Tattoo Two
New York tattoo shop, circa 1930s. Courtesy www.tattooarchive.com
"According to the book of Genesis, God placed a mark on the world's first murdered before sending him into exile. The mark of Cain indelibly branded its bearer as a criminal and social outcast." These are the words at the beginning of the Russian Prison Tattoos web site. First discovered by Soviet researchers in the 1920s, this prison "subculture" of intricate tattoos grew into an elaborate widespread practice, wherein each prisoner's crime and rank on the inside could be identified from body markings.
Using contrasty black and whites and a composite clickable image of a man with tattoos all over his body, the site takes surfers on a journey through the often contradictory world of imagery and symbols used in this highly systematized order of tattooing (http://www.word.com/place/russian_tattoos/). For instance, a solitary cat denotes a thief who acts alone, whereas several felines indicate an individual who worked in a gang. On another page, an inmate's name, "Vasia" is spelled out on his fingers in Cyrillic characters. The photograph shows him showing off his tattooed hand while in the midst of an embrace. Ironically the three skulls on his third finger signify the murders he has committed.
It's a web site replete with astonishing statistics about the prison population in the U.S.S.R., like the following: "from the mid sixties to the nineteen eighties, thirty-five million people were incarcerated, and of those, twenty to thirty million were tattooed."
For a voyage around the tattoo world with a tattoo artist, check out The Vanishing Tattoo. Vancouverite Thomas Lockhart, owner and tattooist of "Canada's oldest continually operated tattoo shop," travels to Borneo, Japan, Hawaii, New Zealand and elsewhere, seeking out the origins of "tribal tattooing." Hotlinks take you to each location. One page includes a photograph of a 2500-year-old Pazyryk mummy. With heavily tattooed skin on his upper torso, shoulders and arms of swirling monsters and abstract designs, the image shows a shrunken skeletal figure, only part of whose skin survived.
Tagged as Lockhart's search for "the last authentic tattoo" the site is an engrossing exploration of indigenous tattoo practices around the world and their cultural significance. Each page has its own set of anecdotes about the people Lockhart meets (and photographs), including archival images of indigenous people tattooed.
Lockhart's site constitutes a worthy historical resource, with occasional hotlinks to longer essays (also illustrated) detailing tattooing's history and development. His page called Tattoos in the Arctic for instance features a long essay, full annotated and illustrated, by archaeologist and cultural anthropologist Lars Krutak who currently works at the National Museum of the American Indian at the Smithsonian. A formidable list of interesting links to sites about tattooing's psychological and historical context, body modification, and general information on finding a good tattoo salon round out the site.
Lockhart's personal studio site is also worth a visit. In addition to a small gallery of Lockhart's tattooing, the site includes a small on-line tattoo museum. As well as thumbnails (which can be enlarged) of tattooing equipment and machines, the museum contains "flash from the past." "Very rare 'Carny Flash' made from a rolled up blind. Done by F. A. Baldwin one of Canada's first tattooists 1910 - 1920" shows the "meat and potatoes" of tattooing for many years in the west - mermaids and women.
"In Chatham Square on the Bowery," writes New York City tattooer, Jimmy Colantuono, "You could get a shoe-shine, a haircut and a tattoo for two dollars." With these words and a crazy photograph of a topless, tattoo-encrusted man, taken in the Bowery, circa 1955, New York City Style Tattoos web site takes surfers through the history and origins of this metropolis' particular tattoo style (http://www.zelacom.com/~nyctattoo/). Using beautiful and distinctive archival photographs of famous tattooers and their clientele, the site is a small watershed of information on urban American tattoo history. Explanations of tattoo terminology and ruminations on its origin like "flash" for instance can be found on this web site.
"In his shop in Chatham Square on the Bowery, Samuel O'Reilly modified Thomas Edison's 'Electric Engraving Pen' and created the first device which could mechanically enscribe a tattoo into the skin." In addition to gems of information like the above, the wealth of sparingly used but markedly significant and beautifully made photographs makes for a strong combination that allows surfers to learn as much from looking as from reading.
Included is a mini profile - and another fantastic archival photograph - of the only woman tattooing in NYC at the time, Millie Hull.
