Citrus León ’29 has an itemized list of reasons for getting tattoos
“One, they’re sick, two, I like having reminders of things that mattered to me at the time, three, they are sick.”
León is one of many Lewis & Clark students for whom tattoos are part of the art and self-expression that thrive on campus. Students are generally entering college at the proud age of self-determination, and body modifications are more readily available than ever. Those interested in tattooing as a hobby, a profession or both also have access to some frankly brilliant customers, as well as other artists interested in trading tattoos.
Portland is one of the most densely populated cities in terms of tattoo parlors due to our unique tattoo schools that provide licenses in 4 to 6 months after meeting the mandatory training requirement. Despite its density, it is a popular place to set up shop.
Tattooing, for a lot of people, is a mode of self-expression and a cultivation of identity. Tattoos can serve as reminders of moments of certainty in which life has been and will be worth living. For others, the inspiration to get tattoos is a love of art and the desire to make art out of themselves via the work of other people they admire. León is one of them.
León worked with @darkwood.tattoos on Instagram from Birdhouse Tattoo to spend 5-hours in an appointment — or, more accurately, “about 4.5 hours of getting stabbed and a 10 minute lunch break.” They said that they spent several months drawing up their own ideas before finding an artist they liked to take their concepts and realize them into a cohesive piece.
And yet still there are more methods of passion found within the tattoo community.
“My first tattoo I got when I was 17 from the logo of a newspaper called La Renaixença, which was a popular form of media in the 19th and 20th century in Catalonia and was responsible for revitalizing a lot of Catalan culture,” Xènia Freixa Rodriguez ’29 said.
La Renaixença, a Catalan-language periodical founded in Barcelona in 1871, was a leading voice of the Renaixença, the 19th-century movement to revive Catalan language and culture. La Renaixença also refers to the broader movement of the Catalan cultural revival movement for which the paper was somewhat of a speaker. “I got it because I really liked the ‘fuck you’ mentality of it to the oppressors of Catalonia, and I’m really proud of my culture … I still feel really connected to it even though I moved away when I was younger.”
Another one of their tattoos was a collaboration with a student from Portland State University, a piece dedicated to their late best friend.
“That summer after she passed away,” Freixa Rodriguez said, “we went to this church with a bunch of art in it … and I remember seeing a huge statue of the Virgin Mary with a stake across her heart and her crying … I’d just lost my best friend and she meant so much to me that I saw this piece and it was kind of like a reflection of myself.”
Years later, they contacted their friend from PSU, who goes by @artzeyex on Instagram, to have the piece translated into a tattoo. Together, they transitioned aspects of the original work into a more personalized piece, creating a new language of symbolism to represent and commemorate both their history and that of their friend.
It is beyond interesting to have the honor of understanding even a fraction of the life behind a piece of art like a tattoo. Often, tattoos are the result of collaborative histories, influenced by us, our friends, our memories, art old and new. It offers a unique relationship between an artist and a canvas that exists in no other medium. And their significance can range from aesthetic to a deeply personal meaning.
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