After giving my presentation and watching everyone else give theirs, I feel like I have a much clearer idea of where my research paper is going to end up. It was super helpful to see how everyone else approached their research – before Julia mentioned it to me, I had not even considered using psychology studies to compare the personality traits of musicians to those of tattooed people. I think this will be a really interesting angle to investigate in my paper, and will help me support my claims related to mental health and the therapeutic roles of both tattooing and music-making. Giving the presentation also made me realize that my history section is neither sufficient nor convincing. I need to find new sources about the intersecting histories of tattooing, youth culture, and music – my history section may end up beginning in the sixties rather than the 19th century. Finally, I will need to find more examples to add to my corpus, this time focusing on either more variety in genre or the complete opposite. I tend to listen to a lot of sad music, and so when I was finding artists to fill out my corpus beyond the GQ video series, I of course chose my favorites. It makes sense that artists who make sad music may also represent their negative emotions through their tattoos. So, I will have to either specify in my paper that I am focusing on a certain genre, which may skew my results, or I will need to find way more examples.
Author: Aubrey Adkins (Page 1 of 2)
In preparation for this class session (and my presentation), I watched so many videos of musicians being interviewed about their tattoos. I actually had a lot of fun doing this, and I found several of the musicians’ statements helpful for my presentation/paper. Something that I’m not sure if I expected, but that definitely makes sense, is that many of the musicians had tattoos (either portraits, logos, or lyrics) referencing the musicians who had inspired their own work. At least two musicians (maybe more) had Nirvana-related tattoos, which is a testament to the cultural impact the band had. When I told my dad about the Nirvana tattoos, he wasn’t surprised; he said that, as someone who was alive during Nirvana’s skyrocket to fame, it was “crazy” how much of a pop-culture mainstay they were. I also was not surprised that several musicians had objectively terrible tattoos. I think, especially before celebrity tattoo artists became more common, it was seen as cool for musicians to go to a completely random tattoo shop and get a crudely-done tattoo for the “rock ‘n roll culture.” I honestly love seeing peoples’ “bad” tattoos – there’s almost always a great story behind them, and the tattoos are worth something for that alone.
After watching Skin, I wasn’t sure how to feel about the film. I noticed some of the people involved in the project referring to the human body as a canvas (like they do on the TV show Ink Master); I can’t tell if this feels degrading, empowering, or both. The human body as a canvas is, in a sense, an empowering concept, because it implies that we are all capable of becoming works of art, depending on how we choose to decorate ourselves. At the same time, likening the body to a canvas is objectifying, implying that we are worthless without “valid” decorations on our person. Skin also depicted all the subjects as following basically the same life path: escaping oppressive, boring, conservative home lives (often in the suburbs), and moving to the city to be artsy, free, drug-addicted partiers. This seems unfair, and goes against what seemed to be the goal of the project, to prove that tattoos should be revered in the fine art world. It doesn’t seem wholly effective to create a contemporary art project about tattoos that just perpetuates stereotypes about tattooed people to untattooed people. In turn, this made me wonder if the goal of the project was authenticity (like the Dr. Lakra quote we discussed). However, if the film sought to portray these tattooed peoples’ “real” lives, it didn’t come off that way to me because this “authenticity” conformed to a predetermined narrative.
I think I might be able to explore authenticity in my research on tattoos and the music industry. I love discovering new music, and have found myself more and more drawn to music that feels really authentic to me. To the people around me, I think this pursuit of authenticity just comes off as me listening to more amateur, lo-fi, worse-sounding music. For me, listening to “DIY”-sounding music makes me feel more connected to the artist, and the emotions they are portraying. I feel closer to them, and thus their message, without the wall of high-tech production to create separation. I think that, in a roundabout way, tattoos are very similar. They are not seen as “fine” art – in my strange music analogy, they would be lo-fi. So, would musicians (especially those involved in non-mainstream subcultures) be more drawn to tattoos because they feel like an authentic expression in the same way as their music?
