Do you have any tattoos?
If yes, do they hold any special significance for you? What made you decide to get a tattoo? Do you have any regrets? If you are comfortable adding a photo, I think the community would be happy to see the artwork.
If no, do you have a specific objection to tattoos? Are you considering getting one? Is the financial element preventing you?
Yes, several. Started when I turned 40, then got another when I got my PhD at 50, and another when I separated from my husband. I’m planning my next one... No regrets. I like the process of selecting a pattern, the sensation of being tattooed, and the art on my body.
No way, never. It’s one of those things I don’t understand the desire for. It would restrict the style of clothes I wear.
I have 42 of them.
This post is incomplete without a lot of pics
I think tattoos look trashy. No tattoos for me.
"Tattoos look awful when people become elderly," a nurse said. "They look like a bad bruise."
Impressed, again...
Worked amid women in a tight school setting where one, by then a mother, was so obviously embarrassed by her trampstamp ..we pretended not to see it.. Impressively intelligent, and having come a long way since her stamp ... she should have been placed on a district-wide speaking tour on that subject.
Why do you think they look trashy? Is it because they are on skin? Just curious.
I got my first and only one this past summer, at age 61. I love it.
Well, the same age.. at least we’re closer to the person’s we’ll someday be…
@Varn For years I was daunted by the idea that getting a tattoo meant I'd be stuck with that image on my person forever, considering the permanence of a tattoo. Now that I'm almost 62, the permanence of a tattoo would only matter for 20 - 30 years tops. Not so daunting anymore.. The only problem, our skin gets more delicate as we age, so I think getting inked may be a bit more painful once we hit our senior years than it would have been on our younger skin.
A person who decides to get a tattoo should know that paints may contain poisonous substances. Such paints often include heavy metals (nickel, arsenic, chromium, mercury, and others) and industrial manufacturing substances. Unlike cosmetics, which can be easily washed off, tattoos are injected deep into the skin. Harmful particles will remain permanently in the body and cannot be removed by laser and led light bed. Between the outer and inner layer of the skin is a layer - the dermis. This is the layer that suffers the most in this case. She felt calm, and then all of a sudden, hell broke loose. A large needle pierced the top layer, and foreign substances began to flow in.
No, no no, they are ugly. Or I mean they can be beautiful but only on canvas. I am thinking of all those young people who are going threw this faze of having tattoos, well one day in 20 - 30 - 40 years time they look at those tattoos and what will they see, a strange looking sight it will be and not a pretty one either.
I hope there’s a youngster out there who's taking your words serious…
Smart artists leave room for the ink to spread over time.
@Jolanta The cells in our skin shift over time, which causes the ink lines to soften at first, then blur over time. Look at an elderly person’s tattoos and you see how hard the detail can be to make out. If the artist leaves some “white space,” so to speak, or the art is simpler, the image will be identifiable longer. I have part of a song lyric in cursive. I just accept that one day it won’t be legible. NP. I’ll know what it means.
I have one on my right upper arm with the names of my daughters.
The top symbol is the eye of Horus to represent wisdom and protection.
The next three are the astrological symbols for Cancer, Scorpio and Leo (Myself and my two daughters)
The bottom symbol is the hieroglyph for 'Forever' or 'Eternally', the latter being the piece of music my parents danced to at their wedding.
The whole lot is inside a cartouche to represent my thing for the Ancient Egyptians,
No tatts on me. My background is in illustration and graphics so I've designed several of them for friends but never got around to getting one myself. I like them and enjoy seeing what others have gotten to check out the designs and concepts so let's see more pics.
I have 7 and one of them has been done twice. I got them for a variety of reasons. I got most of them when I was a lot younger. I got the last one just a couple of years ago.
I don't have any myself (I'm a wimp) but I admire many artists and the tats they've designed. Especially the amputee/3D variety.
Here are a couple of pictures of a man from Norway who apparently lost his arm at 13y in a train accident. I saw the first part a number of years ago (he has extended it to a full dolphin) and my facination with ink art grew from there.
Still a wimp though. lol
I personally don’t have one; however, I really want to get at least one in my life. I do have the money because my tattoo in mind is quite small and not extremely detailed so it’s not expensive, but it does have a lot of meaning for me. The only thing really preventing me of getting this tattoo is my parents. Even though I’m a college student, they still support me and they are religious so they are against tattoos or piercings (even though they pierced my ears as a child ??) so they forbid me to do it until I no longer live under their roof.
My daughter had tattoos and an under-tongue piercing I didn’t notice for 6-month to a year. You do you, and choose the placement carefully.
I think you are doing the right thing by waiting. Your parents respect is absolutely worth waiting for!
Whole left arm is covered, I get one every year for my birthday. So far I have father time, the tree of life, seed of life, an atom in the center of a galaxy and a human with no skin and 8 arms (no skin: represents that we are all the same, then the arms show how I have many components to my personality and passions that I love. Basically, its a representation of the beginning of time, space, earth, life, and then I'll have death on the bottom which is on my hand. I love art and I love my ideologies.
...this one’s been cause for some real shit-storms around here … of which I seem incapable of avoiding.. Maybe it’s cuz I spent some serious time ‘talking my daughters out’ of future tattoos. So far, so good ~
My 3 daughters all have tattoos. Their bodies, their money, their choice.
@Varn But life is permanent. Art is more permanent than life imo. I respect the decision of the individual no matter what as long as it's ethical and moral.
@EthanRogers Taste in ‘art’ changes, those don’t.. They appear a fad, to me, sad.
@Varn that's why art is so valuable. Art taste is fluid from individual to individual and has different value to each person as well. Seems like you may be on the spectrum that doesn't passionately care for art. But that's your opinion and that's cool.
@EthanRogers Art’s all I appeared to do well in my youth ..and I’ve raised two artists.. Can’t think of any ‘art’ that’s as permanent as tattoos, though. Mt Rushmore, maybe.
I think it’s far more than a desire for ‘art,’ but can’t do more than discourage it when asked. It seriously turns me off, and is hopefully a passing fad.