Today I was rummaging around on the good ol’ internet and I discovered a blog post by someone named Megan Willis at the Times Union blog. Megan was asking the question, or rather stating her opinion that perhaps tattoo is finally “over”. I wasn’t really sure exactly what she meant by that, so I read her blog post and kind of still ended up just being confused. Here’s an excerpt:
‘…in the last couple of years, it seems you can’t shake a rusty safety pin without running into a new “high end” tattoo parlor, reality show, airbrush stand, henna job, or ad for tattoo makeup (scare me to death). I can appreciate a proper tattooing just as much as the next person be it temp, henna or till death do us part. But there occurs at some point, too much of a good thing. And I suspect we may have arrived there.’
Okay, so tattoos are popular. I get it and I think pretty much everyone knows that at this point, but something being popular does not equate it with also being irrelevant or redundant. Most likely everyone has some sort of piece of art in their home, does that make it accurate to form the blanket opinion that all art is “over” because everyone enjoys it/owns some?
Not only that, but tattoo has been around for thousands and thousands of years. Simply because those who seek out trends may be getting tired of tattoo definitely does not mean that tattoo is a trend. Tattoo never has been, nor will it ever be a trend. Some people who get tattooed may be trendy, but that fault does not lay with the art form itself.
People spend their entire lives studying and learning the art of tattoo. Perhaps it’s to their benefit that tattoo actually is considered over by the hordes of trend seekers for whom the commercialisation of this art is aimed at. I say this in all sincerity because once they are out of the way, tattoo can and will continue on without the impedements that didn’t do it any good in the first place.
In that sense, I guess I do hope that tattoo is indeed, over.