In preparation for this class session, I researched the work of tattoo artist Yann Black. When I looked at the list of artists I could focus on for this presentation, Yann Black’s work immediately stood out to me. I read that his background is in graphic design and animation; he got his art degree before pursuing tattooing. I think this path to the career is evident in his tattoos, which look very artsy and sketchy, almost as if they were designed for paper rather than skin. At the same time, this “designed for paper” quality of Yann Black’s tattoos makes them all the more interesting. His style is not something I see very often if at all in tattooing, so his designs feel bright and refreshing.
In terms of my research topic, I ended up stumbling upon a YouTube channel, GQ, that has a series of videos where celebrities talk about their tattoos. Among these celebrities are several musicians, so I am super excited to go through these videos and take notes on them as primary sources. Before YouTube recommended this video series to me, I was struggling to find interviews with artists about their tattoos – most articles I found just speculated about the meanings behind musicians’ tattoos without any input from the musicians themselves.
In preparation for this class session, I spent a lot of time with my research topic (tattooing and the music industry). I wasn’t sure where my research was going to take me, as I didn’t have a concrete or more specific topic within my broader topic. I probably looked at around 30 sources before I found 10 that I could see working with my topic; I didn’t find any sources directly linking tattooing with the music industry, which is a good thing. By allowing the sources to take me down a variety of paths, I landed on a topic that I don’t think I would have been able to think of on my own: the paradoxical pain-creating and healing capabilities of both tattooing and music-making. The common themes that came up over and over again when I put in my key terms (music, tattoo) were mental health, emotion, subculture, and expression. I’m really excited to look deeper into the connections between the structure of the music industry and the tattooing industry at the level of embodied art, as well as to make more comparisons between the ways youth, mental health, creativity, and the formation of subculture function in both areas.
In preparation for this class session, we read several articles recounting sociological studies of tattooed people. The Atkinson article about tattoo enthusiasts talked about the importance of pain to the process: “Viewed as a sacred part of being tattooed and as a mark of one’s commitment, the ability to endure pain is lauded by many enthusiasts” (332). I thought it was interesting how explicit some of the enthusiasts were about their enjoyment of – or at least deep respect for – the pain of the tattooing process. I have always thought of the pain of getting a tattoo as an unfortunate byproduct of getting art on your body forever, versus an integral part of having that art. Atkinson also noted that “studios often become known locally for the specific types of patrons serviced,” which made me wonder, in relation to my research topic, whether there are specific studios frequented by musicians (334). For example, do an overwhelming number of musicians living in Nashville, L.A., or NYC go to the same artist for their tattoos?
In her “First Tattoo” article, Irwin writes that many of the participants in her study belong to certain “fringe social groups,” which often include music-based subcultures (56). I think the historical influence of music subcultures on tattooing practices will have an impact on modern-day intersections between tattooing and the music industry. Further, Irwin says “one of the major constraints that prevents individuals from engaging in deviance is their relationship with mainstream individuals” (57). Is it the case that the more popular a music artist is, the farther away they move from “mainstream individuals”? Or is the opposite true, because popularity places them directly in the sites of the mainstream? The second Irwin article on “Elite Tattoo Collectors” elaborates on my earlier question about whether specific tattoo studios are hubs for musicians; she writes “collectors and artists sometimes find themselves circulating within celebrity social networks…this is especially true for members of the rock n’ roll scene” (48). I think this somewhat confirms my thought that certain artists are sought after by musicians more than others, but I would love to identify some specific studios.
The final two articles were also authored by Atkinson. In the study of Neo Primitives, Atkinson and Young discuss the “socially constructed body,” which they define as “the body that is voluntarily sought out and manufactured as a site of social and cultural meaning” (119). I thought this was a really interesting concept – how are musician’s bodies constructed to be culturally meaningful? Do the inscriptions they place on their bodies in the form of tattoos influence their cultural meaning as a public figure? In the final article, Atkinson talks about a specific tattoo subculture known as “straightedge,” which is based on living sober and taking close care of one’s body. I had never heard of this subculture before; I usually think of tattooing as closely tied in with party culture. I appreciated Atkinson’s inclusion of a history of the subculture, because I knew nothing about it before this reading.
