"This is not to reduce": People with tattoos on their faces about life and the reactions of others
It seems that in 2019 it is difficult to surprise anyone with a tattoo.. Still, drawings in visible places are still often the subject of discussion. This is especially true of tattoos on the face - it is they who most often attract attention. It is difficult for someone to believe that such a drawing is not a "tragic mistake of youth", but a deliberate act by which a person is completely satisfied. Shocked parents, problems with employment and sidelong glances - it is believed that these "side effects" will inevitably be confronted by anyone who has decided to change his appearance. We talked with our heroes about how things really are.
Interview: Alina Kolenchenko
Katya Gloomy
Tattoo master
I got my first tattoo shortly before coming of age. I did it in honor of my partner, and although we have not been together for a long time, I do not regret - this drawing reminds of an important period. The fact that I made a tattoo, my parents found out only in a year - my mother then hoped that it would be erased. After a while I bought my own machine and did the following tattoos myself.
Ian Levin inspired me to the drawing on the face (tattoo master. - Note ed.) - in my opinion, he was one of the first to feel that a tattoo in Russia would develop as an art, style and lifestyle. Then, eight years ago, a massive passion for tattoo was just gaining momentum, salons were opened, and his work looked something cool and new. I was madly imbued with his style and made a leaf over my eyebrow. It seems to me that even in Moscow, about ten or fifteen people walked with clogged faces, no more. People periodically turned on me, poked a finger - it was unpleasant. I made the second tattoo on my face at the age of twenty-three: it is a poppy box with a long stem that passes through the cheek and neck.
Since two years I have burned thirty percent of my body - in childhood I had skin transplanted, blood was transfused, I spent a lot of time in intensive care, and all this greatly influenced my view of the world. I think this is where my passion for tattoos comes from. They remind me of different periods of my life, bad and good, of all difficulties and trials. Not all of my tattoos are beautiful, but looking at them, I plunge into the smoky kitchen of my youth, I remember people. I was already released by youthful maximalism, and I am glad that at eighteen I did not have money, otherwise I would have been beaten from head to toe. Tattoos of youth - it's great, but we must leave a piece of clean skin for the future, because there will be more moments that want to perpetuate.
I work as a tattoo master, so tattoos do not bother me at all. In general, I think they do not interfere in the same way with doctors, teachers and bank employees. Time has changed, progress is underway, and tattoos are perceived as something completely mundane. Although it still happens that some man comes up to me and begins to say why I, so beautiful, have disfigured myself. I try to prove that they are asking the wrong question: what's the difference, how do I look? Most people with tattoos whom I have met are kind, polite, caring for the environment and the environment. How can one judge a person by appearance?
Leonid Rybakov
works in the tattoo field
Briefly talk about all of my tattoos is unlikely to succeed - I have a lot of them and each is associated with some period, something like a diary, which you keep on your own body. It is easier to say that only the head and partly the thighs remained unbroken. The first tattoo, the heart of the parts of a skateboard, I did at twenty-two years. The first tattoos were inspired by music, metal, all such painted and pierced. Later, I discovered a website for bodimodification, where I saw what a full body suit is (a tattoo covering the whole body. - Note ed.), and since then I gradually go to ensure that all the pictures on my body merge into one large one.
I have the only tattoo on my face that I did eleven years ago. It meant nothing, I just wanted to decorate my face, no matter how trite it may sound. After that, problems with employment began. I lived in Vyborg, it is a small town, and it seems that I was there alone with a similar tattoo. In the summer I worked as a tennis coach - my experience here was more important than appearance. But in winter there was not enough space for training, I had to look for another job, and there were difficulties. My tattoos seemed like wildness to potential employers, they were afraid to take me even by the seller. It is now the seller with his hands clogged - the norm, and then the tattoo in any prominent place was taboo. Over time, the tattoo on my face became for me a kind of initiation - a transition from a carefree age to a period when it was necessary to “nimble”. In general, I created problems for myself, but I do not regret it.
Mom always treated my hobbies with understanding. I don’t think she really liked my tattoos, but the only thing she reproached me for was my forked tongue. But my father is of an army hardening, he said: "Like the picture - hang on the wall, why paint yourself?" He reacted very painfully to my face tattoo. But that was a long time ago, now I am a father myself.
If we talk about the reactions of others, then baptized grannies are the norm. People love to impose their opinions on me, which I did not ask. Why should it interest me? I think people who make jokes and stinging comments addressed to me are just trying to assert themselves at the expense of others. Favorite reaction to my tattoos? One day a man said: "Daughter, look, this is the uncle of" Star Wars "." Type I - Darth Vader. It flattered me.
Stacy vl
tattoo master
When I was a teenager, I was incredibly attracted by tattoos, piercings and people with them. This interest was noticed by my mother and for the age of sixteen she gave me the first tattoo. In Lithuania, where I lived then, you can get a tattoo from the age of sixteen with the permission of the parents. Tightly I began to get clogged after I got to work in a tattoo parlor. Now my body is covered with 80-85 percent tattoos. I have long ceased to count them. I never put deep meaning in tattoos - for me it is aesthetics and self-expression.
I decided to make the first tattoo on my face spontaneously. She is at the temple, and if you wish, I can always hide it. The second, above the eyebrow, I “hatched” for a long time and very nervous before the session: it was exciting to do a tattoo in such a prominent place. For this, I flew to England to a famous master, whom I trusted one hundred percent.
