Pen & Ink: Tattoos And The Stories Behind Them (2014) - Plot & Excerpts
I have my ambivalences about tattoos-as art they are interesting, sometimes amazing, or breathtaking or clever or beautiful, and I enjoy reading stories about their origins. But in general I don't like the way they actually look on real people's bodies.The idea that Fitzgerlad and MacNaughton had, to reproduce the tattoos by drawing them on parts of bodies without any faces shown instead of photographing them, seems sound. As does the idea of the bearer telling his or her story to explain the tattoo.But the concept triumphs the result. The drawings lean towards cartooning--I can't believe that all of these tattoos are as clunky as the renderings. And then there are the stories, which are unfortunately not that interesting. In fact, many reveal little more than youth and self-indulgence. I know, I know...there are real tragedies here and real love underneath many of them, but they mostly failed to move me or make me think that yes, this tattoo WAS the best memorial or celebration or indulgence.The one tattoo that felt most right to me as art, as philosophy, as an adjunct to a life, was Jiz Lee's gray-blue stripe. Both the image and words made sense.And one story stood way way out: Rebecca Weinroth's "Unconditional Love". Read it and weep. Yes, you earned that tattoo, Rebecca, and it is beautiful and appropriate.Honorable mentions go to Mona Eltahawy's "Sekhmet", Thao Ngyen's "Sullivan, and Craig Dalton's "Dots".That's five, out of sixty-three.I also found the handwritten text to be annoyingly twee. As pretentious as most of the tattoos. Reading this book feels like listening to 'Desert Island Discs' - oddly voyeuristic, and utterly engrossing and fascinating. The stories in this book are sweet (couples getting variations on matching tattoos), funny (one guy has a tattoo of a bear, with a black flag tattoo, on a skateboard), heartbreaking (Roxane Gay's nearly made me cry) - and every other descriptor.The thing that's always interested me is how deeply personal a question like "what does your tattoo say?" can be, and this book really demonstrates that, it's really incredible (and kinda surprising) to me how these people chose to share their really personal stories.I have more thoughts on this, but mostly I just sat there kind of awed at the amount of awesome that most of the people in this book were :)
What do You think about Pen & Ink: Tattoos And The Stories Behind Them (2014)?
Moving and personal stories by some very interesting individuals.
—Angela
Great short snippets of peoples tats... great stories too!
—ksyprr