In preparation for this class session, I looked at a lot of tattoos online in order to have a better understanding of the many types of tattoos that exist. I think that it is almost impossible to create enough categories or names to encompass every single tattoo style, but I found it helpful to break the tattoos I saw down by color, linework, shading, level of realism, and content. To analyze any given tattoo I see, I can ask several questions: Is the tattoo in color or black/grey? If it is in color, is it fully colored in or partially? How many different colors were used? Does the tattoo use linework, or is it lineless? Are the edges soft or hard – do they blend into the skin or contrast with it? Is the tattoo comprised entirely of linework, or is it shaded? Is the linework thick or thin? Does it vary throughout the tattoo? If the tattoo is shaded, what does the shading look like – is it soft or grainy? Is it made of dots, lines, or neither? Is the tattoo photorealistic, a cartoon, or somewhere in between? Is the subject/content of the tattoo real or imagined (or even fully abstract)? Is the tattoo an image, words, or both? If it includes words, what font are the letters in? Are they handwritten? How much space does the tattoo take up on the body? Is it miniature, or does it take up an entire limb or part of the body? Is the tattoo part of a larger piece, like a sleeve, or does it stand alone? These are a lot of questions, but I think they are all necessary to gain a comprehensive understanding of a tattoo, or a tattoo artist’s style.
I asked myself all these questions as I looked at the work of the artist I chose to research, Tori Elyce. Tori does mostly shaded black and grey linework tattoos, and some unshaded linework pieces. Their subject matter is usually not abstract, and falls somewhere between photorealism and cartoon on the realism scale. Tori seems to like tattooing nature imagery, especially small animals (and sometimes dead ones). They have done some experimentation with thicker lines, but mostly stick to thinner lines. Tori almost always does stippled shading, meaning that individual dots are visible in shaded sections. Finally, their tattoos range in size, with some taking up a 2×2 inch square, and others taking up the entire top of someone’s thigh.
After watching everyone’s presentations last Wednesday, I got some inspiration for possible avenues of research. In her presentation, Zehra talked about a clothing brand that embroidered Balkan tattoo designs on the sleeves of shirts. This made me wonder how frequently tattoo motifs – especially images from traditional flash designs – appear on album covers. Grace talked about how Marquesan warriors’ tattoos would essentially demand respect from others; do certain types of tattoos, or lack thereof, make a musician more likely to be taken seriously in their profession? In a similar vein, are there situations in which it is beneficial for musicians to cover their tattoos (or display them)? What is the relationship between the tattoo industry and the music industry like? How many musicians have made celebrity tattoo artists out of the artists they have been going to for years? Basically, I have a lot of questions to explore, and many directions I could go with my research.
In preparation for class, I also read the articles by Sarnecki and Gentry/Alderman. I found Sarnecki’s assertion that tattoos can be a way to process and heal from trauma through an almost counterintuitive repetition of pain very interesting. While describing Trachtenberg’s book, Sarnecki writes that Trachtenberg’s “tattoos are keys that…[help] to unravel the tangled narrative strands that weave together a life story both unconventional and altogether human” (38). This is a beautiful way to describe tattoos, and made me wonder how common “narrative” tattoos are. Sarnecki also asks “Do tattoos usually mark painful stories rather than happy ones?” (39). Because the readings for this session all revolve around trauma and tattooing, I am inclined to say yes, but I know that is not always the case.
Gentry and Alderman’s article was a much more focused study on trauma and tattooing, revolving around Hurricane Katrina-related tattoos. I loved the narrative style of this article, following the authors’ exploration of what they call “a more permanent and mobile form of visible memory work…etched in the skin of many of the survivors” (185). Gentry and Alderman discuss the consistency of imagery they observed in these Katrina tattoos; do certain events, professions, and communities always tend to have their own set of common or “acceptable” tattoo designs? In addition, the authors say that many Katrina tattoos act to publicize wearers’ feelings about the disaster, which I thought was interesting. This tendency creates an interesting balance between private/personal grieving and public acknowledgment of those feelings.
