Tattoo or Not Tattoo? A Personal Inquiry

Finally, the Standards

2006-02-24T18:28:00.000-08:00

As I suspected, some of the academic standards for health education would apply for my tattoo inquiry.

Indiana has seven basic standards that run through all the grade levels; here are standards 4 and 6:

Students will demonstrate the ability to analyze the influence of family, culture,
peers, community, media, and technology on health and health behaviors.

Students will demonstrate the ability to implement decision making and goal setting
skills to enhance health.

Source: Indiana Academic Standards for Health Education

The examples for the standards change with each grade level. When I originally looked at the standards at the beginning of this inquiry, I still did not know I would end up focusing on health issues, so I selected a standard from high school social science about studying different cultures. Interestingly, health standard four mentions culture, so I wasn't too far off track!
I like how the health standards apply for all the grade levels, so it would be possible to discuss tattoos with tweens as well as teens vis a vis health related issues.

A little Waving, and some Wishing....

2006-02-21T16:54:00.000-08:00

I managed to get my PowerPoint into my ella account. You can go see it here. It doesn't work in Mozilla Firefox, but does work in explorer and would probably work in netscape as well. It's more fun to watch it as a slide show (because of the animations), but you can just look at the slides, too.

Onto some Wishing. I have trouble assessing my own work. I can usually see the flaws and think of lots of places it could be improved, but that usually does not impact my grade. For this project, I should have cited all my sources more rigorously in my slides. My rationale is that between the bibliography and the webliography, each piece of information occurs multiple times, making it common knowledge. Also, it's hard citing sources in a PowerPoint. I had a tough time with the picture citations!

My biggest beef about my product, then, is that I could've made it better if I had had more time. In retrospect, I should've cited the sources for the facts better. I also left out some information that might have been worthwhile, such as how many people have tattoos, because I found so many different estimates! Anywhere from seven million to 25 million Americans have tattoos, depending on where you look.

Have I decided whether or not to get a tattoo? Nope. Haven't decided, but I'm leaning away from it after doing this project. Why? The pigments aren't regulated. The FDA does not investigate what chemicals are in the dyes that are put in people's skin! It can be very toxic!!! For instance, several articles mentioned car paint and printer ink. India ink is very common. There may also be heavy metals in the colors, such as mercury or lead. I find that very scary.

On the other hand, I love some of the artwork I found, and I like the idea of expressing myself through a tattoo.

For standards (to be continued)

THE END! WAVING!

2006-02-20T15:02:00.000-08:00

You bet I'm waving. Bye-bye, tattoo project! I'll post my Bibliography & Webliography right here. I'll also attempt to upload my PowerPoint presentation (which I love) to oncourse. Sorry if you find the photo offensive. It's my THE END photo from my presentation. :)

http://www.tattoonow.com/tattoos/kim_reed/tattoos_6050.html

Bibliography

Benton, Robin, & DeRosa, Shawn. (2002, August). The stink over ink. Parks & Recreation, 58–60.

Bickerstaff, Linda. (2005). Tattoos: Fad or folly? Odyssey, 14(5), 34–37.

Brown, Kelli McCormack, Perimutter, Paula, & McDermott, Robert J. (2001). Warning kids about tattoos. Education Digest, 66(7), 55–59.

Hagy, Julie. (2005, July 28). Making tattoo parlors safe. Daily Press (Newport News, VA), n.p.

Kreahling, Lorraine. (2005, February 1). The perils of needles to the body. The New York Times, p. F5.

Miller, Jean-Chris. (2004). The body art book: A complete illustrated guide to tattoos, piercings, and other body modifications. New York: Berkley Books.

Mulrine, Anne. (2005). The thrill is gone. US News & World Report, 139(18), 80.

Sparling, Polly. (2004). Think before you ink. Current Health 2, 31(2), 8–12.

Tattoo inks may be toxic: EU. (2003, July 18). Toronto Star (Canada), p. F02.

Wykes, S.L. (2005, November 9). Law regulates tattoo artists. San Jose Mercury News (CA), n.p.

Tattoo or Not Tattoo?

Webliography

Guidelines and Checklists

∞Preparing for Your Tattoo

http://www.safe-tattoos.com/pamphlets/basic.html

Guidelines from the Alliance of Professional Tattooists.

∞Before You Tattoo

http://www.beforeyoutattoo.com/before-you-tattoo.html

This site advertises for a book, but also gives a lot of information.

