Lucas‘s tattoo is a f’ing laugh factory.
Why, helloooooo!
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Tag Archives: tattoos
Small, personal tattoo stories.
“thereisreason” (done in medium condensed Helvetica Neue)
Done at Edodus Tattoo in East Windsor, CT
At the end of senior year highschool I fell in love with a girl who wasdating a friend. He was very abusive physically and mentally, and I kindof took care of her and ended up dating her, only to find she wasunmedicated bipolar… lots of crazy stuff happened and it ended with herbeing forced by her parents to put a restraining order on me and my senioryear and summer went to hell as a result.
I then went to college as a design student taking alot of fine arts courses, over four hundredmiles away from home to get away. A lot of my work has reflected my past andresulted in kind of a refusal of typical design… From that I fell inlove with a girl in my freshman year in college and have dated for three years. I came to the conclusion that eveything which hadhappened had a reason, and no matter what happened it happened for areason — it became my design motto— everything I’ve done has had a reason even though it may not havebeen apparent at the time.
Everything I’ve done since hascome of this, and it’s pushed me to change and better my life — my motto has become thereisreason —and my website is thereisreason.com.
* * *
“My best friend and I at my wedding”
When we had it written for us, we thought it said “friendship is everlasting”, but when we asked Dita, she told us it says “friendship is good”… It still gets the meaning across, and this is one of my favorite pictures.
Vixen’s backpiece
Here’s a few pictures of Vixen aka Melanie Brink (visit her on IAM or myspace). The custom tattoo work she’s got is by Ryan Brink of Good Neighbor Tattoo in Escondio, California. The photos here are from a recent shoot she did with Dawn Earles, and you may also recognize her as the lead singer of Superna.
Grand Opening: PURE
PURE BODY ARTS
134 Boerum St.
Brooklyn, NY USA 11206
718 384 3377
Brian (iam:xPUREx), body piercer and modification artist extraordinaire, has finally followed the advice of his friends, going solo and opening his own shop in Brooklyn, New York. Brian’s name has become synonymous with quality body modification and impeccable attention to detail. In the years since I first met him (when he was working part-time as a piercer in Connecticut), his skill reputation has grown in leaps and bounds.
In the opening days it will be only Joy (iam:maat) and Brian. If everything goes as planned, in the next few weeks a gentleman named Brett (who tattooed the phenomenal leg sleeve of iam:turtle) will moving from Texas to join the crew, along with Monica Henk (iam:MalaSangre). Joy’s work was highlighted in the first entry of ModBlog.
I am the owner, but far from being a "boss". the shop will be very casually run, at least for now, to where everyone will have a say about anything that goes on. of course, I'll have the final word, but I can be pretty easily pressured.
How I chose these particular artists is a tough question. Beside Joy, who was originally going to partner with me until that fell through, the other artists just happened to fall into place. I've known monica for years. She's a great artist, and I really like her a lot.
As a strong drug free advocate, Brian got the word PURE tattooed in large letters across his lower back about eight years ago. When he first logged onto IAM, he decided to use PURE as his IAM username (xPUREx). People familiar with the modification industry began recognizing him by that name — and sometimes only that name — so when it was time to open his own place he couldn’t think of any other name that would be as suitable.
I asked Brian if there is a direct affiliation between Pure Body Arts and the Rites of Passage suspension group in which both he and Joy are heavily involved.
Even though Joy and I are both part of ROP, the shop has no affiliation other than all of my close, close friends being part of ROP and helping me out tremendously with the shop as well.
Because Brian is the professional here, I’ll let him tell you about the jewelry he’ll be using:
I did a LOT of homework and made orders with a large amount of companies for my jewelry. Namely Anatometal, Liquid Metal, AC Steel, Leroi, a little bit of Titanium from Cold Steel, and step-down external from Blue Mountain Steel. Those are for the basics. Starting display case jewelry from Death Star Organics, Glasswear Studios, and some novelty things from Steel Skin.