In preparation for this class session, I did research on a national tradition of my choice: Inuit tattooing. I ended up reading seven different articles on the history of Inuit tattooing, and found it all to be very interesting. Lars Krutak’s work was an important resource, and something I might return to – if relevant – for my final research project. I loved how woman-focused a lot of the Inuit tattooing traditions were, as well as how intertwined they were with sewing. The idea of skin-stitching is not something I was familiar with before my research; I might try to find a video of it being done, because I am very curious about how far under the skin the needle and thread go. I was also interested by the reasoning behind a lot of Inuit tattooing, which is the belief that every person has multiple souls that live in specific joints throughout the body. I thought it was cool that both human and animal spirits have the power to possess people, hence the tradition of first-kill tattoos. I am happy that I took the time to research current iterations of Inuit tattooing; it showed me that the tradition is not dead, and that people are consciously trying to bring it back in a significant way. I was somewhat aware of this movement because of TikTok funnily enough – sometimes I am recommended videos from an Inuk woman named Shina Nova. She shows aspects of Inuit culture ranging from recipes with whale and caribou meat to traditional throat singing, and has semi-recently gotten some face tattoos. When I found Jana Angulalik’s article in Canadian Geographic, I was mesmerized by the photos of young women’s tattoos presented alongside their reasoning for getting them. Overall, this research process was really enjoyable for me.
In preparation for this class session, we read two articles: Enid Schildkrout’s “Inscribing the Body” and Arnold Rubin’s “The Tattoo Renaissance.” Schildkrout’s article presents an overview of anthropological scholarship on tattooing, covering a wide range of topics under the tattooing umbrella. I enjoyed reading about Ahmed and Stacy’s concept of “dermographics,” or “how the skin becomes…meaningful in different cultural contexts” (320). I think it is interesting to imagine the skin as meaningful even when undecorated; the canvas itself has meaning and potential devoid of the artwork placed on it. I also liked the word “dermographics.” Later, Schildkrout made an important point regarding the larger amount of scholarship on piercing versus tattooing. Tattoos become a part of the skin, so when the skin decomposes, tattoos disappear with it. Piercings, due to being metal, outlast a decomposing body, leaving evidence of modification behind. Schildkrout also briefly mentioned tattooing for medical purposes; in addition to talking about Simon Forman, who we learned about in Caplan’s book, he wrote that on certain mummies’ bodies, “correlations can be made between the placement of inscriptions and arthritic joints” (326). Additionally, I learned that in most polytheistic Polynesian cultures, though the people were tattooed, the gods were not. Thus, tattooing can be used to separate humanity from divinity. Schildkrout also cited scholars who researched the effects of tourism on tattooing customs in areas such as Papua New Guinea and North Africa. I found the example of the Nuba men interesting; though Schildkrout talked about body painting rather than tattooing, these men began to paint themselves with the most eye-catching designs they could rather than with traditionally meaningful designs for the purpose of better photography.
After finishing Schildkrout’s article, I moved on to Arnold Rubin’s “The Tattoo Renaissance.” Rubin walked through the career moves of several early influential tattoo artists, whom he divided into two “Renaissance generations.” I loved Rubin’s extensive inclusion of pictures of the work he was discussing. I think my favorite pictures to look at were those of Ed Hardy’s back pieces. They are all so massive and so detailed; I cannot imagine how long and painful they were to complete. I would also love to see how some of these pieces look today, assuming some of the people they are on are still alive. The Bicentennial Backpiece was interesting because of how different it is from a lot of Hardy’s other works. The proportions on the woman feel a little strange, but it is otherwise super well executed. Finally, I was drawn to Leo Zulueta’s Indonesian/Punk design arm tattoo as well – it is super bold but also simple. It reminds me a lot of a more classic version of the modern “cyber sigilism” tattoo trend.