Ink is more than skin deep...
My military career began as a cadet eager to serve, continued beyond my marriage to a soldier and ended with the birth of our son; when I traded in my BDUs for the "uniform" of a stay at home mom of a special needs child and that of a Military Wife. I still serve today after 14+ years of willingly fulfilling whatever roles were needed whether it was that of a military housing area mayor, family support group leader, or a surrogate mom/sister/daughter/friend to a soldier who had none of their own. Like many of the soldiers who sat at my table on holidays and birthdays, moments of my life has been documented in the ink on my body. My time in the chair of an ink artist will likely never stop; the images held in the layers of my skin will continue to expand into my life story.
I am proud of my ink and the moments in time in which they mark. The one thing that I find myself reminding people of on a fairly consistent basis, when they look at me or others who also have their skin adorned with ink is to assume nothing. When you see an image on the skin of another that you assume holds one meaning and one meaning only; you are lily wrong. That Road Runner tattoo may have nothing to do with a love of sunday morning cartoons or a drunken run in with a tattoo parlor when they were 18... and everything to do with the day that person ran for their life carrying their injured comrade in arms. To make an assumption and a judgment about that person based on ink that is embedded in their skin is just as wrong as making the same judgments for the color of their skin.
Just Say'n....
If you didn't do it already... hug a service member and thank them!
I want to personally say THANK YOU to all of those who have served, who are still serving, and those who wait their day to sign into service. Least we not forget their families as well, they are the ones who make sacrifices every day to love and support their service member through the absolute worst of times as well as the best of times.
Please read onto the re-blog below...
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Originally posted by elionwyr at Guest Blogger Kyle Cassidy: War Paint is out today
Originally posted by kylecassidy at War Paint is out today
Happy Memorial Day. My book, War Paint: Tattoo Culture and the Armed Forces is out today. You can buy it from Amazon (pay no mind to that "4 to 6 weeks" - it's shipping now) or look for it in your local bookstore (special prize to the first person to send me a photo of it "in the wild").
A few years back I found myself looking at one of those ribbons on the back of a car that said "support our troops" and wondered what I could do to actually "support our troops" rather than just putting a magnet on my car. Soon after I met a WWII veteran with a tattoo of a paratrooper on his arm and I asked him about it. For the next two hours he told me about parachuting into France on D-Day, being wounded at the Battle of the Bulge, getting tattooed in Scotland while drunk -- I realized that nobody had asked him about it before and that we were losing these stories, so many of which had a significance so personal you may not be able to tell just looking at them, you had to ask.
War Paint is a collection of portraits and stories, there are also closeups of tattoos if you're interested in closeups of tattoos.
Click to read Nick's story
Thanks to everybody in uniform and especially the people overseas away from their families, in harms way, whether in uniform or not. Come home safe. And thanks to my publisher, Schiffer Books who saw something here. Happy Memorial Day.
And, in case you missed it, here's the talk I did at Franklin & Marshall college on War Paint. There's a long wonderfully flattering introduction, student Ann Leffel talks briefly about her tattoo photography project and I start about 12 minutes in. And I do answer the question "why should you thank a soldier if you're against the war?" which is something someone brought up here a few weeks ago.
Stories in Ink: Capturing the Art of Tattoos from Franklin & Marshall College on Vimeo.
I'd love it if you'd share with your friends.
Add me: [ LiveJournal] [Facebook] [ Twitter] [Google+] [Tumblr]
I am proud of my ink and the moments in time in which they mark. The one thing that I find myself reminding people of on a fairly consistent basis, when they look at me or others who also have their skin adorned with ink is to assume nothing. When you see an image on the skin of another that you assume holds one meaning and one meaning only; you are lily wrong. That Road Runner tattoo may have nothing to do with a love of sunday morning cartoons or a drunken run in with a tattoo parlor when they were 18... and everything to do with the day that person ran for their life carrying their injured comrade in arms. To make an assumption and a judgment about that person based on ink that is embedded in their skin is just as wrong as making the same judgments for the color of their skin.
Just Say'n....
If you didn't do it already... hug a service member and thank them!
I want to personally say THANK YOU to all of those who have served, who are still serving, and those who wait their day to sign into service. Least we not forget their families as well, they are the ones who make sacrifices every day to love and support their service member through the absolute worst of times as well as the best of times.
Please read onto the re-blog below...
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Originally posted by elionwyr at Guest Blogger Kyle Cassidy: War Paint is out today
Originally posted by kylecassidy at War Paint is out today
Happy Memorial Day. My book, War Paint: Tattoo Culture and the Armed Forces is out today. You can buy it from Amazon (pay no mind to that "4 to 6 weeks" - it's shipping now) or look for it in your local bookstore (special prize to the first person to send me a photo of it "in the wild").
A few years back I found myself looking at one of those ribbons on the back of a car that said "support our troops" and wondered what I could do to actually "support our troops" rather than just putting a magnet on my car. Soon after I met a WWII veteran with a tattoo of a paratrooper on his arm and I asked him about it. For the next two hours he told me about parachuting into France on D-Day, being wounded at the Battle of the Bulge, getting tattooed in Scotland while drunk -- I realized that nobody had asked him about it before and that we were losing these stories, so many of which had a significance so personal you may not be able to tell just looking at them, you had to ask.
War Paint is a collection of portraits and stories, there are also closeups of tattoos if you're interested in closeups of tattoos.
Click to read Nick's story
Thanks to everybody in uniform and especially the people overseas away from their families, in harms way, whether in uniform or not. Come home safe. And thanks to my publisher, Schiffer Books who saw something here. Happy Memorial Day.
And, in case you missed it, here's the talk I did at Franklin & Marshall college on War Paint. There's a long wonderfully flattering introduction, student Ann Leffel talks briefly about her tattoo photography project and I start about 12 minutes in. And I do answer the question "why should you thank a soldier if you're against the war?" which is something someone brought up here a few weeks ago.
Stories in Ink: Capturing the Art of Tattoos from Franklin & Marshall College on Vimeo.
I'd love it if you'd share with your friends.
Add me: [ LiveJournal] [Facebook] [ Twitter] [Google+] [Tumblr]