Modern Tattooing: Changing Religious Symbolism

Modern Tattooing: Changing Religious Symbols

By Sierra Trees

A few weeks ago I had dinner with a couple of my close girlfriends at our favorite mexican spot down the street from my apartment in the East Village. While we sat sipping our frozen margaritas and munching on chips with guacamole, the conversation of tattoos came up. One of my friends had just gotten a small black cross on the inside of her finger. I am not against tattoos in anyway, I have a couple myself, and I’ve always been fascinated with how one goes about choosing the thing they are going to stamp themselves with permanently. As we continued the conversation and she showed the table her new tatted finger, I was reminded that this particular friend has many of times in the past denounced herself from any form of religion. In fact, I have had talks with her about her belief that our world should rid itself of religion. Because of this, I found it interesting that her decision for a permanent tattoo was one of a very sacred image for others.

After hearing that my adimately non-religious friend had gotten a religiously motivated symbol tattooed on her body, I began to dig into the idea of what these symbols mean and how they are changing. I went on Pinterest to look at “popular tattoos”. Along side the simple outlined hearts and bow and arrows, I found that a cross was one of the 19 most popular tattoos in 2014. This sparked a whole new interest in my mind.  I started to think about my generation and tattooing. I began to realize how it has grown to have its own symbol of religious and spiritual meaning. I think about my entire friend group, and I would estimate about 80% of them have tattoos. So I decided to take it a step further.

I live right above one of the many tattoo parlors on the block, Fun City Tattoo,  which isn’t uncommon when you live on St. Marks Place. The block of 8th street from 3rd ave to Ave B is filled with tattoo and piercing parlors. There are at least 10 places on my street alone. So this past Saturday I decided to spend a little time sitting in the parlor just observing what was going on. I spoke with one of the artists, Andrew Mann, and he allowed me to stay by the front door and watch. Mann himself was tattooed head to toe in various images from writing to beautifully decorated drawing of a woman up his arm. He asked not to be photographed.

The first person I saw who walked in had already been in a couple times and was having his sleeve finished. I listened as he continued to explain the in depth meaning of his tattoos and where they came from. His whole arm was to be done in full color, and he was only a portion of the way there. The artist said for work like this one it can take up to 35 hours in the parlor to finish. 35 hours of needle point into various parts of his mans arm to achieve the goal of his arm being completely covered in various snakes with a background of flowers.  Unfortunately, he wouldn’t allow me to photograph for the blog, however, he explained to me that since he was a kid he has had a calling towards snakes, and that they guided him through some of the toughest times of his life. Therefore, he wanted to dedicate one arm of his body to their existence.

As I continued to sit there, after the snake man had made his way to the back of the parlor, a young girl came in with a couple of her friends. She had decided she wanted her family name tattooed on her hip. I noticed she had many other tattoos which I found to be interesting. She allowed me to take a photo of one of her hands which was the most interesting part of them all: she had two different religious symbols tattooed on her hand. Just as my friend before had, she had a cross on her middle finger, and in addition she had a mandala tattooed on her hand. Mandala is a Buddhist and Hindu symbol for the universe, a sacred one to many people.

So many people in today’s generation have various images and symbols tattooed on their bodies. When I first saw my friends tattoo of a cross, I was critical of the fact she had picked a religious symbol that she had no attachment to, just because she thought it was cool. After visiting the tattoo parlor, I thought about tattooing as taking images we have previous connotations to, religious or not, and giving them different meaning.

I began to think about the symbol of the cross in particular. As we read in Dorothy Day, I began to relate to the “Folly of the Cross”. The cross was once supposed to be a symbol of torturous death of Jesus, a form of embarrassment for Christ. However, Christian theology has lifted the idea of this death by roman crucifixion and elevated to something meaningful and powerful to the religion. What was intended to be horrific symbol of his suffering is in fact extremely meaningful among faithful believers. Cross's were once symbols of only sacred meaning, lifted on church ceilings and hung from devout believers necks. However, today, the cross has made yet another turn in meaning. Christian theology states that with the Folly of the Cross, the standards of the world then seem to be in error, as symbolized by the cross. Justice of Christian cause then began to take the theory of: if the world sees failure = success. In other worlds, if the world is condemning you, that is success. Which furthers their ideals that to cultivate kinds of failure that strip us of self-aggrandizement.

I thought about the idea of tattooing the symbol of the cross on one’s body, for religious purpose or not, and I kind of saw a parallel between what the Day reading shows us about the Folly of the Cross and with the new meaning of the cross in today's "hipster society". Tattooing, when it first became popular, was a form of rebellion against the norm. Teenagers would hide tattoos from their parents, and rebel kids would get art tattooed all up their body. Most of the older generation today do not have tattoos, yet their children almost all do. Many of my friends have many tattoos of various images. It was a way of expressing themselves. Some people, like Mann, decide to take it to a form of religion in itself, making tattooing their life. Others, find it a way to decorate their body to their liking. I myself have a few tattoos that each have their own meaning to me. To tattoo the cross on one’s body is in a way giving a new meaning to the symbol. It is no longer, in some cases like my friend, a symbol of sacred suffering of Christ, but a symbol of pop culture and art in today's world. Celebrities like Drew Barrymore, Nicole Richie and Justin Timberlake have cross’s tattooed on their bodies.

I think this is a further step from what the original meaning of the cross entailed. However, that doesn’t mean that the cross has lost all its meaning as a religious symbol. Nor does it mean that tattoos take away from that meaning. As the man with the snakes showed me, there are many times where tattoos bring light to what is truly significant to an individual, that might have completely different meaning to another. Snake handling is actually a religious ritual in a small number of Christian churches, and the snake is considered to be sacred. In addition, the second woman shows further how these images have changed. Her cross tattoo sits right on her hand just centimeters away from a Mandala. These are two varying religious symbols with different meanings and stem from two religions that are extremely different. This goes to show how much religious symbolism today has shifted amongst some of younger generations.

This is not to say that you cannot find people of this generation with cross's on their body (tattooed, hanging from their necks, or pasted on their shirts) who don't hold dear to the traditional symbol of Christ that it entails. It is just to show that in some cases these religious symbols have changed meaning and shifted to mean something different.

As I walk around the streets of New York, I see even more images of religious connotations that are placed in a less sacred place. Many hip stores sell studded shirts with the cross on it, and necklaces with jewish stars on it. It is interesting how the meaning of such a sacred symbol can change and be seen differently due to the generational differences and the cultures it is being seen in.