sourpussoctopus

Frankly, @Thenegativeone, it's really naive to think that cultural destruction is only ever "entirely perpetrated by the state". Cultural appropriation happens any time you disassociate the images and symbols of a culture from their original meaning and start valuing them purely aesthetically or stereotypically. So the filmmaker @Graeme mentioned is not being childish. Her people, their language and their practices had been systematically brought to the brink of extinction. And now she and others are working to revive those traditions and reinvigorate those cultural practices. Can you imagine if blonde college girls started getting twee "native tattoos" based on those designs that you've fought so hard to bring back to your community? Wouldn't you be pissed? We should listen to people when they say they have a problem with these things. (This also happens often in a myriad of ways that are not tattoo related.) It's ok to appreciate things from afar. Be interested and active in learning about different tattoo practices and their cultural meanings, be supportive of it, but don't just blindly co-opt things because it looks cool.
The Vikings thing is interesting. To me it's not culturally appropriative in the sense I described above, and I think a big part of that is that there was never really an attempt to wipe out Viking history/culture (not in the way that happened to Native Americans). With that said, I wouldn't go about getting runes or tattoos found in old mummies, for example.

I shaved my head clean after growing out my hair for 4-5 years. This is going in the awesome thread because I won't have to brush my hair for months, which is most fantastic.

The fact the majority of people now think of the swastika as primarily a racist and Nazi symbol speaks volume to the impact cultural appropriation can have.

The fact the majority of people now think of the swastika as primarily a racist and Nazi symbol speaks volume to the impact cultural appropriation can have.

Racially wiped out? No, but they were culturally.Norway (I don't know the Danish or Swedish history) wasn't peacefully converted into Christians. Some were, but the Pope ordered the middle part of Norwegian to be Christened by force and violence after missionary stuff didn't work. There is a saying in Norway that it was Christened by blood and swords... After this, the traditional Norse religion was pretty much fully vanished, and it's only thanks to a few people who took a few books to Iceland and archaeological research that we know anything about our country between 850 and 1200.

The fact the majority of people now think of the swastika as primarily a racist and Nazi symbol speaks volume to the impact cultural appropriation can have.

The fact the majority of people now think of the swastika as primarily a racist and Nazi symbol speaks volume to the impact cultural appropriation can have.

Frankly, @Thenegativeone, it's really naive to think that cultural destruction is only ever "entirely perpetrated by the state". Cultural appropriation happens any time you disassociate the images and symbols of a culture from their original meaning and start valuing them purely aesthetically or stereotypically. So the filmmaker @Graeme mentioned is not being childish. Her people, their language and their practices had been systematically brought to the brink of extinction. And now she and others are working to revive those traditions and reinvigorate those cultural practices. Can you imagine if blonde college girls started getting twee "native tattoos" based on those designs that you've fought so hard to bring back to your community? Wouldn't you be pissed? We should listen to people when they say they have a problem with these things. (This also happens often in a myriad of ways that are not tattoo related.) It's ok to appreciate things from afar. Be interested and active in learning about different tattoo practices and their cultural meanings, be supportive of it, but don't just blindly co-opt things because it looks cool.
The Vikings thing is interesting. To me it's not culturally appropriative in the sense I described above, and I think a big part of that is that there was never really an attempt to wipe out Viking history/culture (not in the way that happened to Native Americans). With that said, I wouldn't go about getting runes or tattoos found in old mummies, for example.

Frankly, @Thenegativeone, it's really naive to think that cultural destruction is only ever "entirely perpetrated by the state". Cultural appropriation happens any time you disassociate the images and symbols of a culture from their original meaning and start valuing them purely aesthetically or stereotypically. So the filmmaker @Graeme mentioned is not being childish. Her people, their language and their practices had been systematically brought to the brink of extinction. And now she and others are working to revive those traditions and reinvigorate those cultural practices. Can you imagine if blonde college girls started getting twee "native tattoos" based on those designs that you've fought so hard to bring back to your community? Wouldn't you be pissed? We should listen to people when they say they have a problem with these things. (This also happens often in a myriad of ways that are not tattoo related.) It's ok to appreciate things from afar. Be interested and active in learning about different tattoo practices and their cultural meanings, be supportive of it, but don't just blindly co-opt things because it looks cool.
The Vikings thing is interesting. To me it's not culturally appropriative in the sense I described above, and I think a big part of that is that there was never really an attempt to wipe out Viking history/culture (not in the way that happened to Native Americans). With that said, I wouldn't go about getting runes or tattoos found in old mummies, for example.