∞Preparing for Your Tattoo

http://www.sanctuarytattoo.com/jen/tatprep.htm

Another checklist, more from a design standpoint

∞Indiana law regarding tattoos

http://ronjones.org/Handouts/BodyArt.pdf

This site also links to other states.

∞General information

http://tattoo.about.com/

This site also links to many other sites and has many FAQs.

Historical perspective

∞Tattoos By Design. History of Tattoos.

http://www.tattoos-by-design.co.uk/history.html

∞Dark Angel Tattoo Studio. The History of Tattooing.

http://www.darkangeltattoos.com/history.php

Teen Health Information

∞Nemours Foundation. TeensHealth: Tattoos.

http://kidshealth.org/teen/your_body/skin_stuff/safe_tat tooing.html

∞WayneTeens.com. Tattoos Gone Bad.

http://www.wayneteens.com/CTI-tattooinggonebad.asp

Scary pictures of pus-laden infected tattoos.

Health issues

∞U. S. Food and Drug Administration.
Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition. TATTOOS and PERMANENT MAKEUP.

http://vm.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/cos-204.html

∞American Academy of Dermatology. Tattoos, body piercings, and other skin adornments.

http://www.aad.org/public/Publications/pamphlets/tattoo.ht m

∞Medline Plus. Piercing and Tattoos.

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/piercingandtattoos .html

National Institutes of Health overview with links to information from National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, American Medical Association, Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research, American Society for Dermatologic Surgery, & Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Miscellaneous….

∞Tattoo Ink Chemistry.

http://chemistry.about.com/library/weekly/aa121 602a.htm

∞Terry Watkins, Dial-the-Truth Ministries. To Tattoo or Not to Tattoo? A Christian Response to the Tattoo.

http://www.av1611.org/tattoos/intro.html

∞The Vanishing Tattoo.

http://www.av1611.org/tattoos/intro.html

∞The Modified Librarian: Librarianship and the Art of Body Modification.

http://www.bmeworld.com/gailcat/

∞Realistic Temporary Tattoos

http://www.nightmarefactory.com/tattoos/

∞Off the Map Tattoo, Tattoo Gallery.

http://www.offthemaptattoo.com/tattoos/

My favorite site for tattoo pictures.

I can see the light!

2006-02-19T08:39:00.000-08:00

I spent a lot of time yesterday weaving and wrapping. I revamped my PowerPoint quite a bit. I had to figure out how to do the custom animations again. I've only used PowerPoint a few times, so I'm still learning. Last time I made a class presentation I borrowed a book from a friend, and that helped, but this time I'm just figuring things out by myself. It's kind of fun.

Wrapping means selecting and developing a product, and that's definitely where I am. I find that I'm still going back and synthesizing (weaving) as well....which makes sense! I have to think and evaluate as I create my product. I feel ready to wave, almost. A few more touches. I did the webliography yesterday, too, and started on the bibliography (that will have to be a word document). Doing the webliography and bibliography meant assessing some of my sources (again). I used this little rubric I found when I was doing one of the skyhoppers...The Quality Information Checklist (QUICK)...to kind of spot check my web sources. The bibliography was a little thin, so I went back to some of my saved searches and dredged up a few more quality articles. I also looked at all the books again and decided that only one really needed to be on the bibliography! As much as I'm interested in the feminist, cultural, and ethnographic aspects of tattooing (very academic, but oh so fascinating), they just don't apply to a practical inquiry such as this. Wait, I'm assessing....that's wishing....can't do that yet. :)

Wiggling & Weaving.....

2006-02-17T16:35:00.000-08:00

Last night I spent hours re-locating all my tattoo pix on the web so I could properly cite them in my powerpoint. Yawn! But it was fun to find new stuff, too. Oddly, I couldn't find all the stuff I found before, so I deleted a few of my pictures. I'll be including both what I think are pretty tattoos and some truly nasty and scary ones. A friend of mine is quite disappointed that I didn't take a picture of her tattoo, so there's plenty of room for expansion of the project if I decide to go with personal photographs (at some point in the distant future, and not before Monday!). In fact, I saw a woman with writing all over her back at the elevator in the library the other day and wished I had a camera.

Thanks to Angie R, Angie W, and Adrea for helpful comments and encouragement! It helped when I was fussing with my slides today.

I made a bunch of notes for this blog entry. How organized of me! [pat pat pat on the back.]

