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I'm bothered by it sometimes. We all have our own boundaries. An Indian Headdress, for example, is a tattoo I would not wear. I have no intention of calling out someone who would as I don't know their relationship with that imagery. I really like Ganesha as a tattoo image but will probably not have it done because I don't know enough about the meaning. I might get Isis someday as she has mostly fallen off as a current god. Perhaps she will come back someday. My daughter could use a god created in her image to look up to. Like many people I struggle with consistency. The only caution I would have for all of us, myself included, is to not give tattoos a free pass on some of these kinds of issues just because we like tattoos. It's an easy trap to fall into.

Related, has anyone noticed the skin where they are tattooed feels warmer than non-tattooed skin under the sun? I felt that my tattooed skin was really burning under direct sun but thought perhaps it was my imagination being used to SF weather. The last 2 years, LA really is much hotter than I remember it being previously when I didn't have much coverage. When everyone is wearing scarves and a coat, I'm still wearing a tee cause I'm freaking boiling. Then a friend who was visiting from Seattle mentioned the same thing about her tattoos heating up. Anyone else experience this?

Calling might help lol

My family reunion was this past week. I made sure to get some shots of the tattoos on my great uncles. These would be some of the first tattoos I remember seeing as a child. These are on my Uncle Jerry. Done in Vancouver, BC in 1941 by Steve Robertson*. My uncle was 15 years old, and was working on the Building and Rail gang of the CN Railway. One night they got into a bottle of wine, the older guys told him he was going to get tattoos, and he went along with it. They cost $1.25 each. * My uncle says these were done in a shop by an artist of that name. Has anyone heard of him? There is a Canadian tattoo history thread I have yet to read through fully, I will check there too. First is a heart with an arrow+banner, "Father" and "Mother" above and below. Second is an anchor, kind of tough to read nowadays as it's quite small.

Just an update: I went to Tsunami Tattoo in Tacoma, WA and had it reworked by Jayme Jack. I'm pretty happy with the results, and think it looks a lot better. Thanks for the advice everyone.

Have you called or visited the shop in person?

lol my 13 yr old dtr taught me how to "screenshot" my DM pic that Sheila Marcello sent me after she did this cool amazing Pharaohs Horses piece - even though I have a few pics of this posted already in the lowdown - please allow me to give you the best of the bunch :)

https://youtu.be/plY9cZFBxiA Thanks for watching!

awesome stuff. Cool format they have going for it. I've always loved that Gogue piece.

just read this whole thread this shop is on my list for the fall leaning towards an appointment with dan or eli but honestly probably would like to get tattooed by any and all of the smith st artists in the future was recently getting tattooed @ electric during a traditional flash weekend event and was right next to bert (and robert ryan) while getting tattooed by sheila marcello which was pretty cool

I am unstoppable when it comes to cured meats.

unintentional post/edit

Are you in Seattle? LST hang out?!

I try to ignore them, personally. Unless intentionally and obviously a racial/ethnic/religious/national/whatever slur, there are too many people inventing and imagining slights just to draw attention to themselves and gain control over others. There are too many real problems with society to worry about reading something into someone's ink.

Another half-breed right here. But I'm from Alaska, so none of our imagery has come up in this conversation, but here you go anyway...I did a fair amount of northwest native (aka Haida or more accurately formline) style tribal during the first 3/4 of my tattoo career while I was in washington state, but I moved back to Alaska four years ago and really started to research the style. I started working with a local carver and studied on paper first, eventually painting and working my way up into a carving apprenticeship. I know this style is usually a pain for a lot of tattooers and I understand. When someone brings a design of this style in and it is tattoo-able, it's usually still a lot of work and doesn't feel too rewarding until you are done. But after studying it, I love designing formline from the the ground up and tattooing it. I know this is pretty specialized and leans more towards polynesian tribal than whip shaded indian girl heads or navajo designs that are (or were) on trend for clothing and fashion, but some things are the same for all of those different variations on American Native Art. When I see stuff in formline style, now I know right away if the tattooer found it, had to change parts for the tattoo and make up shapes, collage together a few different designs or bullshit something entirely. I image its what a Polynesian tribal artist sees when they look at designs cut and pasted by tattooers going strictly off of visual aesthetic and mixing designs regardless of meaning. "Nice half sleeve, so looking at this, from the parts I understand, your people are the shark fishermen of the mountains? That doesn't make sense". At least now, I feel like I'm learning the language of it enough to design with respect to the culture and not have to worry about if it belongs to a tribe or clan or would offend anybody. It was one of the first questions I asked when I got here "what can I and can't I draw for people?" and was assured by my teachers that an eagle I draw does not belong to the Eagle clan, unless I were to directly copy a house front design, drum, blanket, etc that has been passed down and I appropriated the design without the right to do so. If I draw it and build it from scratch, it is my gift to give to the recipient. And within this style there is plenty of possible abstraction to go even further away from anything that wound be considered disrespectful or clan property. How do the Native artists that I've talked to feel about people around the world getting their cultures artwork tattooed on them? They are fucking stoked. Especially since most of them have been commissioned by their friends and family to design tattoos for them. Just like any artists, they appreciate when it's done right and the medium and design work as one, they hate it when the design is great, but tattooed badly or tattooed well and badly designed. And I think, not to speak for all Alaska Native artists, but I know I'd rather see the art on as many people as possible, especially if I get to design it. I'd rather make the best native tattoos I can on anybody that not do it as much because of some cultural guilt. I know that this is a very specific corner of Native art, but I figured I'd chime in, because I was pretty cautious about the rules and stuff when I began to study. I've been lucky enough to design a fair amount of custom formline and even tattoo some of my carving designs. Lots of times the designs have stories, like the carving of the fish that I got to tattoo. When I carved that design I was illustrating a specific story about how Raven gave the Bullhead fish it's shape. If you look, the body is a Raven head. I won't bore you with the story, but when the customer came in who got the tattoo he asked "do you do that local native art stuff?" I said "'yeah, I carved that stuff right there", he saw that carving and went "that's bad ass. can I do that, but green instead of red?" and I was happy to give it to him. We didn't get all spiritual about the story and he was happy to get it because he thought it looked cool and he wanted some Alaskan art to remember the years he spent here. No problem, buddy. Have a seat.