What surprised me greatly when researching the history of tattooing in the United States was
the illegality of tattooing practices in New York City from 1961-1997 (Kennedy 1997). The
inception of this law in the 60s is a reflection of the sort of discriminative opinions people had
of tattoos at the time. Ironically, this law came about as a means to rid the area of an
unpopular activity with a cop-out reasoning due to a Hepatitis B outbreak unrelated to
tattooing (Root 2014). This forced tattooing to become an underground activity in NYC and
made the people who participated in this activity criminals in the eyes of the law, and public.
However, despite the ban operation of tattoo parlors continued in the shadows and yet not a
single reported case of hepatitis B occurred from tattooing during this time (Kennedy 1997).
In 1997, this ban was finally lifted and can be associated with the huge increase within the
subcultures popularity and change in public views of tattoos. At the time this ban was lifted
an owner of one of NYC's most popular tattoo parlors of the time said ''We're not outlaws,
and we're not renegades anymore...'There are mainstream people in this business now, who
send their kids to the same schools where you send yours. And we want to be able to
operate like normal business people" (Kennedy 1997).
Speaking with a friend of mine who is a tattoo artist in Rochester, he referred to the recent
rise in popularity over the past couple decades of tattooing as a “Tattoo Renaissance”. With
this change, there has been a major shift in the role and meanings individual tattoos hold to
the bearers. The National Association for the Preservation of Skin Art (NAPSA) is a nonprofit
organization that strives to allow individual legacies or meaningful messages to close loved
ones to live on through preserving the skin of the deceased that the tattoo is on. Preserving
Tattoos isn’t necessarily new, but the perspective and context of which it is being preserved
in has changed. 19th and 20th century preservations were crude, generally done by just
cutting out the skin of the deceased. NAPSA’s work attempts to utilize this practice in an
alternative fashion as a way of remembering the unique person who wore this specific
artwork on their skin (Killgrove 2015). The process they use prevents decomposition of the
skin tissue and in doing so, preserves the tattoo art with all its colors and contrasts. The skin
is non-toxic and safe to touch with a leathery texture and looks almost like a drawing
(Killgrove 2015). This sort of preservation is a step in the right direction, considering the
extreme rise in individuals who bear tattoos. This program works to pass on the significant
and meaningful stories of others and provides a tangible reminder of someone close.
Additionally, this will be useful because generations from now there will be an archive of
tattoos from deceased peoples of different eras, with a large sample size from each era. In
the future, this will provide an avenue to see variations in tattoos and hopefully lessen
stigmatization of people within this group by seeing the humane, artistic, beautiful side of this
type of body modification.
This program’s development is a reflection of how much more this practice has become
accepted today in the western world. It is important that in light of this rising popularity there
is some record of how people within this subculture see themselves and I predict that many
will show that there is much more to them than the tattoos on their skin. I’ve already had a
friend of mine in Rochester who works at Kamikaze Tattoo agree to do an interview with me.
I have also found several students at Geneseo and possibly one at R.I.T. This would provide
an enculturated sample of people in tattooing to interview (Tosuner-Fikes 1982, pp.27). I
want to allow the subjects to expand and discuss their thoughts and opinions on my
questions I ask. For time purposes I hope to plan out 5-8 questions for each interview asking
the same set of questions for people with tattoos. I will have a few more for the tattoo artist I
plan to interview about how he got into this profession, and what went into becoming a
professional artist.
In order to be reflexive, I will try and identify my own biases in generating data for this
project, reveal the methods of which I will go about collecting my data, and discuss how the
style of my movie will effect the interpretation of my information presented (Ruby 2000: 152).
In developing my questions for interviews I must be careful in being as objective as possible.
It is important to identify my own biases that might affect the outcome of this film or I cannot
trust my findings from this production (Tosuner-Fikes 1982 pg.11-12). Being a person that
has a couple tattoos I have a positive inclination towards the art of tattooing but I’m
attempting to limit the amount of bias that would be produced from my predisposed opinions
by asking questions that won’t lead subjects in any direction or create a “good subject effect”.

I will have to edit scenes for time purposes but I will try to include as much of the full
responses as possible with time constraints. I'll leave the camera in one location for the
interview and try and string them together continuously (Ruby 2000: 178)
Subjects w/ Tattoos:
 Do you have any tattoos?
 When you first notice someone else’s tattoos what are your general
reactions/thoughts?
 Is there any situation where you feel the need to cover your tattoos and why?
 What does tattooing mean to you?
Subjects w/o Tattoos:
 Do you have any tattoos?
 When you see someone with tattoos, what do you think?
 How do you view the practice of tattooing?
 Would you ever consider getting a tattoo?
Survey:
 Do you have tattoos?
 How much do you follow tattoo related posts/pages on social media?
 Would you characterize your reaction when first noticing someone’s tattoos
as positive, neutral, or negative?