What Will Last?
Tattoos aren’t new. Far from it, they are one of the oldest forms of expression to be discovered, the oldest found when the body of a copper age man nicknamed “Ötzi man” was discovered in the Austrian alps, tatted up; 61 tattoos adorned his skin, crude lines covering his arms and legs, crosses and symbols perfectly preserved by the ice. His tattoos were practical — they were guide marks for an ancient treatment for his debilitating joint pain, made by placing ash from a fire into a fresh wound. Thought to have been alive over 5000 years ago, the discovery of Ötzi means tattoos have been a part of human culture for almost as long as metal smelting.
Now, every year, millions of people get tattoos, from one of the tens of thousands of tattoo shops in the US, and this 5000-year-old trend is only getting more popular. The motivations for modification can be as unique as the art itself, from spur of the moment decisions to painstakingly thought out projects. The question many have is, what if you don’t want it anymore?
As tattoos have become more popular, another industry has grown along with them. The tattoo removal market has gained millions of customers as new techniques have been created, improved, and popularized, however, these advances have not made the process simple, comfortable, or cheap. So as so many more people are following in the footsteps of Ötzi, they may wonder, “How can I avoid regretting it?”.
The first step in planning a tattoo is to gain an understanding of their power. Art of all kinds reflects the world around it, and tattoos have the added power of reflecting the person they occupy.
Marisa Gomez spent nearly three decades planning her first tattoo. It was a big decision, and she considered many factors before ultimately putting the pen to the skin. All the planning paid off in the form of a tattoo that is drawn from multiple facets of her personality. A small spiral on her right arm, it reflects on her in multiple ways, as she put it:
“I chose the spirals that Gustav Klimt uses in his artwork. So he has, in particular, this huge mural that’s called the tree of life. The tree branches are all spirals and I really liked the way they looked. Klimt is a favorite of mine. Art history is my other passion and I have taught it in the past . . . And the idea is that if you spiral outward from the center, then you are gaining knowledge of the world outside of you . . . So that there’s something about that that I suppose as an educator, and as a lifelong learner is very attractive to me.”
By carefully planning her tattoo, Marisa was able to utilize a small and simple design to reflect not just her passions but also the very way she chooses to approach life. At the very core of it, a tattoo can reflect on what you think is most important about yourself.
However, not all tattoos display lifelong tendencies or values. A tattoo can just as easily reflect on the most important things in one’s life at any particular moment and should be given just as if not more thought in its planning. If fact, to some, the very act of the tattoo can become part of the moment. This was exactly the case for Alejandro Higareda’s first tattoo. He describes the day of his first tattoo as a turning point in his early life:
“The very day of my birthday I went out and got a tattoo. I came home, my mom saw it and she said, ‘Why did you do that?’ And I said, because I’m 18; I handed her a check for, for my part of the rent, because I had a job too. And she’s like, ‘You got a job?’ I said, ‘yes, I’m an adult now.’”
Alejandro’s tattoo will always mark that moment in his life. Luckily for him, he looks back at that time with pride, as the jump from childhood to adulthood. Not all moments may age as well, and as you change your opinion of a tattoo may change along with it. Alejandro is just as subject to this as anyone. He told the story of a girlfriend from his twenties who surprised him with a tattoo. A tattoo of his name on her arm. His confusion led to a fight, and the fight led to a matching tattoo on his own arm. Only after the end of that relationship could he really appreciate how that tattoo made him felt, as his perspective on that chapter of his life changed.
He needed a way to change his perspective on that time. When describing his tattoos, he often compared them to pages in a book; he needed a way to amend this chapter. Ultimately, he decided to cover her name completely, adding a design of open eyes around the black spot. Changing the tattoo was a way to properly deal with the emotions he associated with it, or as he puts it, “I chose to black this out is because it was a, it wasn’t a great time in my life. I don’t think it was a healthy relationship. So it’s, it’s mostly like, like me going through a dark spot in my life and then coming out the other side was with eyes wide open.”
But not everyone shares these attitudes towards tattoos. Journalist David Kirby believes there are two types of people who get tattoos. Marisa and Alejandro fall into one category, people who use tattoos to mark points in life. The other are those who treat their skin like a canvas, designed to be covered with whatever seems most appropriate at any time. This is the category that Marisa’s sister-in-law falls into, as she puts it, “I mean, they got the logo to their gym tattooed on them themselves. I mean, that’s the kind of thing I’m talking about in terms of getting tattoos on a whim.” For people in this category, the meaning of the tattoo must come from the compilation of the tattoos themselves.
But even if you see yourself fall into this group, completely detached from the meaning of a tattoo, there is still an incredible risk of regret from improper tattooing technique. If you don’t fully understand what is coming for you, you might be spending hours in a chair in some of the most pain of your life. Location, preparation, and research are all essential, but even when prepared to the best of your ability, you may find yourself in a hard place. Alejandro described his most painful tattoo experience, saying, “Yeah, it hurts. Hurts like hell. Um, it’ll, it’ll, especially if you get a large piece and depending on the area, you know, for me it was the collarbone . . . it made me question my manhood, who I was, I was close to three times to, to ask him, the tattoo is to stop and move to another area . . . you need to sit down and your body’s going into shock. So it’s, it hurts. And I, and the other thing I would say is, you know, make sure you know what you want. You don’t do, do research. Um, ’cause it’s on you; it is on you.”
A tattoo can be a very big decision, or it can be simply a small piece of a much larger work. As with most things, emotional reactions and pain responses vary from person to person. All that is for certain is it will last a long time.
