Tattooing for love and art

Every day on campus, students
sport elaborate tattoos, how do
they feel about it?
The survey found the average
student got his/her tattoo as a tribute
to a loved one or for the beauty
of the art itself
Out of eight people surveyed,
five were men and three were
women:
“It reminds me of who I am and
who I lost in the years and who I
love. My body is a canvas and I
love to express with it.”
One person had a half-bodied
Japanese tattoo art style known as
“Irezumi,” which roughly transliterates
“pricking the skin with blue
or green ink.” Pop-culture calls it
a “body suit.”
“I love the surprise of taking a
two-dimensional art and placing it
on a three-dimensional form.”
Runner up reasons to get a tattoo
were: loving the tattoo culture,
enjoying freedom of expression,
overcoming a difficult experience,
spreading a specific message –
from poetry to religion
– and enjoying the shared experience
when a viewer actually
gets the message. Some messages
were as elaborate as Virginia
Wolfe quotes to smaller Tibetan
symbols.
Naturally, for every positive
experience, there are negative
side effects. Reasons to remove
a tattoo were small, but significant
warnings: bad tattoos, heartbreak
and one even affected comfort-
level in an otherwise happy
career experience.
The worst parts of removing a
tattoo were also significant and
should be considered before getting
one put on. Removal was a
“painful, long process” that “involved
burning the skin with a
cold laser until it blistered” and
“the higher your tolerance for pain
is, the better the removal is.” Do
it with a cold laser and “research
where you have it done and follow
the directions you’re given,
for best results.”
The two people who removed
their tattoos had to receive an average
of five treatments. One set of
treatments happened a long time
ago and only cost $200. The newer
removal cost $800 per treatment. In
both cases, no insurance picked up
the cost.