As a bit of a voyeur and as someone who is fond of both Brian and his long-time lady friend Caitlyn (iam:Angie Dickinson), I’ve been following the progress of the preparations for Pure Body Arts. I’ve read their blog entries in which Caitlyn designed the web page, drove Brian wherever he needed to be, and was just an all-around awesome friend to Brian and to his business. I didn’t want to let an opportunity pass by, and asked Brian if he had a few words to say about Caitlyn:
Caitlyn has helped me tremendously with everything. She did a LOT of driving for me, helped with building when she could, Loaned me things I'd need, gave me others, built my website, started building the shop website, designed my business cards, and loved me very much.
Pure can be reached via subway, taking the L train on the Montrose stop. Walk west on Montrose off the train, and hang a left onto Graham Avenue. You’ll find them on Boerum Street, on the corner at Graham. Also, the J, M, or Z train will take you to Lorimer where you can walk one block north and 2 blocks east on Boerum Street. Either way, it’s a 3 block walk. They are open from noon until 8:00 p.m. every day except Wednesdays.
So, there you have it. Pure Body Arts is now open for business. If you are considering piercing and modification or tattooing, do yourself a favor and add Pure to the list of studios you check. (I’d say, “If you’re in the area,” but Brian and Joy are worth a road trip.)
Tattoo Rape
Rape is an act of violence that, in practice, takes something beautiful and turns it into something ugly. We are familiar with acts of rape in prison, of our women, and of our children.
Rape by tattoo is not a new concept; most of us are familiar with the numbers etched onto the arms of concentration camp victims. (Survivors’ stories are in the news all the time, but they’re generally not part of the BME Newsfeed. We did, however, log David Blaine honoring Primo Levi by getting Mr. Levi’s number, 174517, as a permanent tribute.) I first read about this cruel practice in the noir thrilled Flood. In a very moving scene, the beautiful Flood shows the scar from when she used gasoline to burn off the tattoo bikers put onto her thigh. Later, I learned more about it in the rec.arts.bodyart FAQ. What makes this a particularly brutal crime is that the survivors’ scars are visible as well as emotional.
This crime has been prelavent in the news in recent months. Dr. Gregory Roche removed a vulgar tattoo from the face of a New York teenager after some former friends and he got into a fight over a girl. A gay inmate in Texas has been granted permission to sue the state; in addition to sexual abuse, the inmate’s face had been forcibly tattooed.
Recently, the tables were turned in the UK. Jackie Clarke lured her alleged rapist to her home, drugged him, and then used a pin and ink to tattoo “Rapist” onto his penis. While fellow victims around the world may cheer her on, the judge hearing her case says that her actions “amount to torture.”
A pimp in Illinois tattooed his nickname, “Mr. Cream,” onto the bodies of two teenage girls. In a happier turn of events, justice may be served: he crossed state lines, and the FBI and US Attorney now plan to make an example out of Mr. Cream.
Tattooed Crooks
"The original Nazis tattooed their targets so they could always find them later. The new ones tattoo themselves. So we can find them.Hitler'd be ashamed of the morons."
- Andrew Vachss, in Dead and Gone
While I can see the temptation in breaking some laws, by golly, stupid criminals crack me up!
Case (or five) in point: Arizona Republic just listed its Top 10 most wanted. Five — half — of them are tattooed. New York recently debuted its new high-tech command center, which will provide officers crucial data about crimes and suspects including convicts’ nicknames and tattoos even before police arrive at a crime scene (click here for an online demonstration), and Ottawa recently unveiled its new parolee database. From police reports to rap sheets, if you’re modified and you’re arrested, your modifications are going on record.
Of course, the “winner” is Justin Breakspear of Massachusetts, whose tattoo reveals the serial number of his illegal gun.
Gives all new meaning to “tattoo gun,” eh?
