Joel and Tracy's Story
I was introduced to Joel and Tracy back in May while I was at college for summer session. What stood out first to me was their passion to serve God. This passion led them to recently move into the southwest quadrant of Springfield, Ohio, an area with a marred past but a hopeful future.

And Joel and Tracy as well as ministries, churches and organizations in the area are the ones bringing such hope to the community. Joel and Tracy’s focus in their outreach is influencing young people for the Lord. To do this, they plan to start a ministry of their own to encourage and enable youth in the area to express themselves in art of all kinds. Joel says this type of outreach is important because when the economy is tough in areas, one of the first things to be pulled from schools is art. He also said this is tragic because for many talented youth, art is their way out of such hopeless circumstances.

With trying to reach out to teens in tough situations, Joel and Tracy know it is important to be relevant. Joel especially can connect with youth because of life experiences he has had as well as his talents in hip hop, painting and drawing. Another thing that makes them relevant to the area they are in is their tattoos.

When Joel met Tracy, he had one tattoo. Though Tracy wasn’t a huge fan of tattoos, she says she didn’t mind the one. The tattoo was of the words “agape love” (which is a biblical concept of God’s unconditional love for mankind) and a dove. Joel says he got this tattoo because before he became a follower of Christ he treated people poorly, so he wanted a reminder of how he should treat people, to contrast how he used to be.

Then when Tracy started warming up to tattoos, Joel says he took advantage of the opportunity by getting a few more, including one he actually got with Tracy. So now Joel has six tattoos and Tracy has one. The tattoo they got together was the monogram of two superimposed Greek letters, chi and rho, because these are the first two letters for the Greek word for Christ. Joel and Tracy say this symbol is important to them because it was a mark used by early Christians persecuted in ancient Rome as a sign of brotherhood/sisterhood in their devotion to Christ.

Joel's other tattoos (all of which he designed) are as follows:

He has a cross with "YHWH," the Hebrew name for God of the Bible. Joel says he got this because he is a fan of the Bible and theology (which is appropriate considering he is in seminary).

He also has the Bible reference of Song of Songs 2:2 on his forearm for Tracy. The verse reads, "Like a lily among thorns is my darling among the maidens." He says he chose this because he wanted something different than her name on his body and because it serves as a conversation piece with other guys, in that he is able to explain how women should be treated in relationships--with love, respect and honor.

Next, Joel got the words "Jehovah-jireh," which is the anglicized way of expressing "YHWH will provide." Along with the name is the Bible reference of Genesis 22:14 where God provided for the Jewish forefather Abraham. Joel says he got this tattoo after a time in his life where he had to "swallow his pride" and just trust God's ways of providing for him.

Lastly, Joel has the Latin phrase "Sola Scriptura" on the inside of his left bicep. This phrase was the rallying cry against the Catholic Church during the Revolution, in that the Protestant reformers held to the doctrine that the Bible contains all knowledge necessary for salvation and holiness. Just like with Joel's YHWH tattoo, his love for Scripture influenced him to get this tattoo.

Joel says that if it were up to him, he would be covered in tattoos from his waist up to his neck, down to his fingertips. But since he has a wife, her family and others to consider, he is going to get one more, oddly enough at his mother-in-law's insistence; she thinks seven tattoos is better than six because seven is the number of completion. He is still trying to figure out what to get, but he thinks it will probably relate to the ministry he and his wife are going to start.

I hope you all enjoyed those stories behind the ink of a sincerely godly couple. Next week's post is even a surprise to me at this point, but I will try to get something up. Thank you for reading, and I hope to see you back here!

 

Paul's Story
Paul and I grew up in church together, but it has been years since we last saw each other or talked. Still, when we caught up a week or so ago, we found we had something to talk about—tattoos!

Paul says he always wanted a tattoo growing up, especially after seeing a Christian fish tattoo on a mentor of his, Mal Beall. But even somewhat to Paul’s surprise, he now has four, and he had major input on the designs of his first three.

He got his first tattoo about a year and a half ago after he completed boot camp. It is a Celtic cross with four words around it: “God” in Russian, “corps” in English, “family” in Gaelic and “friends” in German. He says these words symbolize what is important to him as well as his heritage.

The next tattoo Paul got is a soldier’s grave with the words “never forgotten,” which Paul says represents his respect for those who have given the ultimate sacrifice in serving the United States.

Then about a year ago he got his third tattoo—a wolf on his arm. Paul says his uncle really loved wolves, and he rubbed off on Paul.

Most recently, Paul got a tattoo of his family crest on his side, which he is still waiting to finish. And he says that once that tattoo is colored and shaded that it will be his favorite, though at this point his favorite is the Celtic cross.

Besides having his family crest finished, Paul is not sure if he will get any more tattoos, though he says he may get one for his kids someday or something.
Sorry this story behind the ink was kind of short, but I am glad to be back into telling the stories behind tattoos themselves. I'll be back next week with another story, and I hope you all will join me!

Tattoo Industry and Culture (part 3)
[The last installment of my article focuses on what one tattoo artist, Brian Brenner of the Dayton area, does to thrive in this growing industry. I hope to be back next week with a story behind someone's ink--what I love most about tattoos!]