I've been considering who the audience of my presentation would be, and I'm thinking it's anyone who's even remotely considering a tattoo, or anyone interested in tattoos, including teens and tweens who need to learn about the potential health dangers of tattoos, so they can make a more informed and less impulsive decision. I'm going to check back through the standards to see if there's anything like that. I found an article on how important it is for health educators to open a dialogue about the potential health dangers of tattooing to kids, especially so they don't have their friends give them home-made tattoos (YIKES!!!!). (I'll have a bibliography in my final product that includes this article).

I'd classify what I've been doing last night and today as Wiggling (evaluating) and Weaving (synthesizing). However, since I've also started drafting my presentation, I guess I'm edging toward Wrapping (Creating) as well. I've been using Annette's curvy chart to check my progress. There's also a comparison table of all the information inquiry models that I've been checking, and a more detailed set of tables that compares all the models. These are helpful tools for me.

I used an excellent transformation scaffold called PMI. It's meant for helping one make decisions in an organized way, and I really liked doing it. It's a Weaving activity, and according to deBono, it can revolutionize the way you think! Wow! It involves sitting down in complete quiet with no distractions for six minutes with a blank piece of paper divided into three columns labelled P, M, and I. First, for 2 minutes (and ONLY two minutes, you use a watch or timer) you quickly write down all the Positive comments about your question or issue (though it should be put in the form of a question). My question is: Should I get a tattoo or not? In the Minus column you jot down all the negative or minus comments that come to mind about your question. In the final column, I for Interesting, you write down all the interesting comments you think of about your question. That's it. As you're doing it, you have to be very open minded and write stuff as it occurs to you, whether or not you agree with it. You must do it in black pen on a blank piece of typing/copy paper (A4 in Britain), and you must WRITE it down, not TYPE it. The handwriting itself is supposed to hold clues. Look at what you've done and you should see the question more clearly.

I also made a huge list of pro's and con's for two reasons: 1) to go through the articles and make notes of what I thought about what I was reading and 2) to help with the sorting out process. From there I compared the two activities and came up with a 2nd draft of the my top ten lists. I made 1st drafts when I started my powerpoint slides the other day, but mainly as placeholders until I could actually look at my notes and information. Yes, I did it from memory. That's why I knew I needed to go back through the articles and notes again before I could do any more work on the presentation. I may still fiddle with the order, but overall I think I've made the decision about what to include for the lists. I started a Webliography slide, but haven't gotten anywhere with it. I have to re-examine all the websites I've looked at (that I didn't print out for reference). I jotted down some of the types of sites I want to include.

In Callison's components of Information Inquiry, I'm assimilating (accepting, incorporating, and rejecting) and inferring (looking for solution and meaning), but I'm also still exploring (mainly reading)! I find that I need to explore a bit more as I think about the information I have and how I'm using it. It's like Wiggling and Weaving all at once.

According to Kulhthau's ISP model, I'm at Step 6, closure of the search, and I should be feeling relief and also oscillating between satisfaction and dissatisfaction/disappointment. I can't say that's how feeling exactly. I have a certain amount of anxiety about finishing by the deadline, and I'm certainly looking FORWARD to feeling relieved, but I don't expect to feel much relief until I'm closer to finished. Yet I'm certainly using the strategies of stage 6, such as returning to the sources to check facts, making sure I've used all the information I need, and noticing where I need to fill in any gaps in my information. And I've been checking citations, too, like last night going through web pages again to find exact sources for the pictures!

That's it for now!

Lotsa Wiggling, a little Weaving

2006-02-16T08:38:00.000-08:00

I've been doing a lot of Wiggling, and I don't mean just squirming over how I'm going to finish this project on time! :) Wiggling means evaluating, particularly of sources. I've looked at all my articles now, and I've gone back to the databases and looked a bit more to fill in some gaps. I've asked an expert, too. This morning I started weaving--working toward that final project by synthesizing. My tools were brainstorming and listmaking. I've also picked up a few decision making graphics that I still have to actually do, but just looking at the graphics set me up for making some decision about the project.

So, on my To Do list for today: do decision maker graphic and do PMI.

My brainstorming list of possible presentation modes:

tattoo trivia test
powerpoint
combine these two
Tattoo Terror (slide show)
Lotsa links
Tattoo checklist (handout)
Bibliography
Pro/Con
Top Ten Reasons to Tattoo AND
Top Ten Reasons NOT to Tattoo

My content list is focusing on the health issues surrounding tattoos

1. Safety

HIV, heptatitis
allergies
infection (bacterial, on surface)
cancer from toxins in dyes

2. Pain

3. Appearance - fading

4. ~$100 for a small tattoo, but 10x that to have it removed

I felt pretty happy after I made my lists. The Top Ten Lists really appealed to me, and PowerPoint would be a nice way to present the lists. So I actually got started on my PowerPoint!