“alienated creatures who live on the fringes of society”
Horror and science fiction motifs of course are not at all uncommon in the tattoo world, with the majority choosing imagery from modern “big name” films and those with mainstream cult status. Thus I was pleasantly surprised when my friend Midian2000 (who you may know as the organizer of the large So-Cal BME BBQs) chose an image from 1979′s ZOMBIE, perhaps the best living dead film of all time, by Lucio “Violence is Italian Art” Fulci.
I’ve been a serious horror movie aficionado since I was about nine, with Polanski’s “Fearless Vampire Hunters” being the first film to really move me. All of the art I have tattooed on my body is extremely personal, whether it’s original art, like the pieces Clive Barker created for me, or whether it’s traditional, like my Choctaw pipehead piece. This time around, I felt that it was a moment in my life where I wanted to recognize what part horror, from films to books, has played in my life, and to honor that element of who I am. The image needed, in a single frame, to capture friction, stress, fear, horror, terror, threat, and madness. It needed to be iconographic … an image that embodied the catharsis derived from true horror.
In Stephen Thrower’s amazing book Beyond Terror: The Films of Lucio Fulci one frame of film popped out at me: the infamous splinter scene from Zombie. I had to have it. The original piece of art was a poorly reproduced, stark, black and white picture, but I knew there was potential in it. When I originally told Denny Besnard (Avalon II, San Diego CA) that I wanted it rendered in nothing but black and red, he strongly disagreed, saying he’d prefer to do it in a palate ranging from black to red, with everything from white to orange and yellow, in between. He thought he could bring this simple, still image to life through a narrow range of color — the results, I believe, speak for themselves.
“If you blink, you miss so much…
so don’t blink at all if you can help it.”
Sphenoid Bone or Space Bat?
BME’s geek tattoo section is a perennial favorite of visitors who would otherwise not visit a tattoo website, and contains some of the most interesting pieces, among them this sphenoid bone tattoo on my friend Pip:
She got it as a reward to herself after receiving her PhD; Pip writes:
I am a bone geek with two human bone-related degrees. The sphenoid is a fantastic bone, shaped like a butterfly, moth, or alien space bat depending on how you look at it. It is one of those objects that proves that nature can just create the most amazing works of art. I fell in love with the form of the sphenoid when I first saw one and spent a lot of time sketching and doodling sphenoids when I was learning cranial anatomy.
I liked the ambiguity of the shape, during my PhD studies I had come across a lot of art-historical theory about readers and super-readers, the gist being that depending on your level of knowledge, an image can carry different layers of meaning. This was particularly applicable to my chosen tattoo design: to the standard viewer, it would look like a gothic, gargoyle-esque butterfly; to the super-readers (i.e. bone geeks like me) it would be recognizable as a bone. It works too, I tested it out on a few osteology students at college and they recognised it instantly, whereas people at work need to be told what it really is! (Incidentally anatomists/doctors tend to be slightly confused, largely because they don’t understand what possesses someone to get a cranial bone tattooed on their back — or anywhere else for that matter).
Got an interesting tattoo? Email a high-res photo to [email protected].
Like Diamanda Galas says…
It’s pretty common to hear “oops” stories about kanji tattoos — “I thought it meant ‘brave warrior’ but in fact it means ‘orange chicken!’” — but tattoo symbology is a rich subject, so I wanted to tell a story about my friend Mike.
That’s him getting tattooed by Joi, and the resultant biohazard symbol tattoo. He got it right before the 2004 Rhode Island SusCon. At a suspension convention, controlling cross contamination is extremely important and far from easy. I’ll let Mike tell how people responded to his tattoo in his own words:
I went back to my room and checked my e-mail. The friend to whom I’d sent pictures [of my tattoo to] had replied. His response was “Ummm…. Isn’t that usually for poz guys?” That was not the response I was looking for!
