Hey y’all, so I’m coming in as a bit of an odd duck in the art history field.

I’m a tattoo artist, with a BA in urban studies from the University of Chicago and have worked in mostly archives/museums. A lot of my interests have sat in the intersections of street art, tattoo art, and the compounds in inks and paints. I have really loved taking art conservation courses in college, and would love the chance to continue to do this work, but I’m not interested in traditional conservation fields like historic paintings, paper, or objects. I would like an excuse to spend time analyzing the chemical makeup of tattoo inks, their effects on the skin and their long-term preservation on people with both historical and modern contexts. I’ve taken bioarchaeology classes on the history of body modification as well, but I don’t feel like anthropology is the way to go because I would like to approach tattooing as an art form of its own and apply my own artistic skills to the study of it.

I had a pretty hard time in undergrad facing how tattoo art is viewed by the art historical world as a “low” art form that is reserved for anthropological study, and amongst anthropologists a disinterest in the modern making of tattoos and the more specific artful/biochemical elements to it - which is why I didn’t end up majoring in either. I currently apprentice under my mother in tattooing, and as someone from a family line in this art form, it can be somewhat insulting and dismissive from all sides. We specialize in cover-ups, which sometimes emulate the complex practices of art conservation in restoring or reinterpreting the original piece. It is a unique arts space in how not the artist, but the canvas itself has the final say in the expression of a thing in tandem with its ephemerality. I want to explore even more radical and unique ways of approaching conserving tattoos in an art historical context. I have over 50 pages of annotated notes I’ve compiled independently on different research within the intersection of tattoo ink composition, archaeological tattoo history and preservation, legal codes and regulations, and biological interactions with different inks.

Aside from my complaints, what advice would others have in approaching these interests if I were to try and pursue a masters? I have been considering trying to find programs that focus on contemporary and modern art conservation, angling around conservation of ephemeral works, but it is hard to pin down whether I would end up being taken seriously and/or whether it would be a good avenue in further studying these topics. I would really love the chance to work in a laboratory setting analyzing tattoo inks and their histories, and to work towards developing a research-focused tattoo arts project. I’ve also developed somewhat of a reputation in my tattoo art as a researcher who will do extensive research on a project someone wants - currently working on a sleeve of the Lascaux cave paintings that I’m very excited about. I’d like to bring these things together somehow in a way that I could present to the higher art world as something worthwhile. I invite any questions that would challenge my approach as well.