Then I realized that I needed more pictures, especially of nasty and scary tattoos, so back I went to Google Image search.

And now I must run since I have a class this afternoon! I feel like I've made great progress!

Follow up from Ask an Expert

2006-02-13T16:51:00.000-08:00

I got a response for my follow-up question from Ask-an-Expert . I'm really pleased with the answers I got, and I have to admit, somewhat relieved. Yes, there can be problems associated with tattoos and getting a tattoo, but there's a way to make sure these problems don't arise. My thinking is that I'd get checked for allergies before getting the tattoo. Little spot checks somewhere. I should probably try to scare myself again! Yes, I'll google tattoo horror stories and see what comes up. :)

Volunteer Michael S. Fisher, Ph.D., M.D. Answers

Subject

tattoos

Question

I've heard of all these risks, actually. Are there any figures about the actual incidence of infection (bacterial or viral)? What percentage of people have allergic reactions to the dyes? Is it possible to avoid some of the risk by choosing a licensed operator (who uses new needles, autoclaves everything, uses sterile technique, etc.)? Your reaction is very strongly negative, so I'm assuming you've had personal experience with some of the health problems associated with tattoos. Is that the case? Thank you for your insights and opinions, including aesthetic ones. I was wondering how tattoos aged, and you answered that question quite succinctly. Any more insight you have would be greatly appreciated.

-------------------------
Followup To
Question -
What are the health risks associated with getting a tattoo? Have you ever seen any skin disfigurations or infections caused by tattooing? Thank you!
Answer -
There are many health risks for getting a tatoo. 1) you can become allergic to the pigment used in the tatoo which is expressed by an itchy rash in the area of the pigmentation, 2) the area of the tatoo can become infected with bacteria,
3) if the needles used for the tatoo are not totally steralized you can get Hepatitis as well as HIV.4)In time the pigment changes and the lines in the tatoo blur, thus making the tatoo look awful in time. 5)It costs about 100 times more money to remove a tatoo than to get one. There is no way I would have a tatoo placed on my body.

Answer

In the textbook called contact Dermatitis on page 812 it states: In tatoos, mercury red, chrome green, cobalt blue, or cadmium yellow may produce localized or generalized eczematous eruptions in sensitized infividuals. Granulomatous and photosensitive reactions can also occur. The percentages of patients that have this reaction is not included. I have seen tatoos that have faded with time that look terrible. I have had 10 patients with an allergic reaction to mecury red. The adverse response was so severe that a surgeon had to remove the red pigment leaving a very large scar. If the tatoo parlor has an autoclave, do they have a positive control showing that the autoclave really was working? A licensed tatoo operator can not protect you from allergic reactions to pigment just to infections.

ACK!!! Anxiety.....

2006-02-12T16:54:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking about this project all day....it's like a cloud buzzing around my head. I know I have to relate what I'm doing to these inquiry models, and that's making me anxious, too. I'm cycling through the stages as in McKenzie's Research Cycle, and it's somewhat maddening. Gathering, Sorting & Sifting, Synthesizing. I'm also cycling through the emotions that are associated with Kuhlthau's ISP, especially for Exploring, Formulating, and Collecting: confusion, uncertainty, doubt; confidence; realization of extensive work to be done. Hey, where's the anxiety? That's up in the selecting a topic mode for Kuhlthau. I guess I'm an anxious person. Or maybe what I call anxiety and worry is the Wiggling (Evaluation) phase....I'm thinking about the topic and evaluating what I've learned, thinking about what I need to do with it, asking questions about what I still need to do.

After my excursion to the stacks last week, I made a little spider web graphic organizer for myself on Word. It looks like a wheel--isn't the car cute? I put my topic (Tattoo or Not Tattoo?) in the center and added lots of text boxes around it (with lines connecting the boxes to the circle in the middle!), very similar to the wheel organizer. In no particular order, here are the subtopics, including some sub-subtopics:

Health Issues—cleanliness, risks, care
Cultural issues–
Feminism, group/tribe affiliation
Artistic issues—body as canvas:
Types of designs, location,

size, artist
History—how far back it goes, how attitudes have changed.
Diversity—attitudes toward difference, tolerance of others’ individuality
Legal issues—age, license
Anthropological issues—primitive?

