Stained Beauty
What do tattoos mean to people? Do tattoos make you a thug? A tattoo artist from downtown Fort Collins says it’s art.
Bright green neon ‘TATTOO’ sign in one corner, a punk-looking, mickey-mouse-lingerie dressed mannequin in the other; its body filled with tattoos- an ostentatious object for such a comforting room with desks, chairs and baby blue walls. For a tattoo parlor, this is nothing like what I’d expected- there was no sign of menacing people; no dark, sketchy rooms. If anything, it was clean, everyone in there was friendly. I even admit to it being pretty classy, with drawings hanging on desks, cd’s on one shelf, and a TV screen playing a soap opera. Truth be told, I’d never been in a tattoo parlor, so I was prepared for pretty much anything stereotypical. However, the Covenant, a tattoo parlor down on South College proved me wrong, and very much so.
I’ve never gotten a tattoo in my life, nor have I really considered getting one. Even so, most of my friends do plan on getting one, and lately it’s been the whole new rage to get a tattoo or a piercing. 45 million Americans have at least one tattoo, and the U.S. spends $1,650,500,000 a year on tattoos. So I decided, why not find out why people get them, and why they’re so cool? This is how I ended up at the Covenant Tattoo shop, instead of doing more productive activities, like studying or finding out what the meaning of life.
When I walked in, the owner of the shop let me sit down and talk to tattoo artist Martin Sandoval. He’s been doing his job for twelve years, and as his sketches proved to me, he was pretty darn good at it. “Sooo… I was wondering, do you think it’s becoming more popular for teenagers to get tattoos?”, I asked. His answer was yes, and for everyone in general. But although he agreed “it’s good that more people are getting tattoos and that it’s becoming more acceptable to have a body art that reflects the individual”, Martin does not agree that teenagers, specifically high schoolers, should be getting tattoos. Even so, a post from PopSugar showed that “a full 40 percent of the population between ages 18 and 29 now have some ink”. But why do many adults, including tattoo artists such as Martin, think it’s wrong to get a tattoo at such a young age? Aside from the obvious regrets you might get a decade later over a permanent drawing you got in the moment and thought it was lit, there’s has to be other reasons than that, right?
To Martin, tattooing is a serious art, and it means a lot to him. Many don’t consider it to be so, but as I saw in that parlor, tattoo artists go through a lot of time just for one customer to get something ‘original’.
‘Original’ for a tattoo artist like Martin means that “somebody walks in and they have an idea, and I draw it for them, opposed to them pulling it off the internet or off Pinterest. The person tells me what they’re looking for, and I notice their personality, and their body; so it becomes very personal, because that’s what getting a tattoo is. It’s very personal and it’s art. It’s something you want to reflect about your personality, and who you are. So I take my time to make something beautiful for them, for what they’re looking and what goes with them.” That’s why Martin doesn’t agree with college or high school kids coming in to do something trendy just “to get one, or look cool.”
“There’s a trend every year”, he tells me, “and they don’t even know what they’re doing until years later.” Specifically when teenagers come in, he talks to them and their parents about the responsibility of getting a tattoo. “We talk about the parts of the body where putting a tattoo may not get you a job; names of boyfriends; things they won’t regret. Kids can’t make up their mind to have something that permanent for the rest of their life; they need to think about that, and think about it a lot. For example, career choices- they can’t even make up their mind at 24, in college”, he tells me.
When I ask about careers, he tells me that this is the main problem about getting a tattoo at a young age. “For 16 and 17 year olds with tattoos, to get a career in a professional place is hard, it’s frown upon.” Generally, he thinks “tattoos should become more accepted in a professional environment because it’s a way to express yourself, the individual.” This, however, doesn’t mean you should be a doctor with neck tattoos, according to Martin. Why? Well, he says “there is still a little bit of the ‘thug life’ impression, depending on the tattoo you get and where you get it placed. On the other hand, if it’s done right and it’s placed right, then it’s beautiful art. If the person across the street gives it to you- the wrong person in the wrong place, then it looks like trash.”
Martin, as a tattoo artist, believes this. On the other hand, many parents (like my own father), believe that no matter how much you tell them tattoos are art, they’ll tell you no, and no is no.
On the other side, people like Shantel, at age 25, don’t regret their tattoos at all. In her opinion, she thinks tattoos will always be art, no matter the age, and as she says, “if we’re going to die anyway, I might as well become a shriveled old lady, but a decorated old lady.” Shantel has five tattoos, and they all represent childhood memories: the first one she got at sixteen and has liked it ever since- it had something to do with moose. She got most of her tattoos around the age of eighteen, and these include the rainbow fish (remember that kid’s book?), a Kit-Cat Clock similar to the one in her grandparent’s house, a family phrase and the most recent one, done last year, a purple pansy. She believes tattoos are used to “represent oneself, the things you like and identify you”. However, as personal as her perspective on tattoos may seem, other people don’t view it the same way. She told me she’s been discriminated in job opportunities, judged by others, and caused many people to not have confidence in her just because of her tattoos and piercing. “It’s definitely happened to me where people think I’m sketchy by just my appearance, without even knowing me first.” Advantages are also included in having a tattoo, though, since she says she “[feels] identified every time [she] finds someone who also has tattoos, and somehow [she] immediately bonds with them just because of that.” For Shantel, tattoos are just a way of expressing yourself, and they should definitely become more accepted in any place, because of their rising popularity, and because it’s a personal decision others shouldn’t inflict on.
Shantel went to Poudre, and alike other Poudre High School students, shares the opinion that tattoos are pretty neat and should become more accepted. Most students, like Lexi, answered that she “isn’t against them, and may get one in the future, but that [she’d] take time to think about it to get a tattoo that really meant something to [her], perhaps like a symbol between a best friend and [her].”
Getting a tattoo because they’re cool, or for friendship, or for a boyfriend or girlfriend, or to commemorate someone-(a lot of teens mentioned getting an important date tattooed, and Rosie even told me about some date tattoos you can get using the ashes of the loved one that passed away); or for any other reason- you should think about it, even if you get it at age sixteen.
Because nobody wants to have the face of their 10th grade, three month ex-girlfriend or boyfriend tattooed all across their chest, right?