[Earlier Ron Garza had also] wanted to know if I knew the significance of my new tattoo. I felt myself getting nervous. He told me that among gay men, it’s an indication that one is HIV positive. At first, I thought he was joking. It took me a few minutes to realize that he was serious.
How the hell did all of these people know about the significance of my tattoo when I didn’t? I spent most of that weekend in a panic. Obviously, I was a little freaked out. The last thing I wanted was for people to think that I’m HIV positive when I’m not. As a gay man, that’s a pretty sensitive topic for me.
Oops!
He’d considered a cover-up, but Mike ended up deciding to keep the tattoo as a reminder to himself that he hadn’t done his homework, a mistake he never wanted to repeat. I should mention that Mike also has several gorgeous tattoos by Jon Clue, including a custom Dr. BME logo.
Being A Modified Jew
“See, I have engraved You on the palms of my hands”
– Isaiah 49:16
“One shall say, ‘I am the Lord’s,’ and another shall use the name of Jacob, and another shall mark his arm ‘of the Lord’ and adopt the name of Israel.”
– Isaiah 44:5
“I decked you out in finery… I put a ring in your nose, and earrings in your ears…”
– Ezekiel 16:11
See also Exodus 35:22, Numbers 31:50, Judges 8:24, Isaiah 3:21
I fell in love with the art of the tattoo in my early twenties. The choice that I was able to consciously make to beautify my own body was exhilarating. Choosing the placement, selecting the artist and design took research and thought. Seeing the colors and designs come alive on my flesh is intoxicating.
But I am a Jew. How does body modification fit into my life?
The answer is: Beautifully.
Judaism has a long history of distaste for tattoos and piercings. It is my understanding that this stems from the Jewish concept that we are created b’tzelem Elokim (in the image of God) and that our bodies are to be viewed as a precious gift on loan from God, entrusted into our care, but not our personal property to do with as we choose. This distaste grew stronger with the Holocaust and the tattooing that was forced upon the Jews in the prison camps.
Let’s discuss a common misconception:
Can you be buried in a Jewish cemetery and participate in Jewish ritual if you are tattooed or pierced?
It is not prohibited to bury someone who has tattoos or body piercings in a Jewish cemetery. Although the Torah is interpreted by some to prohibit making a permanent tattoo on one’s body, those who violate this prohibition may still be buried in a Jewish cemetery and participate fully in all synagogue ritual.
I asked IAM member RachelG about her experiences with this and she replied with a personal story regarding being buried in a Jewish cemetery with body modifications:
“After an unfortunate tragedy where a close modified friend of mine committed suicide, his family was allowed to bury him in an orthodox Jewish cemetery. He was practically fully suited in tattoos and wore three earrings in each earlobe. At the funeral service I spoke at length with the orthodox rabbi who was performing the service about Jews and body modification. He told me that these misconceptions were not only outdated, but any Jew who believed in them was not following the ways of God. Jews are a very accepting and understanding people. Who are we to judge one for intentionally changing one’s body to fulfill their own desires?”
Deliberate, permanent disfigurement of the body would be prohibited. But such practices as ear piercing and cosmetic surgery (such as elective rhinoplasty) are not prohibited. The purpose of cosmetic surgery is to make the body more beautiful, not to disfigure it. (from torah.org)
Being modified does not prohibit you from participating in Jewish ritual. The fact that someone may have violated the laws of kashrut at some point in his or her life or violated the laws of Shabbat would not merit such sanctions. The widely believed prohibition against tattooing is certainly no worse.
What puzzles and disturbs me is the quote from a rabbi stating that such practices as ear piercing and plastic surgery(1) are not prohibited because they are meant to beautify and not to disfigure. Who is to say that the purpose of my body modifications are not to make the body more beautiful? Is this for a rabbi to decide? I believe that the decision of what makes my body more beautiful is my own. Why is plastic surgery regarded as acceptable and other forms of body modification are not? What about circumcision which is a permanent modification? Who makes those decisions?