After doing this, I decided that although I'm very interested in most of the topics...especially the cultural and anthropological ones, I need to know more about the health issues if I'm really going to make a decision about getting a tattoo.

Also, Kate asked a question in her comment about how tattoos fade or change over time, and I didn't know and decided that was another question that should be addressed. I made a list of topics or potential keywords to search.

hygeine
regulation
licensing
health
hazard or danger or risk
allergies
aging/fading

I also emailed the ask an expert with a few questions (see post from earlier today). I'm feeling that the health focus is probably a good way to go, especially from an educational perspective. I'll check the standards to see what applies in terms of health or consumerism. This is a decision making problem....the expert's answer really jolted me. I've been thinking way too aesthetically and culturally and not practically at all.

Well, I'm feeling somewhat relieved about this now. Maybe I just needed to do some writing.

My next step will be reading through all the stuff I printed off, seeing where the holes are, and starting to get things organized. I have a couple of notions of how I'll present the information, but nothing definite yet.

I Asked An Expert!

2006-02-12T12:10:00.000-08:00

Does this count as questioning?

I wrote a question to Ask-an-Expert and got my reply. Here it is, with the URL included. It will work for the next few days. I've also asked a follow-up question, so I'll post that when I get it.

Volunteer Michael S. Fisher, Ph.D., M.D. Answers

Subject	tattoos
Question	What are the health risks associated with getting a tattoo? Have you ever seen any skin disfigurations or infections caused by tattooing? Thank you!
Answer	There are many health risks for getting a tatoo. 1) you can become allergic to the pigment used in the tatoo which is expressed by an itchy rash in the area of the pigmentation, 2) the area of the tatoo can become infected with bacteria, 3) if the needles used for the tatoo are not totally steralized you can get Hepatitis as well as HIV.4)In time the pigment changes and the lines in the tatoo blur, thus making the tatoo look awful in time. 5)It costs about 100 times more money to remove a tatoo than to get one. There is no way I would have a tatoo placed on my body.

Retrieved 12 February 2006 from

http://www.allexperts.com/answerv.asp?QuestionID=4255376

Yikes! Can you say second thoughts!!!!

What??? I'm back to Watching.......

2006-02-10T16:03:00.000-08:00

Yes, but it's a VIDEO. The title is Body Art. I got it at the Monroe County Public Library and watched it twice today. And it actually led me to do some webbing and even (gasp!) make a little web/graphic organizer thing in Word.

The picture here is a little scary, but nothing compared to some of the stuff in the video. It started off with a look at piercing. It is just amazing what people will do. The stretched earlobes are kind of alarming. Multiple piercings don't actually bother me, though I'm always a bit concerned about the health risks associated with tongue and nose pierces. My sister has a pierced navel....she got it to commemorate her weight loss victory. And then she got pregnant with her third child. I asked how the pregnancy would affect the piercing, and she told me she could get an extender.

The cinematography was really interesting in the film. The director kept switching back and forth between visuals of contemporary, Western piercings/tattoos/etc., and historial and contemporary non-Western body art. The juxtapositions were awesome. Stretched earlobes in New York (now) and New Guinea or African versions of the same, now and in the past. Another great comparison was women putting on makeup in a department store and primitive tribesmen (mainly men, but also some women) putting on body paint for special rituals or festivals.

In a historical montage, the director sweeps through the history of tattoos in the West. Sailors started getting tattoos when they traveled to the South Seas, where the tribal peoples were tattooed, in the eighteenth century. The image became a souvenir of the voyage and marked the sailors as members of a brotherhood of seafarers. The Navy adopted the custom, and then more outcast/outsider groups, such as bikers, started using tattoos as marks of their association. The outcast/outsider association continues in the the freak show/carnival context of tattooed women (for instance) and extreme tattoos on men. There's also an erotic/exotic overtone to tattoos in this context. Now tattoos are mainstream, and the film claims that 7 million Americans currently have tattoos!

A few of the more horrific images:

boys in Papua, New Guinea, having their chest sliced to form patterns of raised scars as part of a ritual marking their rite of passage from childhood to adulthood.
women in Burma who use brass coils to elongate their necks, starting around age 12.
crushed feet of Chinese women.
Extreme piercing of cheeks during a Thailand religious festival. Supposedly the participants, in the throes of religious ecstacy, feel no pain, but some of the objects shoved through their cheeks are quite large....a lamp, a sword, a chain.
plastic surgery on a woman's eyelids....the actual procedure.

