After watching everyone\u2019s 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 \u2013 especially images from traditional flash designs \u2013 appear on album covers. Grace talked about how Marquesan warriors\u2019 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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In preparation for class, I also read the articles by Sarnecki and Gentry\/Alderman. I found Sarnecki\u2019s 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\u2019s book, Sarnecki writes that Trachtenberg\u2019s \u201ctattoos are keys that\u2026[help] to unravel the tangled narrative strands that weave together a life story both unconventional and altogether human\u201d (38). This is a beautiful way to describe tattoos, and made me wonder how common \u201cnarrative\u201d tattoos are. Sarnecki also asks \u201cDo tattoos usually mark painful stories rather than happy ones?\u201d (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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gentry and Alderman\u2019s 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\u2019 exploration of what they call \u201ca more permanent and mobile form of visible memory work\u2026etched in the skin of many of the survivors\u201d (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 \u201cacceptable\u201d tattoo designs? In addition, the authors say that many Katrina tattoos act to publicize wearers\u2019 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. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After watching everyone\u2019s 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 \u2013 especially images from traditional flash designs \u2013 appear on album covers. Grace […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11910,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar473-fall2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar473-fall2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar473-fall2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar473-fall2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11910"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar473-fall2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=679"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar473-fall2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":680,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar473-fall2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679\/revisions\/680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar473-fall2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar473-fall2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar473-fall2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}