With tattoos being such a growing business, Brenner has focused on setting his tattoo shop apart. He has turned to marketing online and in prominent tattoo magazines to get the name of Truth & Triumph out there.

“When we were talking about doing the logo, I said, ‘I want it as memorable as the Nike swoosh’,” Brenner said.

Brenner showing me the different ways he has marketed his tattoo shop online, both on the shop website and the shop's Facebook page.

“I like everybody knowing what we’re doing,” he said. “I like being on TV; I like being in tattoo magazines; I like all the glitter, you know what I mean?”
He said not only does he like people knowing Truth & Triumph, but he also likes being able to supply people with jobs because of the prestige of the shop. In addition to the tattoo artists working for him, Brenner also has people for marketing, including a guy who takes care of all the promotional events and Facebook page.

All this marketing is especially important to Brenner because he foresees the tattoo industry becoming like any other job fairly soon. He used the example of how many people can list off some prominent tattoo artists now because of the popular television shows. He said that if you would have asked someone five years ago to name one tattoo artist, the average person couldn’t do it. But he sees all that changing.

He said: “In five more years I’m going say, ‘how many tattooers to you know?’ and you’re going to be like ‘dude, f---, I know like twenty-five,’ you know what I’m saying? And then five years from then, when you go ‘how many tattooers do you know?’ and it’s going to be like barbers. … It will be like everything else. That’s one thing that I see changing.”

He naturally sees this shift to be both positive and negative.

“It’s good for the tattoo industry because more money is going to flow through the hands of tattooers,” Brenner said, “but at the same time it’s going to suck for people that are already in it and have been on ‘easy street’ for so long, because the competition is going to get tough.”

And Brenner said that it is not just marketing that sets his shop apart in the industry, but that it is also the caliber of his artists. He said that though he used to apprentice all the guys that came to work for him, over time, experienced artists were coming from other shops to work at Truth & Triumph. Brenner said that the creative environment at his shop is what those artists find attractive. Most of his artists are young and come from heavy art backgrounds, and many of them are involved in music as well. He also said that when it comes to the art, especially, he wants Truth & Triumph to have a certain “echelon” and really set the standard for what people should be doing in the tattoo business.

Tattoo Industry and Culture (part 2)
[In this second part of my article on the tattoo industry and culture I wrote mainly about how the industry has grown with the general perception of tattoos being more positive than before.]

No matter the reason for getting a tattoo, it is hard to go anywhere nowadays and not see a person with a tattoo.

A study done this year by Harris Poll found that 21% of American adults have at least one tattoo. This is up from 14% in 2003 and 16% in 2008. This study, which was conducted by surveying 2,016 American adults online, found that the age group with the highest percentage of tattooed people was that of 30-39 (38%). And for the first time since the organization first asked the question, more women responded to having a tattoo than men (23% compared to 19%).

Altogether, Americans spend an estimated $1.65 billion on tattoos each year.

Brian Brenner (tattoo artist in Dayton) said that tattoos have become more popular because of television shows and avant-garde people of the 1990s.

“It’s very desired to be tattooed now,” he said, “because people have tattoos and tattoo shops in their living rooms with shows like Miami Ink and LA Ink and all that.”

Another area in which tattoos have gained popularity in the limelight of the media is in professional sports, particularly basketball. There is a Tumblr account, nbatattoos, on which the owner gives percentages of NBA players with tattoos, and through this individual’s observations of pictures and video 55% (235 of 431) of the current NBA players have tattoos.

On top of having athletes and celebrities drawing attention with their tattoos, Brenner also said that a few years before tattoos really became popular, there were some ordinary people who got tattoos, which turned into conversation-starters with their friends. When people started finding friends and acquaintances with tattoos, body art just seemed to catch on, so much so that in 1997, the U.S. News and World Report listed tattooing as the sixth fastest growing retail business.

Though tattoos have become more prevalent as of late, many people still have negative feelings toward tattoos. The Harris Poll from this year that pertained to tattoos also took in some figures of how people without tattoos view permanent body art. The report said that at least two in five people without tattoos find people with tattoos to be less attractive (45%) or sexy (39%). Also of those surveyed, roughly a quarter said that people with tattoos are less intelligent (27%), healthy (25%) or spiritual (25%). And half of those without a tattoo say that people with tattoos are more rebellious.

These sorts of perceptions have been present throughout most of the roughly 5,000-year history of tattoos. In ancient times, getting tattooed was a religious ritual. Some of the most intricate and skillful tattoos of those times were those of the Polynesians who saw tattoos as being a display of their spiritual power or life force. Eventually, from prominent ancient civilizations such as those in Egypt, tattooing spread all over the world.

The old, negative perception of tattoos that many think of today is that tattoos were a thing of sailors, criminals and circus sideshows, with that of criminals being possibly the most unsettling. Criminals were known for their tattoos, both professionally done and homemade. For them, tattoos were a display of autonomy and identity. Then for those belonging to gangs tattoos became significant because it showed commitment to the gang as well as some information about the individual, such as beliefs, time in jail or people killed.

The prevalence of tattoos and tattoo parlors in middle-class areas show the tattoo business has legitimately come a long way since the notorious connection with criminality.