Piercing, Tattoo

This entry was posted on Friday, July 25th, 2008 at 3:57 am and is filed under Addictions, Articles, Fashion, Geo, Modern Science, Purpose of Life, Relationships, Society, Spiritual, Thoughts, Trends, Women's Issues, Youth Issues. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.