The tattoos in the film are amazing.....so many extremes. Some are very beautiful and colorful and all over the body--I saw some of this in Hawaii. The most extreme tattooing occurs in Japan, as part of a particular subculture associated with full body tattooing.

Overall, I give this film high ratings. Anyone who is interested in cultural anthropology or any aspect of body art should see this film.

Wondering, Webbing, and Wiggling

2006-02-09T17:05:00.000-08:00

These three Ws seem to flow in and out of each other for me. As I proceed through the research process, I’m constantly thinking about the topic, what I’m seeing in the books and articles (even if I’m only skimming and sampling), re-evaluating, looking for directions and patterns. I'm also contemplating what form the final product should take. It’s hard to articulate the steps individually at all because I seem to do them all at once, all the time. This phase seems to correspond well to Callison’s Exploration phase, but shades into Assimilation as well (p. 25), since I do evaluate and reject books and articles as I come upon them.

To be more concrete, here’s what I’ve been doing over the past week and a half.

I searched the online catalog for tattoo as a keyword in the Monroe County Public Library (website) and found a few books and a video listed that appeared to be available. I noticed that body art is another subject heading that applies, and I searched that as well. Then I went over there and picked them up, browsing in the general area (391.65) at the same time. I also checked the new nonfiction area and located a book I hadn’t noticed in the catalog. I picked up a video entitled Body Art as well—it’s overdue now and I still haven’t watched it. (Darn. Maybe later. I have to bring it back tomorrow before the fines pile up too much.) I looked at a lot of pictures of people with tattoos in the books I checked out. I did a Google image search for turtle tattoos--and found lots and lots of beautiful tattoos and tattoo art sites. My favorite image so far is called plumeria turtle, for the flower (plumeria) inside of the sea turtle. I like the colors and the design.

I bought a similar car sticker in Hawaii….it’s where I got the idea that a turtle might the perfect image for a tattoo for me.

I did an IUCAT search about a week or so ago. Tattoo as keyword anywhere brought up 106 titles—too many, so I selected to look at the nine titles in GN Anthropology section.

Here are few that caught my eye:

Steve Gilbert, Tattoo History. It’s available in the UGL Core Collection. I finally picked it up this week, too. History is always good, right?

Margot Mifflin, Bodies of Subversion: A Secret History of Women and Tattoo. The publication date is listed as ?2001, and the book is on order. Sounds interesting. There’s a nice list of subject headings here, too. Tattooing. Body Art. Body, human—symbolic aspects.

Nicholas Thomas. (2005). Tattoo: Bodies, Art, and Exchange in the Pacific and the West. It’s in the Folklore section. Good. I love going up to the folklore section. It still has a card catalog….how cool is that?

The Fine Arts library has a book called The Sketchbook: 80 Unique Designs by the World’s Finest Tattoo Artists. I’ve never been to the Fine Arts library! Maybe I’ll go.

Victoria Pitts, In the Flesh: The Cultural Politics of Body Modification. NY, 2003. Available in the UGL Core Collection.

Jane Caplan, Written on the Body: The Tattoo in European and American History. London, 2000. It’s checked out at Fine Arts and the Wells (main) library, but due on 2/16, so I’ll recall it.

Jean-Chris Miller, The Body Art Book: A Complete Illustrated Guide to Tattoos, Piercings, and Other Body Modifications. NY, 1997. UGL Core Collection. I got this book at the public library, and it’s a book of practical advice on what to look for and think about when you’re considering getting a tattoo or other body modification. The tone is somewhat informal, but it seems to have good, common sense advice. Great pictures, too.

Rufus C. Camphausen. Return of the Tribal: A Celebration of Body Adornment: Piercing, Tattooing, Scarification, Body Painting. Rochester, VT, 1997. In the Folklore Collection. A must-see.

Wilfrid Dyson Hambly. The history of tattooing and its significance, with some account of other forms of corporal marking. 1886. Detroit: Gale Research, 1974. Wow! An old book. Can’t wait to have a peek at this one. It’s in Folklore.

Then I went to EBSCOhost and searched a bunch of databases simultaneously. Academic Search Premiere, Alt Health Watch, Medline, ERIC, MasterFile Premiere, Gender Studies, Health Source Consumer Edition, Newspaper Source, Primary Search. I searched on tattoo OR tattoos OR tattooing. I wanted to see if I’d find some health advice/warnings about tattooing.