When I began to score visible places, such as the neck and hands, my parents were not particularly happy about this, but on the whole they reacted quite calmly. The only thing my mother asked was not to do more tattoos on her face than she already had. The partner has always supported me - he, too, is tightly packed, just like me. We had a funny situation in Bali: when we had dinner at a restaurant, a waitress approached us and asked if we could have a picture taken with us. We agreed, and here the whole work of the institution stopped, even the cooks and the owner came. The result was a group photo, which the owner promised to hang in a restaurant. We think they decided that we were some rock stars from Europe.
Tattoos have never bothered me, rather the opposite: because of the heightened attention, people listen to you more and remember more easily. Those who get to know me closer say that after ten or fifteen minutes of intercourse, they don’t even notice my tattoos. In general, the reaction strongly depends on the country: in Scandinavia, passersby react to me absolutely calmly, but in the Baltics people are expressing surprise in public. It happens that behind my back I hear: "Phew, horror, look at how you have mutilated yourself." I always get fun from such comments. It happens and vice versa - people admire, ask questions. Most popular: "Did it hurt?" To which I say: tattoos - it always hurts.
I am a tattoo master, and for the people of my profession, drawings are not a minus, but a huge plus. Now, if I decided to work in the specialty (by education I am an interior designer), I think I would have encountered difficulties. I want to believe that the world is changing. I am always happy when I see a slaughtered person working in a pharmacy, store or bar. I hope that soon the same person with a tattoo on his face can be seen even among employees of a bank or a law firm.
Alexander Pataki
Musician, DJ
The first tattoo that appeared on my body is an inscription with my name. I stuffed it on my arm at the age of thirteen, and, to be honest, I no longer remember what prompted me. In general, all my tattoos are made spontaneously; I never took it seriously, my emotions moved me. There are far from the highest quality works on my body, but I don’t regret any of them.
Parents were not happy with my first tattoo - it seems to me that you can rarely please your parents with such things. But there were no serious scandals - I am grateful to my beloved mother for the fact that she never limited me. My parents see that everything is fine with me, and the rest is not important to them. Tattooing does not change personality.
At seventeen or eighteen, I had inscriptions in English around my face. I was very fond of hip-hop at the time, and the images of the “bad guys” inspired me. I put a certain meaning in them, but, unfortunately, as a result, everything turned out quite differently as I intended. Therefore, I decided to block them and apply a new story to my face - a drawing in the style of biomechanics and organic. He does not mean anything special, he still has a lot of work to do.
With the appearance of tattoos on the face in my life, absolutely nothing has changed, except for the fact that it has become more attention from the outside, and this can be understood. For all my life with tattoos and other bodimodifikatsii I met different reactions. I can not say what was more - positive or negative, I do not care what others think. In St. Petersburg, where I live, people are generally somehow easier to relate to non-standard appearance.
Did tattoo hinder me? I have always tried to work where it will be a plus or at least not create problems. Of course, I understood that they would hardly take me to the office, so I always worked where I would be comfortable. Now I do DJing, in the future I plan to write music.
Elizaveta Ghazaryan
spins dreadlocks
I made my first tattoo back at the age of fifteen, despite the fact that my relatives forbade it. This was a small inscription on the neck "let your fears go", it was practically invisible. I then just wanted to understand what it was, and almost immediately wanted to continue the picture gallery on my body. Now about forty drawings of different styles, sizes and colors decorate my skin. The first tattoo on my face I filled at eighteen, for me it means complete freedom of action. The close ones didn’t react in the best way, but didn’t reproach and reprimand. The forbidden fruit is sweet, and if you constantly prohibit, then everything will be done out of spite, is not it?
Sometimes it makes me feel uncomfortable because of a tattoo, for example, on walks or when I go to the store - this happens because of an unhealthy reaction of others. Some even try to wipe tattoos from my face or touch them. More tattoos prevented me from getting a job: if I needed to communicate with people face to face, they refused me. But there, where I managed to get settled, all my colleagues quickly understood that you shouldn’t judge a man by his appearance. Now I am not officially listed anywhere. I work for myself, I braid dreadlocks, sew borseki and backpacks, draw pictures, travel and explore the world.
Parents did not always respond equally to my tattoos. At first they were totally one hundred percent opposed and they said that I was spoiling myself, but when they got used to me, their attitude towards tattoos changed: the mother wanted to have a tattoo of the eyebrows, the father began to think, not whether to make a picture for himself too. I was very happy.
Bob fisher
Photographer
It's hard for me to count all my tattoos. I did the first at thirteen - it was a small porter (poor quality, unprofessional tattoo. - Note ed.) on the shoulder, and since then went away. By the age of twenty, I had a tattoo on my face - it was an idea from the category "why not?". I don’t have any deep meaning in tattoos at all. Mother, when for the first time I saw a tattoo on my face, was shocked, said: "A nightmare, this cannot be reduced." Later I made some more drawings on my temples and cheek.
I have never had any problems because of the tattoos on my face - I did not plan to get a job in the FSB, intelligence or a serious office, which because of this may not take. I have been freelance all my life, I was standing at the bar - in general, I worked where tattoos do not interfere, but rather are welcome. It seems to me that now in society as a whole, they are quite calm about tattoos, although as early as 2013 I drew a lot of attention and schoolgirls adored me. And now, not only in big cities, but also in the outback, people are no longer surprised by the drawings on the skin. I rode hitchhiking across Russia, and I was treated normally everywhere - both truckers and ex-prisoners. The most negative reaction with which I came across: "Why are you painted like that? Oh, and you fool!" Now even grannies on the subway sometimes tell me that I am beautiful.