After learning that many early tattoo artists "traveled with side-shows and carnivals," surfers discover some of the strange and weird stories people came up with, some fairly common currency, for justifying the tattooing of women.
"It was common," for instance, "For the husband to tattoo the wife and then claim that she had been kidnapped by savages."
Published in The Ottawa Xpress
Using contrasty black and whites and a composite clickable image of a man with tattoos all over his body, the site takes surfers on a journey through the often contradictory world of imagery and symbols used in this highly systematized order of tattooing (http://www.word.com/place/russian_tattoos/). For instance, a solitary cat denotes a thief who acts alone, whereas several felines indicate an individual who worked in a gang. On another page, an inmate's name, "Vasia" is spelled out on his fingers in Cyrillic characters. The photograph shows him showing off his tattooed hand while in the midst of an embrace. Ironically the three skulls on his third finger signify the murders he has committed.
It's a web site replete with astonishing statistics about the prison population in the U.S.S.R., like the following: "from the mid sixties to the nineteen eighties, thirty-five million people were incarcerated, and of those, twenty to thirty million were tattooed."
For a voyage around the tattoo world with a tattoo artist, check out The Vanishing Tattoo. Vancouverite Thomas Lockhart, owner and tattooist of "Canada's oldest continually operated tattoo shop," travels to Borneo, Japan, Hawaii, New Zealand and elsewhere, seeking out the origins of "tribal tattooing." Hotlinks take you to each location. One page includes a photograph of a 2500-year-old Pazyryk mummy. With heavily tattooed skin on his upper torso, shoulders and arms of swirling monsters and abstract designs, the image shows a shrunken skeletal figure, only part of whose skin survived.
Tagged as Lockhart's search for "the last authentic tattoo" the site is an engrossing exploration of indigenous tattoo practices around the world and their cultural significance. Each page has its own set of anecdotes about the people Lockhart meets (and photographs), including archival images of indigenous people tattooed.
Lockhart's site constitutes a worthy historical resource, with occasional hotlinks to longer essays (also illustrated) detailing tattooing's history and development. His page called Tattoos in the Arctic for instance features a long essay, full annotated and illustrated, by archaeologist and cultural anthropologist Lars Krutak who currently works at the National Museum of the American Indian at the Smithsonian. A formidable list of interesting links to sites about tattooing's psychological and historical context, body modification, and general information on finding a good tattoo salon round out the site.
Lockhart's personal studio site is also worth a visit. In addition to a small gallery of Lockhart's tattooing, the site includes a small on-line tattoo museum. As well as thumbnails (which can be enlarged) of tattooing equipment and machines, the museum contains "flash from the past." "Very rare 'Carny Flash' made from a rolled up blind. Done by F. A. Baldwin one of Canada's first tattooists 1910 - 1920" shows the "meat and potatoes" of tattooing for many years in the west - mermaids and women.
"In Chatham Square on the Bowery," writes New York City tattooer, Jimmy Colantuono, "You could get a shoe-shine, a haircut and a tattoo for two dollars." With these words and a crazy photograph of a topless, tattoo-encrusted man, taken in the Bowery, circa 1955, New York City Style Tattoos web site takes surfers through the history and origins of this metropolis' particular tattoo style (http://www.zelacom.com/~nyctattoo/). Using beautiful and distinctive archival photographs of famous tattooers and their clientele, the site is a small watershed of information on urban American tattoo history. Explanations of tattoo terminology and ruminations on its origin like "flash" for instance can be found on this web site.
"In his shop in Chatham Square on the Bowery, Samuel O'Reilly modified Thomas Edison's 'Electric Engraving Pen' and created the first device which could mechanically enscribe a tattoo into the skin." In addition to gems of information like the above, the wealth of sparingly used but markedly significant and beautifully made photographs makes for a strong combination that allows surfers to learn as much from looking as from reading.
Included is a mini profile - and another fantastic archival photograph - of the only woman tattooing in NYC at the time, Millie Hull.
After learning that many early tattoo artists "traveled with side-shows and carnivals," surfers discover some of the strange and weird stories people came up with, some fairly common currency, for justifying the tattooing of women.
"It was common," for instance, "For the husband to tattoo the wife and then claim that she had been kidnapped by savages."
Published in The Ottawa Xpress