One of the first articles that came up was a bit strange…. The title is “Second Thoughts” and it’s about a 70-something year old man who had Do Not Resuscitate tattooed on this chest. He was a widower and was having heart trouble. Then he got his heart problems fixed and met someone else, so he has changed his mind. I think this is an extreme case of changing your mind. It was published in 2005 in a British medical journal.

I also found an article about a course being taught at a university. The reading list sounds good:

John W. Burton. (2001). Culture and the Human Body: An Anthropological Perspective.
[IU has it in the Folklore section—must see!!)

Also: Victoria Pitts, In the Flesh; and Rush, Spiritual Tattoo. I've also seen these titles in IUCAT.

That these books are on a college-level course reading lists validates them as good resources. I’ll definitely look at them (and I ended up checking both out of the library).

I sent a few articles to my email address as well.

Let’s see. Next notes are for February 7. After my Collection Development class, I quickly grabbed 2 books from the UGL Core Collection and then headed over to the research collections tower and the Folklore section. The library needs to get new signage by the elevators. I know Folklore is on the 7^th floor, which I confirmed once I got ON the elevator, but what about the masses who spend little time roving the stacks? No wonder the undergrads find the research collections daunting. I’m sure there used to be a sign up listing floors for each LC classification as well as floors for special collections. No matter. I’ve been to the Folklore Collection before.

The stacks are great--that silent, dusty smell of old paper and heavy thinking. I browsed in a couple of areas. Pulled a pile of books and headed to a quiet corner to look them over and decide which ones to check out.

Culture and the Human Body looks very interesting. Great pictures. Anthropological perspective. Should be interesting. And it’s a skinny paperbook, another plus (since I have to haul it home in my backpack on my bike!).

Oops. What’s this? Body Invaders: Panic Sex in America. Must’ve picked this up by mistake. It’s an edited collection. There’s a section of articles called Body Watching….nope. It’s all postmodern deconstructive stuff written in that trendy disjointed style. Very French. Largely impenetrable but fun and funny on a certain level. No index to the book either. That’s French, too.

Another sort of strange edited collection: Body Parts: Critical Explorations in Corporeality. This book has a beautiful/strange/awesome/scary cover photo/art. Is it a tattooed body or a patterned cloth draping a body….or both? I can’t decide. Here’s an article title—warning, it’s a bit vulgar: “Hairy Heine, or the Braiding of Gender and Ethnic Difference.” And another: “Bums in the Time of Cholera: Sex, Sodomy, and Representation of the Fundament.” Nope, I won’t be needing this book. Hairy Heine…jeez.

Now here’s an old looking book. Tattooed Women and their Mates. Edited by Hal Zucker. World Folklore Series, No. 1. copyright 1955. Fabulous quotations….oh, this is so dated. Line drawings COVER the margins. Let's peek inside:

Factoid alert: “Taboo and tattoo are the only Polynesian words in the English language” (p. 7). More: Since “tattooing is connected with sex and sex practices . . . we politely disregard it. It is the same prudish taste which disregards sex” (p. 8). “Most tattooed women are prostitutes. (Not in the primitive societies but in the Western world)” (p. 10). Wow. I did not know that.

I found the old ([1925] 1974) Hambly book I had seen indexed in the catalog, too, but it did not look promising at all. Just old.

Today (Feb. 9^th) I did some more database searching and selected some articles with health related information about tattoos. I emailed the citations to myself and I’ll look them over.

Some literal watching now….as I view the videotape, Body Art.

References

Callison, Daniel. (2003). Key Words, Concepts, and Methods for Information Age Instruction: A Guide to Teaching Information Inquiry. Baltimore, Maryland: LMS Associates.

Wondering…..how I decided to pursue tattoos

2006-01-29T18:09:00.000-08:00

It’s not just because tattoo is easy to rhyme!

Last semester I was taking L524 (reference), so I was constantly searching the internet with various databases on various topics. On one foray, I came across a really amazing site, The Modified Librarian, and it got me to thinking back on something I’d been kicking around for a few years: getting a tattoo. Lots of people have tattoos nowadays, especially young adults. It used to be a counterculture kind of thing (bikers, gang bangers, hiphoppers, etc.), but it seems to be main stream now. Even the most unlikely people have tattoos, including school librarians and 3^rd grade teachers. (gasp!) Also, a woman in my reference class had (and still has) the most wonderful tattoo based on the illustrations in Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are. So adorable.

