According
to Body Modification E-zine (BME), a tattoo artist’s portfolio is “a book of
photos containing examples of work by an artist.” (Portfolio). It should
contain examples of a wide variety of artistic styles (inasmuch as the artist works
in them), and both healed and freshly-tattooed works. Each work should be
photographed from as many angles as possible, in close up for detail and at a
moderate distance to see the work as a whole and to get a sense of its
placement on the body. Portfolios have huge importance among tattoo artists and
enthusiasts. Getting a tattoo is a permanent, irreversible decision that should
not be made lightly. Seeing examples of an artist’s previous works is the best
way to get a sense of his or her style and technical skill. It’s imperative
that the quality of a portfolio be the best it possibly can.
 |
| An example of a portfolio. By Becka MacDonald, from
http://alittleguidance.blogspot.com/2010/12/making-of-becka-macdonalds-tattoo.html
|
Though
portfolios often are not comprehensive collections of an artist’s work, they
can serve as a sort of archive for an individual artist or of several artists
working together in the same shop. Almost every artist has an online portfolio
for prospective customers, as well as a scrapbook-like bound version in his or
her shop. There’s huge potential for portfolios to document individual artists
and provide information about different techniques or artistic styles of
tattooing. There are many archives that deal peripherally with tattoos, mostly
those regarding prisons or indigenous cultures. Extensive searching brought
back only one archive dealing directly with tattoos and tattooing, the Tattoo
Archive, founded in 1980. Even the Tattoo Archive, however, has little evidence
on its website that it or any other archive collects any portfolios or related
records. Tattoo studios rarely leave the portfolios of retired artists in their
shops or on their websites, since the function of portfolios is almost entirely
commercial.
 |
| Unattributed artist, image from http://www.bme.com/media/photo/3374002/?cat=tattoo/geek-tattoos&page=2 |
One
problem with portfolios as archives is that they are typically pictures only;
they have no contextual information regarding when or where the tattoo was
made, what its significance is, or the process used to create it. While there
may be archival value in portfolios as they are now, their usefulness will be
limited without additional related records. As Kirsten Wright notes in her
article “Recording ‘a very particular Custom’: tattoos and the archive,”
“tattoos cannot be understood from mere recording of the designs,” (p. 3).
While that article is referring to 19th century records of
Polynesian tattooing, the same is true for contemporary body art, though the
internet has changed things considerably on this front. Online portfolios allow
for more metadata than is typically found in paper-based portfolios, but they
still rarely include details such as the type of machine or inks used, the
source of the image, or the significance of the tattoo from a cultural
perspective. For example, the tattoo to the right by an unattributed artist is
tagged with “geek tattoos,” the name of the uploader, and the date it was added
to the gallery, but the metadata doesn’t mention anywhere that it’s a take on
Beaker from the Muppets. Similarly, the tattoo by Grzegorz Latoch is tagged as a “fantasy tattoo” and titled
“Night Elf,” but does not tell viewers that it’s a character from the game
World of Warcraft.
 |
| By Grzegorz Latoch, Image from http://www.bme.com/media/photo/3380174/?cat=tattoo/fantasy-tattoos&page=2 |
Another
problem with portfolios as archives is that artists can often only get pictures
of their work when it’s freshly done – they can never guarantee that a client
would come in again to get a picture when the work is healed. Immediately after
a tattoo is inked, the skin surrounding it is red and inflamed, the ink hasn’t
settled, so the color is brighter than it will be when it’s healed, and the
skin is often covered with ointment to aid in healing. All of these factors
often make portfolio pictures misleading. The color is inaccurate, and swelling
and redness can hide technical mistakes in the tattoo. Researchers looking for
information about the technical aspects of tattooing could either come to
incorrect conclusions, or be unable to find the evidence they’re looking for in
the photos. Additionally, how tattoos heal and whether they heal well is an
extremely important aspect of tattooing; the lack of healed pictures could be a
considerable gap in collected knowledge. In the before and after pictures, there's a clear difference in the tone and brightness of the colors. In the fish tattoo, redness is
obscuring detail and altering the effect of the gray shading. The same is true
of the shield tattoo. The flower tattoo shows the brightness of fresh ink;
those colors will change somewhat as it heals. You can also see the shine of
ointment on the skin, and blood welling up slightly under areas of lighter
color.
 |
| Tattoo by Jay Kelly. Tattoo at 2 hours old. Image by me. |
 |
| Same at 14 months old. Image by me. |
 |
| By Chris Debarge. Image from http://stingraybodyart.com/images/artistgalleries/chrisdebarge/debarge-england-shield.jpg |
 |
| By Jay Kelly. Image from
|
 | ||||
| By Hannya Jayne. Image from http://www.bme.com/media/photo/3391969/?cat=tattoo/flower-plant-tattoos&page=1 |
According
to D.J. Roberts (2012), “tattooing is increasingly practiced and appropriated
by mainstream, middle class individuals,” (p. 153). He also says that,
“estimates on the number of Americans with tattoos generally range from one in
ten to one in five,” (p. 153). With this increased cultural significance of
tattoos, it becomes more important than ever to keep records of the practice.
References
Eldridge,
C.W. (2011). Tattoo Archive. Retrieved from http://tattooarchive.com/index.html.
Larratt,
Shannon. (2012, September 11). Fraud in Tattooing. [Blog post]. Retrieved from
Larratt,
Shannon. (2012, September 13). Healed Tattoos Are What You Live With. [Blog
post].
Portfolio.
(2006, April 15). Retrieved April 21, 2013 from BME Wiki:
http://wiki.bme.com/index.php?title=Portfolio
Roberts,
D. (2012). Secret ink: tattoo's place in contemporary American culture. Journal
Of American Culture (Malden, Mass.: 2003), 35(2), 153-165.
Wright,
K. (2009). Recording ‘a very particular Custom’: tattoos and the archive. Archival
Science, 9(1/2), 99-111. doi:10.1007/s10502-009-9098-x
No comments:
Post a Comment