Tattoos in America

American Flag Tattoo Picture

Let's keep in mind that not all societies adopt tattoos as means of personal and communal expressions. In many cultures -especially illiterate societies-tattoos carry the visual symbols, icons, and signals of collective consciousness and memories they wish to preserve.
In the USA, given their popularity today, we can see that tattoos are a continuation of the earlier generations' symbols of rebellion, of being different, of presenting a contrarian attitude, of the nonconformist. In place of long hair we now have long nails, body piercing, and tattoos. Yet no one can discern a cause for that rebellion other than the deep desire to be individualistic.
Is it a fad? Given that the fad is lasting longer than a decade, we can say perhaps it is more than a fad; may be a much longer wave. Young people imitate stars, celebrities, and other famous achievers. In soccer we see a veteran player like David Beckham sport very visible tattoos on his neck; following Beckham's example, the young striker Natasha Kai isn't shy about displaying her countless tattoos. In boxing, tattoos are almost mandatory -perhaps as weapons of intimidation-since most boxers wear them. The fiercer the tattoo the fiercer the appearance of the boxer: just take a close look at Mike Tyson's face.

Significance of Arm Tattoos

American  Arm Tattoo Picture

Arm tattoos always have carried a wealth of meaning with them over the years. For example, a tattoo in the forearm of a woman in Borneo indicated her skill that was capable of uplifting her demand in marriage.
Tattoos encircling the wrist and the fingers had spiritual significance attached to it with the people believing it to be capable of driving away illness. It was seen as a sign of criminality in the East. The triads of Hong Kong pictured a black dragon on the left bicep and a white tiger on the right.
In many countries, the arm tattoos still carry a negative image. It is said that the majority of prisoners in the USA have at least one tattoo design on them. But today with the tattoo artists mixing the designs of the East with the West, they are seen as fashionable.

Expressing Yourself With Tattoos

 Liberi Tattoo Picture

Have you noticed that there are a lot of people that have Tattoos these days? In the past you may have only seen tattoos on people such as sailors, outlaws, and biker gangs but now tattoos are a very popular body decoration for many people. The types and styles of tattoos has also come a very long way. It is no longer crude pictures of pinup girls, skulls, and anchors. Tattoos have developed into very sophisticated art work ranging from Celtic crosses to very personalized symbols. People have found and created designs that express themselves in a very personal way.

What is a Tattoo?

Very simply a tattoo is a puncture wound made in the skin that is filled with ink. Although done differently today than in the past the technique is still somewhat similar. Today, tattoo artist use a tattoo gun that has one or more needles that penetrate the skin and delivery ink into the skin. Tattoos last a very long time due to the fact that the ink is placed deeply into the skin. The top layer of skins is called the epidermis and it is constantly shedding and being reproduced. If the ink from a tattoo was in this layer of skin it would not last very long. The layer of skin that the ink is injected to is called the dermis, which is a deeper layer of skin that is very stable and makes the tattoo stay visible almost permanently.
Tattoos in the past were done manually with a tool that they tapped on the skin to make the puncture wound and then the ink would be injected by hand. Most tattoo shops today have tattoo guns or machines to do this today, although you can still find areas around the world that still use the older style of tattooing. The tattoo guns make tattooing much more quickly today because the machine is able to deliver the ink into the skin as it is puncturing the skin. The tattoo artist can change the tip of the machine to contain one needle or group of needles depending on if they are drawing the outline of the design or shading part of the design. Most tattoo artist today are very skilled and know just how far to drive the needle into the skin to produce a good tattoo. Not going deep enough can result in ragged tattoo and going to deep can result in excessive bleeding, not to mention the pain would be much worse.