When we were in the introductory phase of this course, there was a box about interests and hobbies and such. So I jotted down a bunch of random ideas in my handy dandy cow journal for this course. (Note: cow journals are what my son’s 5^th grade teacher calls the Mead composition books with the black & white splotches on the cover.) Here are my notes: Interests -- hobbies, favorite subjects, current issues you wonder about. Knitting. TV – CSI – forensics, high tech gear. Murder mysteries. Homicide investigations. Weaving. How yarn is made—wool—sheep. New Zealand. Kiwi. Look at a map. Hawaii—job prospects. Saving for retirement. Bankruptcy. Dieting. Filtering in libraries.

None of these topics thrilled me as I looked them over. As I was re-reading the project notes in the CourseQuest, the words “fun” and “joy” kept popping out at me, and somehow, tattoos popped into my head. I’d been meaning to think about tattoos…maybe do some research…well, why not for my personal inquiry. I sure didn’t want to spend time thinking about retirement finances and bankruptcy.

I think my topic meets the AASL/ILS standard number four:

The student who is an independent learner is information literate and pursues information related to personal interests.

In terms of the Indiana state standards, I think my topic fits into Standard 2, Culture, of the high school social studies standards, “Students will examine the influence of culture on the individual and the way cultural transmission is accomplished. They will study the way culture defines how people in a society behave in relation to groups and to physical objects.” More specifically, standard 2.1 “define the key components of a culture,” and 2.5 “compare social norms among various subcultures” (http://ideanet.doe.state.in.us/standards/standards2000_sstudies.html, state standards for high school social studies, sociology (PDF document) website, but the link doesn't seem to work, darn it).

I also happened upon an interesting chart that correlates ILS and Indiana’s academic standards for social studies. According the chart, S.2.1 correlates with ILS a, 2, and 3 (access, evaluate, use information), as does S.2.5. See: correlation chart (The link may not to work, sorry).

As Annette says, it’s possible to mold almost any topic to meet the standards.

What else? Well, let’s see. In terms of the different information processing models, I like the affective aspects of Carol Kulthau’s Information Search Process (ISP). In choosing my topic, I initially experienced apprehension and uncertainty as well as brief elation after selection. However, I agree strongly with what Sandy L. Guild says in her article, “Modeling Recursion in Research Process Instruction,” (ch. 7 of Stripling & HH): expert researchers cycle through the stages of the process over and over during the course of a project. I love doing research and exploring new topics. I feel great anticipation at the beginning of a new project. I enjoy the process. I know I can do it, and I’m fairly confident in my abilities. Yes, there are frustrations (etc.) along the way, but it’s a journey I’ve taken many, many times, and I know how satisfying it is.

Guild’s article made perfect sense to me…I’m always looking ahead to the next step and the next, but then I also bounce back to the initial steps, especially after I’ve settled on my topic. It’s part of the thinking process. In the FLIP IT! Paradigm, the last step is IT: Intelligent Thinking.

I think that’s enough Wondering for me!

Prelude to Watching

2006-01-26T15:01:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking about my topic a lot, but in looking through the coursequest instructions, I see that I am first supposed to post about how I came up with my topic. I'm still working on reconstructing that. ;-/

I will probably have to post a couple of times about the watching process, but for now I want to say that as I was going through the assignment, I noticed that we're supposed to cite professional sources. Anyway, while I was wading through some of course material, I stumbled across this site:

http://eduscapes.com/info/webquest1.html#3

in the Visual Literacy section. It's one of Annette's articles,

Digital Glyphs: Imaging Ideas for a Visual World,

and she's talking about ways to develop visual literacy. One of them is the use of digital cameras/scanners/imaging software. I've been thinking about the areas I need to address in making my tattoo inquiry...and also thinking about the final project. I have a bad habit of jumping ahead! I was pleased to read that using PhotoShop or some such program is a literacy-related activity since I'm thinking of incorporating doctored images into my final product. That's one of the fun parts of my inquiry: looking at images, thinking about how they'd look as tattoos. But I'm jumping ahead again. :)

Tattoo or Not Tattoo? A Personal Inquiry

2006-01-26T14:53:00.000-08:00

Tattoo or Not Tattoo? A Personal Inquiry

Just getting started

2006-01-19T14:35:00.000-08:00

I think the title says it all--I will be considering whether or not to get a tattoo. I've been thinking about it for a few years now. I'll post more after I do some of the course reading.......