My trip to the tattoo parlor...

Friday, March 28, I visited the tattoo parlor that my classmate, Leah, got her piercing from. She referred me to this place called Alien Touch Tattoo. It's walking distance from campus so I visited it after class. Here are some of my observations:

*What is going on in the field site?
As I walked in, the first thing I noticed were the walls. Pictures of the tattoo artist's previous work were all over the walls, almost acting as a wallpaper. Some of the drawings were also pre-drawn out designs, like zodiac signs, etc., for customers to choose from. There were small seating arrangements for patrons and even magazines to read. Of course, they all related to piercings, tattoos, and things of that nature. People were waiting for their turn to enter the adjacent room where the actual piercing/tattooing goes on. The door to that room is always closed unless someone is going in or coming out.

*How do the members of the subculture interact with each other?
People in the waiting room were mingling. A lot of them were sharing previous artwork and future artwork ideas. The one or two whose first times it was sat quietly with their friend or family member that they came with and looked very nervous.

*Make a list of terminology used at the fieldsite with which you might be unfamiliar.
Some alternative words for tattoo are ink, tat, or even tac. Some for the actual act of tattooing are "carving" and "pounding skin". An "iron" is the tattoo machine they use to tattoo someone. They call all the needles and tubes "works." An "autoclave" is a medical sterilization device that uses high pressure steam to sterilize all the tools and equipment used to pierce. A "clamp" is basically what it sounds like. It's a medical clamp that is used to hold the skin during the piercing for accurateness.

*What details, behaviors, surroundings did you have questions about?
I wondered what the actual process of making a customer's sketch into a real tattoo was. Also, whats the best type of metal to have as your first piercing?

*Find at least one person at your fieldsite you can speak to and ask them a question about something you observed that you didn't understand.
I questioned a twenty-one year old man by the name of Rashad Thompson. He was there to get his fourth tattoo. He started when he was seventeen years old. He had an ambigram of exactly what he wanted to get that day. It was the word "Faith" in pretty, fancy, exaggerated font. I asked him if he could tell me how the tattoo artist was going to turn his ambigram into a tattoo. He said that he also brought in an outline and the artist was going to copy the outline onto a special paper. Then, he would press that special paper onto his arm and the paper has a special ink on it that will leave the outline of the design on his arm. Finally, the artist will draw over it and fill it in accordingly. He estimated that the entire process will take about an hour.

Prison Performing Arts Program

1. What makes this fieldsite a good fieldsite for this research?
The fieldsite is great because prison is the center of the actual subculture so every observation is a direct one.

2. What observations does the author make that are particularly useful in talking about this subculture?
The prisoners have a deep emotional connection to their character and the play. Being people that have had to contemplate doing a violents crime, then going through it, as well as facing the consequences, affected their interpretion of their roles.

3. What are the norms and values subculture?
They normally went over their lines whenever they got the chance and they truly valued the two or so hours they spent with the performing arts coach because they felt like humans and like they were doing somethin good.

4. What interview technique does the author use that works well with this subculture?
He was careful not to ask anything too offending or too personal. He was very polite with the prisoners and asked them several though provoking questions. He seemed very dedicated.

Final Paper!!

Subculture:
Body modifiers (piercing and tattoos)

Sources:
Baumann, Leslie. Cosmetic Dermatology: Principles and Practice. McGraw-Hill Professional, 2002. 14 Mar. 2008 .

Featherstone, Mike. Body Modification. Sage Publications Inc, 2000. 14 Mar. 2008 .

Greif, Judith, Walter Hewitt, and Myrna L. Armstrong. "Tattooing and Body Piercing: Body Art Practices Among College Students." Sage Journals Online 8 (2009). 14 Mar.
2008 .

Pitts, Victoria. In the Flesh: the Cultural Politics of Body Modification. Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. 14 Mar. 2008 .

Sanders, Clinton. Customizing the Body: the Art and Culture of Tattooing. Temple UP, 1989. 14 Mar. 2008 .

Reflection:
Reading a couple of paragraphs from "Cosmetic Dermatology: Principles and Practice" got me really interested in writing about the subculture of body modifiers. I knew I had to narrow the topic down in order to write an efficient paper about it so, as I continued to read, I decided that I wanted to specifically write about why people tattoo and pierce themselves, the psychological reasoning behind it.
Then, I checked out the sources that the author used and looked up some of them. That lead to more sources for myself and now I think I am ready to begin the research and writing process.