I should really know better to engage with this topic on here, but here it goes, in the spirit of fostering an intelligent discussion about tattoos:
There's a Canadian Inuit filmmaker who made a documentary a couple of years ago about trying to learn about the virtually forgotten tradition of Inuit tattooing before she got tattooed herself using the traditional skin sewing methods. Why were the traditions forgotten? Because there was a concerted effort on behalf of the church and the state to eradicate indigenous culture, that was deemed to be "cultural genocide" by a recently-concluded Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Families were torn apart, countless lives were destroyed, languages were all but lost, cultural practices vanished. The legacy of this endures. There are people who are trying to revive the languages and traditional practices like tattooing. I mentioned the filmmaker in particular above because she has deliberately limited the distribution of her documentary precisely because of fears of cultural appropriation. Her reasoning is that the revival of traditional Inuit tattooing is so fragile that if this style of tattooing is appropriated it might discourage the people who are rediscovering their own traditions. I can see why this woman might think it offensive that a non-Inuit person would get an Inuit tattoo just because they like the style, and I don't think she'd be wrong. It's certainly not "childish".

I'm bothered by it sometimes. We all have our own boundaries. An Indian Headdress, for example, is a tattoo I would not wear. I have no intention of calling out someone who would as I don't know their relationship with that imagery. I really like Ganesha as a tattoo image but will probably not have it done because I don't know enough about the meaning. I might get Isis someday as she has mostly fallen off as a current god. Perhaps she will come back someday. My daughter could use a god created in her image to look up to. Like many people I struggle with consistency.
The only caution I would have for all of us, myself included, is to not give tattoos a free pass on some of these kinds of issues just because we like tattoos. It's an easy trap to fall into.

Got to be a reckless kid one more time and got tattooed by Valerie again, this time in London. They're peeling and unsightly now, but here they are in their fresh glory:
The warrior: https://www.instagram.com/p/BAvLzMPDKFR/
The priestess: https://www.instagram.com/p/BAvLqtnDKFD/
Bonus video: https://www.instagram.com/p/BAvLTr3EHRy/

Got to be a reckless kid one more time and got tattooed by Valerie again, this time in London. They're peeling and unsightly now, but here they are in their fresh glory:
The warrior: https://www.instagram.com/p/BAvLzMPDKFR/
The priestess: https://www.instagram.com/p/BAvLqtnDKFD/
Bonus video: https://www.instagram.com/p/BAvLTr3EHRy/

@InkedMumma I wore a button up shirt, which I had open enough for the artist to get the work done, while being strategically taped around the boobs so as to not show through. I wasn't totally cool with the idea of just being topless with pasties, but if you're comfortable with that, it's probably the best/easiest option.
As for the healing, i just wore really loose and unrestricting bralettes. Of course they aren't super supportive on their own, but I found that pairing them with a tighter tank top added another layer of support which made up for it. Maybe something like that works for you?

Got to be a reckless kid one more time and got tattooed by Valerie again, this time in London. They're peeling and unsightly now, but here they are in their fresh glory:
The warrior: https://www.instagram.com/p/BAvLzMPDKFR/
The priestess: https://www.instagram.com/p/BAvLqtnDKFD/
Bonus video: https://www.instagram.com/p/BAvLTr3EHRy/

Got to be a reckless kid one more time and got tattooed by Valerie again, this time in London. They're peeling and unsightly now, but here they are in their fresh glory:
The warrior: https://www.instagram.com/p/BAvLzMPDKFR/
The priestess: https://www.instagram.com/p/BAvLqtnDKFD/
Bonus video: https://www.instagram.com/p/BAvLTr3EHRy/

@sourpussoctopus I already told you on IG those are Deadly!!

