Tattoos!

Why do I like them?

I wanted to start out by describing a bit about my perspective on the medium before getting into anything else. The truth is that, I have long since been deeply fascinated with tattoos as an art form. And while I have spent many an hour reading books, watching documentaries, speaking to artists in person, and, of course, getting tattooed myself, I wanted a space to just talk about them. Why I like them, and ultimately try and compile some of the information I've discovered online about them. But, before I can get to that, I have to get to why I like them so much.

As mentioned above, I have a deep passion and love for tattoos. For some, mostly other tattooed people, the reason why might seem obvious. But, for me, like many, I assume the reasons are broader than some may expect. First and foremost, I love the history. With each and every tattoo created, we all get to participate in this ever-expanding story of the human race. For however long the tattoo takes, we are in those moments, connected with each and every other tattooed person. For we have all experienced the same feelings. Further, it is an art that goes so far back in time. From thousands of years ago, to the present, tattoos incorporate snippets of all cultures and all of the human experience. Tracking, tracing, and learning about the connections between cultures over the course of the history of tattoos is just one of many fascinating avenues to me.

I could go on and on about the interesting history of tattoos, and how it connects all these cultures across time but, I would genuinely be doing a great disservice to such a great topic. But, I will leave one excellent example. While researching the background of the iconography in Japanese Traditional tattooing, I was lead to "Water Margin". An ancient Chinese story that was translated into Japanese during the early 1800's and went on to heavily influence what we know as modern tattooing! So, thanks to my love of tattoo history, I got to learn about an incredible Chinese folk story. I would highly recommend reading or listening to a summary of "Water Margin" by the way, it is absolutely wild. All that said, there is a litany of other things I find fascinating about tattoos are tattoo culture. Such as, tattoos make people far less likely to be abducted or trafficked and less likely to be eaten! That's crazy right?? Anyway, if you love documentaries and want to learn more besides my rambling, below, I have a link to playlist I have been building for about 6 years with amazing videos and documentaries about tattooing on Youtube! I hope you enjoy!