Circumcision is also becoming a challenged ritual within Judaism as more and more Jews regard this practice as a social choice. This is a major body modification and disfigurement to a small child that is not given the choice to modify. It is also common practice among non-Jews to circumcise a male newborn penis, and this practice is not specifically Jewish, though it is common practice among Jews specifically. For more information on the complex issue regarding facts and myths of Jewish ritual circumcision, I invite you to visit jewishcircumcision.org. There are many modern changing views concerning the modification of infants without their consent.
For many people, conscious modification has become a way for them to take ownership of the beauty of their own bodies. For a very long time I felt uncomfortable in my own body. I was too fat, too short, my breasts were droopy — I could come up with a list a mile long. I discovered through modification that I loved my own body more when I got to choose what was happening to it. I would not knowingly disfigure my body. I intend to beautify it at my discretion. I am not the only one and I am far from the only modified Jew. By choosing to tattoo my body, I also feel that I am reclaiming this ritual for beauty rather than the hate and disrespect that was the intent of the Nazis forcibly tattooing the Jews during the holocaust.
My Judaism and my body modification go hand in hand for me. They are both part of who I am and how I represent myself. I am a tattooed Jew. I am proud of both of these facets of my life. I am not ashamed to go to Shul and I am not afraid of the questions. What I dislike is the assumption that I am not as good a Jew because of my modifications. I completely disagree. What I dislike is the prejudice my own Jewish people bestow upon me, and others, for choosing to reclaim the ancient art of body modification. This in itself does not convey the Judaism of acceptance that has always been expressed to me in Shul. I believe this inter-judaic prejudice stems from a sociological prejudice thinly veiled by a misunderstood religious excuse.
How did my family react?
My family ignores it. Don’t ask, don’t tell — sound familiar? — but still love and respect me as who I am. My family’s beliefs are those of conservative Jews and I respect them for that. However, I follow more of a Reconstructionist view. Reconstructionists define Judaism as the evolving religious civilization of the Jewish people and most Jewish people, including Reconstructionists, no longer accept its binding authority. While Reconstructionists are lovers of tradition and support community celebration of the Jewish sacred year and life-cycle events, we also believe that the face of the Jewish community is changing and that individuals have the right to adapt Jewish tradition to new circumstances. That doesn’t make us any less Jewish than those who live by Conservative or Orthodox law (although there would be plenty of argument within Judaism about this).
I think that the belief that body modification is prohibited by the Torah is antiquated, just as other Biblical laws are (and have thus been adjusted to fit modern times). Judaism is evolving in some sects; no longer do we have to hide what may be seen as “against the Torah” to practice our faith. It is quite a relief to do so. If you choose to practice your faith, there are many ways to do so. When you are dealing with Orthodox, Reform, Reconstructionist and Conservative movements, we will not agree on each others interpretation of the Torah.
Body Modification is just as much a part of my life as my faith in Judaism. I believe that my modifications beautify my body and bring joy to my life. They do not take away from my faith in God. My personal practice allows me to be who I am, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Liz Polay-Wettengel
1 Editor’s note: It should be added that rhinoplasty has been historically a “Jewish” procedure with the goal of masking — publicly destroying — the Jewish identity in the face of bigotry. One could make the argument that tattoos that uplift the Jewish identity are a far better way to serve God than rhinoplasty ever could be.
Liz Polay-Wettengel (iam:TattooedRedhead) is an executive general manager in Boston Massachusetts where she lives with her husband and two cats. She has a professional background in the music business and writes for several online blogs. Liz has been an active member of the IAM BME community since 2000 and currently runs the membership sponsorship forum and the Jew Crew community forum.
Online presentation copyright © 2004 Shannon Larratt, Liz Polay-Wettengel, and BMEzine.com. Requests to republish must be confirmed in writing. For bibliographical purposes this article was first published online August 19th, 2004 by BMEZINE.COM in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.