Got to be a reckless kid one more time and got tattooed by Valerie again, this time in London. They're peeling and unsightly now, but here they are in their fresh glory:
The warrior: https://www.instagram.com/p/BAvLzMPDKFR/
The priestess: https://www.instagram.com/p/BAvLqtnDKFD/
Bonus video: https://www.instagram.com/p/BAvLTr3EHRy/

I've thought about this too @pidjones but moreso at the 10 year mark. Then I hit the 10 year mark and my tattoos look better now that they have aged (and been lived in) than fresh!
I asked my tattooer about recolouring parts of my sleeve eventually. He said, well yeah but then parts will look fresh and the rest old, so where do you draw the line and just rework the whole thing? The body can only hold so much ink before it over saturates and turns to mush. Part of what makes a good tattoo is design, placement and execution to age gracefully.
There are some cats that are starting to laser off 10 year old sleeves just to get new sleeves made. That being said in the coming years I will probably be going for 2nd layer pile ons with parts of my bodysuit. I have no regrets. People always comment I have no space left but I keep finding little nooks and crannies to insert fun little momentos ;)
Enjoy your pieces for now, new ideas and placement will keep coming to ya!

Got to be a reckless kid one more time and got tattooed by Valerie again, this time in London. They're peeling and unsightly now, but here they are in their fresh glory:
The warrior: https://www.instagram.com/p/BAvLzMPDKFR/
The priestess: https://www.instagram.com/p/BAvLqtnDKFD/
Bonus video: https://www.instagram.com/p/BAvLTr3EHRy/

It's been almost three years since I started this thread so I think I'm allowed to post an update :) Thank you @marley mission for breathing new life into it
When I wrote the OP I was really happy to finally be able to get tattooed a lot. Money was not an obstacle for the first time since ever. I think I probably got 10+ palm sized tattoos in 2013. Since then I slowed down significantly. Except for two tattooers that I'm interested in I'm done "collecting" from artists in Sweden. Now I'm waiting for guests artists to come by, for the yearly London Convention or I plan trips abroad to get tattooed.
Having to plan a trip and spend more in order to get work from the tattooers that I love is the best way to slow down. I still keep a list with 10+ ideas with placement and artists names of the tattoos I plan to get but since time passes, my taste slightly shifts and new names pop up. I keep revising the list every now and then. Right now I'm contemplating who I want to get a japanese dragon from and also planning a US trip for the fall when I hope to squeeze in maybe five tattoos that I've been waiting for a long time. Really happy with the slowed down pace as I can see how my taste in tattoos continue to change and mature, even looking back 12 months I can see a huge difference.
I'm focusing on getting the worst spots done. Not that it really matters or make me any better of a human being but for my own sense of pride I'd like to get as far into full body coverage as possible before resorting to using numbing creams. Right now I try to make plans to finish the ribs, stomach, second armpit and feet. After that I should have no problem even after the pain tolerance drops. I wrote in my OP that I wanted to save my back until I turned thirty. People who follow my posts here and on instagram all ready know it turned out differently. I finished my back last year at 28 years of age, in five sessions spaced out over 9 months.
I'm trying not to rush my ideas, instead I save some skin for future tattooers. Having a growing list of 10-15 ideas of things I know I want to get makes it easy to focus on making those ideas reality. The areas who are still unplanned can remain blank for many years ahead before I catch up with the list. I've got the inside of my underarms empty still and also some sizeable areas here and there on the legs and torso. I only recently started to appriciate bigger coherent pieces with background and large readable motifs. But since I started getting palm sized tattoos spaced out all over my body I don't have any larger areas left to cover. A bit of a bummer but nothing I lose sleep over.

Got to be a reckless kid one more time and got tattooed by Valerie again, this time in London. They're peeling and unsightly now, but here they are in their fresh glory:
The warrior: https://www.instagram.com/p/BAvLzMPDKFR/
The priestess: https://www.instagram.com/p/BAvLqtnDKFD/
Bonus video: https://www.instagram.com/p/BAvLTr3EHRy/

by Nathan Kemmerer -

SO Many Fantastic pieces being posted!!
Here is my latest (and second, lol) tattoo. It was done by Christian Buckingham at Revolt in Las Vegas last week. It's on the right side of my chest and took about 4hr.
The idea was basically a war style triceratops and I asked for it to be tough looking.....the rest was left up to the artist and I couldn't be more stoked with the results!
This picture is a quick cell phone pic from the day the piece was completed, maybe will upload another of the healed result in several weeks.

Started my sleeve w/ Jason Brooks last Saturday... First new project in over 5 years... and first visible ink :)