The stories tattoos tell

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The stories tattoos tell
July 18, 2010
By Sonya Chun
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Lauren Ragan, a 19-year-old hairdresser from Pine, has a long peacock feather running down her back.

Justin Naper, 31, of Etna, is a committed Christian, and has Jesus on his back to promote his religious passion.

Virginia Lemley, 32, of McDonald, was born under the sign of Scorpio -- and has one on her shoulder, too.

The heat's on, the shirts are off and at no other time of the year do we get so up close and personal with tattoos that now adorn as many as 45 million Americans. In fact, more than one out of three people between the ages of 18 and 40 are getting them, and older folks are, too.

Every tattoo has a story behind it and some are as dramatic as John Fetterman's, the Braddock mayor who promotes pride for his struggling Mon Valley community by inking the borough's ZIP code -- 15104 -- on his left forearm. The five images on his right forearm are more grim, representing the dates of murders in Braddock since he has been in office.

Jay Michael Del Greco, a 31-year-old artist from Aliquippa, whose tattoos were highly visible at the Three Rivers Arts Festival in June, said his body art has chronicled key stages of his life.

His first tattoo, a small Japanese Kanji character ["commitment"] on his right hip, signifies the time he met his wife, and the one on his left bicep, an image of a hammer on moth wings, is a tribute to a friend who struggles with Parkinson's disease.

"I don't get them impulsively or simply for cosmetic reasons," he said. "If you have personal content and significance behind them, you're less likely to regret them."

He took great interest in philosophy at one point in his life and designed an image for Occam's razor (the principle that "entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity") on his right shoulder. Below that tattoo is another of Ralph Steadman's "The Spirit of Gonzo."

"I also used to own a few pet rats, so I have the black silhouette of a rat on my chest under my right collarbone," he said.

Ms. Ragan is in the process of getting two enormous peacock feathers inked on her entire back.

"When I was little, I would go to my grandmother's house and she had a vase full of huge peacock feathers in her bathroom. She used to give me baths and [the peacock feathers] always sat there ... loved them," Ms. Ragan said. "When she died, she gave them to me and now they're sitting in my room."

Ms. Ragan spent months -- approximately 11 hours -- under the needle for her first feather and will spend another several months for her second one.

She's not the only one who has put so much time into one tattoo. Mr. Naper made 12 trips to the tattoo studio before completing the image of the crucifixion of Jesus on his back.

Jennifer Jackson, a 34-year-old tattoo artist at Tattoo Blvd. in Monroeville, got her first tattoo -- a yin yang of day and night -- on the back of her shoulder as a graduation gift from her mother when she was 18.

Since then, she has accumulated 32 vibrant tattoos, with her blue hair to match. On her right arm, she has a sleeve of a soaring phoenix surrounded by peacock feathers and flames in bold colors. The tattoo serves as a memorial to her younger brother Jim who died of hypothermia at 19 in 2003.

"[My brother] was particularly fond of his phoenix tattoo which covered his entire front torso. When Jim passed away ... our entire family was greatly affected. Each of us [is] getting a phoenix tattoo in memory of him."

Her favorite tattoo -- on her ribs -- is Botticelli's Venus. "She has the most meaning to me personally and was earned through the most excruciating pain."

Of course, being a tattoo artist herself, she has a particular passion for the body art.

"I have tattooed teens to great-grandmothers and everyone in between," she said. "It's wonderful to meet so many different people, all with one common goal: tattoos!"

But tattoos can reveal perhaps more information about a person's life than they might have anticipated.

Rebecca Pearlman, 43, of Millville, says that as a Port Authority bus driver, people touch her arm uninvited to inspect the skulls and flames tattooed there.

When Ms. Pearlman turned 18 in 1985, she decided to get her first tattoo on her hip and then got a second one 10 years later.

"By then I had two kids and some pleasant [and] not-so-pleasant experiences with love, so I decided to record my feelings with body art. Hence the skulls, flames and sword," Ms. Pearlman said.

In her 30s, she decided butterflies and flowers reflected her taste better. "I guess I mellowed out with age and experience. That's all I want for now ...

"From time to time I wonder, 'What was I thinking?' I have looked into [tattoo removals] ... my son's advice is to leave them be."

Ms. Pearlman does not plan to remove any of her tattoos -- an expensive and lengthy process -- but advises others to get theirs in a concealed location.

Many still go for honoring their beloved ones by inking their names somewhere on their bodies, which, of course, raises a sticky problem when couples split.

Actor Johnny Depp, notoriously covered in tattoos and scars from some self-inflicted wounds, tried to correct this problem when he broke up with actress Winona Ryder in the early 1990s. He reportedly changed the "Winona Forever" in a ribbon tattoo to "Wino Forever."

Jon Gosselin, of the former reality show "Jon & Kate Plus 8," may be facing a similar problem after he recently tattooed the name of his girlfriend Ellen Ross in Korean on his back -- he spelled her name wrong.

Still Mr. Depp, like other tattoo enthusiasts, recognizes the storytelling significance of body art and other markings:

"My body is a journal in a way," he said in a 1993 interview. "It's like what sailors used to do, where every tattoo meant something, a specific time in your life when you make a mark on yourself, whether you do it yourself with a knife or with a professional tattoo artist."

Ms. Jackson agrees.

"I believe the reasoning behind tattoos is as individual as the person getting them," she said. "Tattoos have a great healing power, which is why we see so many memorial pieces.

"Their permanence allows the wearer to keep a part of that person with them always ... the permanent nature of tattoos is a daily reminder of a commitment to either oneself or another."