I got one tattoo when I was 19 or 20 years old. A small, black tattoo on my wrist, just under where my watch sits, in Sanskrit. It translates to “impermanent.”
That was meaningful to me at the time, as I had just discovered Buddhism, and found meditations on impermanence to be useful. I reasoned at the time that if I changed later, it would just be more proof of the concept.
Twenty years later, I still find Buddhist philosophy and meditations on impermanence useful. I’m not thrilled about the tattoo. This was before cultural appropriation was a widely discussed concept and I have social anxiety, so I would just rather not talk about it, or be asked about it, or more to the point, be judged for it. I didn’t really get it for people to see. It was there for me, as a reminder. But inevitably, people will see it and ask questions. And whereas at 19 I was happy to talk about my spiritual beliefs with complete strangers, I am not that person any more.
Been wanting at least one for probably 20 years (I’m 52), but about 16 months ago I finally pulled the trigger. A friend got his tattoo license and wanted donor skin to practice on, so I figured why not. It’s a chess knight because I’ve loved chess for 40 years (even though I suck at it).
And then just a few months ago I got this one, from the same guy. It still needs some touching up but he’s going through some stuff right now so I’m just laying low, so to speak. It’s a reference to Dungeons & Dragons, for similar reasons as to my chess tat.
I won a $60 Gift Certificate for a tattoo place on a radio contest. I gave it a friend. He got a little ‘Infinity’ thing on his arm. He moved away and I’ve never heard from him since. That was about 30 years ago.
I’ve spent many hours in tattoo shops; getting inked as well as just hanging out.
One afternoon I was hanging out and a young woman showed up for her appointment. She was getting a toadstool placed on her toe. She was an artist and brought her original art with her. There were a bunch of people in the waiting area and they were all complementing her art.
I offered to resize the toadstool for her. She said that it was the right size as is. I looked at the art and said, “it will obviously need reduced, unless your feet are the size of canoes”.
Everybody, myself included, immediately looked at her feet. They were monstrously huge. Embarrassed, I was!
I have a few, the most recent being one of Athena where I asked you Dopers just to check about any negative associations. As no one came up with any, I went ahead and got this groovy tat. Then I found out that certain dipshit Dutch politician (I’m from the Netherlands but don’t live there and so this had escaped my attention) has been using Minerva and her owl as a symbol for his wacky ideas. Oops. However, I agreed with idea of many people in that thread that if random idiots twist an idea, that is not necessarily any skin off my back (or forearm) and I also think the style of the tattoo and my style in general would make it unlikely that I would be linked to his “ideology” . Still, I hope his fame blows over soon for this and other reasons.
Well, you can have ugly scribbles that deface a building or you can have beautifully done street art that enhances its surroundings. In fact, street art has gone from something that was viewed as something only for criminals, to something that is now considered an artfom by many. Nonetheless, it obviously it doesn’t suit all types of buildings or lifestyles. So yes, good analogy, I’d say.
When I got mine I went with a friend who walked in without any plan. He sat down and described something that ended up looking like about 8 inches of freehand railroad tracks, about a half inch wide. Guy asked him if he wanted something sketched out first but he said to just do it, so the guy just did it freehand. He didn’t strike me as an artist he was just a biker who could trace, so the tracks or whatever they are look really bad. But my friend was and remains happy with it 20 some years later.
So my friend actually went the “ugly scribbles” route.
Ahhh, I actually like these. Some are do-it-yourself stick&pokes, but I’ve talked with an artist friend about having him do one on me using stick&poke techniques.
While going to Navy electronics school in San Diego, me and a couple guys from Texas went downtown. This was also the day before my 19th birthday. We stopped in a tattoo parlor and all decided to get a small anchor tattoo. Flipped coins to see who went first, I lost. While I was getting mine, the guy that went next decided to get a bigger anchor. The guy that went last got an even bigger tattoo. The only problem was the guy giving the tattoos, every 10 minutes or so he would disappear into a back room and was drinking Jack Daniels. By the last tattoo he was pretty messed up and screwed up the tattoo. Ran into the last guy a few years later, he had spent about $500 hoping to get his tattoo fixed. My little 3" anchor has lost all of it’s color and has turned into a black blob for the most part. Showed it to a tattoo artist about 5 years ago, she said she could make it look really good again for $300. It originally cost me only $12.
I have a very small tattoo on one finger, made the traditional way by rubbing soot into a cut in the skin, courtesy of a sharp tailpipe edge while washing a car.
My daughter has a number of very elaborate tattoos, starting with one my wife paid for as a 16th birthday present. My wife got one herself a few years ago, of her favourite black cat climbing her leg (something said cat often did).
A tattoo-related story - I worked for a Canadian government department, and during a special office cleanup day about 25 years ago, when we all came to work in casual clothes, I was surprised to see how many of our senior managers had tattoos that were not normally visible in more professional office wear!
My wife and I got each other’s first initials on our ring fingers for our 17th anniversary. My daughter and I got the Washington Nationals’ curly W on our arms to commemorate the 2019 World Series win.
I had an accidental tattoo. I worked in a factory that made tail lights for General Motors. I got a cut from the edge of a lens, and when it healed, I had a little fleck of red plastic under the skin on my forearm. I didn’t feel like giving myself yet another industrial wound just to dig it out, so I left it there. After several years, it found its own way to the surface, and it came out.
I never had anything I wanted to permanently apply to my body. I have scars that show my membership in the Bionic Knees Club, but that’s not the same as a globe-and-anchor or a Harley-Davidson emblem. I flunked my draft physical, and I never owned a Harley.
We will be hosting my family tomorrow for our yearly soup fest (we make 4-6 different soups and provide nice mugs that are yours to keep). I’m looking forward to the yearly family tattoo updates.
My most recent tattoo is a non-sequitur piece on my back. A rubber ducky, balloons, an anchor, a horse collar, other odds and ends, with the word “refuse” underneath.
Now, “refuse” can be a noun or a verb and each is pronounced differently. Invariably, people ask, “what does refuse mean?”
If they say rəˈfyo͞oz, I reply, no, it’s ˈreˌfyo͞oz, and vice-versa. Either way, that’s where my explanation ends.
When I got mine I went with a friend who walked in without any plan. He sat down and described something that ended up looking like about 8 inches of freehand railroad tracks, about a half inch wide. Guy asked him if he wanted something sketched out first but he said to just do it, so the guy just did it freehand. He didn’t strike me as an artist he was just a biker who could trace, so the tracks or whatever they are look really bad. But my friend was and remains happy with it 20 some years later.