Tattoos Are Forever Yours—

One Man’s Ink And Ideas

By Kendra Bobowick

Tattoo: the act of marking the skin with indelible patterns, pictures, legends, etc, by making punctures and inserting pigments. Why do people get tattoos? The Newtown Bee has decided to talk with those who have them, as well as tattoo artists, to learn the meaning behind the choices of their body ink.

“I don’t know if you know this, but they’re permanent,” Jason Conley said, a funny half-smile pulling at the corner of his mouth. Wrapped around his upper arm or stretched below his elbow in dark blue-black and red patterned markings are several of his tattoos.

“They’re addictive, more than cigarettes,” he said, rolling up a sleeve to show off another indelible image on his skin.

A deep red, winged Phoenix fills the space between his wrist and elbow, forever reminding him of friends lost. “This is in memory of friends who kept dying. I was at a funeral every six months,” he said, alluding to lives taken through substance abuse. Above and below the mythical bird is the inscription: “The spirit of an angel lives through us all.”

He was fascinated with the Phoenix forever coming back to life, he said, thinking again of his friends. “The money you spend on tattoos could be wasted, but if you put thought and meaning into a tattoo, it’s expression of yourself on yourself,” he said.

People go to art shows and look at art on canvas, he said. Noting the colors and shapes absorbed by his skin, he said, “This is not that different.”

Hidden by his clothes are other inked-in tribal whorls carrying meaning.

His first tattoo was a friend’s design. After one, he said, “You immediately start thinking about a second one.”

He said, “I started on a whim, and went downhill from there — in a good way.”

The second time around found him as a guinea pig among a group of friends on a trip to Newport, R.I. They had headed there in search of a tattoo parlor.

Once in the door, his friends, he said, told him: “Okay, you can go first.”

Finding a tribal image he liked, Mr Conley envisioned the image stretched, and wrapped around his wrist, where it is today.

“I did not want to just pick something off the wall,” he said, unimpressed with people who “walk into a shop, look at the wall and say, ‘Tweety Bird!’

“Be original. Put yourself into what you’re getting,” he said. “Don’t do what your friends think is cool. It’s going to be there forever.”

Drawing images that he finds in ordinary things has contributed to several more of his tattoos, while other images are on paper in a folder he keeps. Fond of his caffeine, he said, “I work with designs I see in the coffee. Really.” When he drops in some cream, the surface swirls give him ideas that he has translated into ink for himself and in some cases, for a friend.

“You have to be in the frame of mind — pictures pop into your head,” he said. “I have a ton of doodles.”

From a shelf in his apartment he pulled down a folder and opened it on the coffee table. Flipping through pages of hearts, vines, symmetrical designs, and circles, he showed off his art.

The shapes and designs on his skin have not always found favor.

“I worked in Westport and while waiting in line for coffee I got funny looks,” he said. “They think I am up to no good, they judge.”

At other times, he said, “People want to stop me — it’s a fascination. People want to know what it is. When something is half-visible and a curiosity, you want to know the meaning or the story.”

In his opinion, “Everybody should stare. Everybody should ask, or you’ll never know.”

Tattoos are more acceptable than they were just ten years ago, but it’s not as acceptable among the upper class, he said.

He has his suspicions, however. “I bet that a good percent [of people] on Wall Street have them. Maybe they’re hidden.”

He is not through soaking ink into his skin. Japanese koi fish swimming across his arm and over his shoulder intrigues him, he said. During a past tattoo convention he had seen “a young Asian kid with tons of koi” covering his back. Leaning forward and staring at his hands, Mr Conley said, “That was beautiful.”

Dragons also captivate him.

“I want a whole dragon on my arm,” he said.