While checking out the 2012 CMJ Music Festival/Marathon I had the opportunity to be a part of some really cool and informative panels. An interesting panel that I got to check out was the Tattoo U panel. This panel was about any and everything tattoos. The panel was made up of Jordy Trachtenberg, a music industry veteran and devoted tattoo collector, Jason June, a tattoo artist at Three Kings Tattoo, Jes Irwin, a tattoo artist, Alex McWatt, Founder and tattoo artist at Three Kings Tattoo, and Todd Weinberger, the Creative Director at Inked Magazine.
Jordy who was very animated from the second he walked into the room was our moderator. He was also a sharer of stories; throughout the panel we would get random little snippets of info regarding his wild, fun, and crazy life. Jordy started things off by asking those in the audience a few questions. I think he wanted to gage the level of “tattoodum” he was dealing with so he could have a better idea of where to lead the discussion. After a few questions Jordy turned his sights on the panelist and we were underway.
When asked about his first encounter with tattoos Jason said “I remember seeing a bunch of tattoos when I was really young on my uncle who was a Vietnam vet and a lot of his biker friends…I remember thinking that they were really cool looking…my first tattoo I ever got was actually from a biker guy in Tampa, FL, he was tattooing underage kids just for the fun of it.” Jes said “no one in my family had tattoos but my neighbor across the street had a bunch and I thought they were really cool, I was like show me your tattoos…I was seven and I would go home and draw all over myself and all over my friends and I would get in trouble.” Jes and I actually have the exact same first tattoo, it was pretty funny to hear her talk about it and share that moment. Don’t worry Jes your secret is safe with me and the other 40 or so people that were in the room!
After a while the conversation took a turn towards reality TV and the role of tattoos in society. Todd of Inked Magazine said “there has always been a big debate on how the tattoo reality shows have affected tattoo culture…the older tattoo artist are kind of adverse towards it because it has been a guarded underground thing for so long and now it’s so mainstream…I feel that we are in a renaissance right now, if you look at the tattoos from the first Miami Ink show there wasn’t as much diversity, now you see so much amazing tattoo work.”
A lot of great points were made and a lot of laughs were shared during this panel. I got a new perspective on things like tattoos and religion, tattoos in the work place, tattoos as intellectual property, and the responsibility a tattoo artist has to their clients. As a person who has tattoos and thought they knew all there was to know, I learned a lot. There is a lot more to the world of tattooing than what meets the eye. If a picture speaks a thousand words imagine how many words a tattoo has the power to speak.
