Author: Michelle Arnold

Reuters reports that practitioners of the art of tattoo are beginning to sense a sea change.

Tattooing just isn’t as fun as it used to be. It seems like every suburban kid wants a tattoo as soon as they are out of braces. And worse, it has become a staple among soccer moms and cubicle jockeys across the country. The town where I live (republican territory, dry county, population around 30,000) now has several large tattoo parlors. Tattoos have become mainstream, which poses a problem. Part of the allure of tattoos, at least in the U.S., has always been that they were seen as non-conformist, a little dangerous and always cool. They are now so commonplace that it is no surprise to see one on your babysitter.

Long-time tattoo photographer Charles Gatewood of San Francisco said:
"It (tattooing) is so popular that it has lost some of its magic. It
was like a club, a secret society and family. Now it’s gotten
commercialized, co-opted and watered down … in the opinion of some
people."

You can almost hear the sadness, the disillusionment. This state of affairs has also led to a kind of one-upsmanship among tattoo-ees. To get even a second glance nowadays, your tattoo must be exceptionally; large, vulgar, psychotic, stupid, so-cryptic-that-even-you-forget-what-it-means (pick one).  It’s basically the same thing that’s happened to music.

My problem with tattooing (for me personally) is that there is no "undo" command in the drop-down menu.
Imagine going into a store and seeing a hat you really like. It’s a great hat, a bejewelled and richly embroidered skullcap. You go to try it on and the sales-guy informs you that this is no ordinary hat. If you put this hat on your head, it will never come off. Ever. You love the hat. It’s the coolest hat you have ever seen. The inner conflict is almost palpable, ain’t it? And for good reason. What if this hat doesn’t look as cool to me in thirty years? How will I explain it to my grandkids? My employer? Sure, I can always cover it with another, bigger hat, but what if I just want to stroll bare-headed in the park?

This is my tattoo conundrum: Anything important enough to have permanently engraved on my skin turns out to be too important to trivialize by reducing it to a fashion statement. If Jesus is important to me, then I will try to imitate his behavior, not have him drawn on my calf.  And besides, it’s really not fair to the true fringe element in society. The "mainstream" keeps getting wider and wider, pushing the real fashion rebels farther and farther out into the jungle. To get noticed now you need a face full of hardware, or implants on yor forehead, or any number of other absurd "modifications".

So, in sympathy with frustrated bikers everywhere, I beg you, please don’t get that Tweety-Bird on your ankle. Refrain from purchasing that tribal butterfly back piece. And definitely take a pass on anything written in a language that you can’t read yourself. You could be getting someone’s shopping list permanently embroidered on your flesh.

In a comment I made on one of Jimmy’s recent posts I made reference to the phenomenon of government funded artwork. This comes about when artists who can’t find support for their work go to the National Endowment for the Arts (or some similar body) and request funding. Oddly enough, though, even the government doesn’t want this art most of the time. The governemnt likes to spend money on socially relevant art, which has helped to give rise to the phenomenon I call "Art and…". You know…

Art and the Inner City

Art and Women’s Issues

Art and The Environment

Art and Bloody American Imperialism

… stuff like that. But here is the really interesting part; Normally the government still doesn’t want this art, they just want to write a check. They will pay the artists to produce it, but good grief, they don’t want to keep the stuff!

I don’t want to issue a blanket condemnation of all government funded art. There is probably some that does not cause optic nerve damage. My point is that the goverment funding of art, as it now works, only reinforces the notion that art has no intrinsic value, that to be important it must be political (liberal). This type of indirect funding has also led to the misconception that if you want to support the arts, you should donate to some kind of "arts organization". That’s fine, but if you really want to support the arts, just buy art!

This direct approach means that: A) you will be supporting art that you actually like, B) you get to keep the art instead of just view it for a bit, and C) your children will get to keep it when you die!

The goverment should stay out of the art business unless they want a portrait of some politician or a sculpture for the courthouse steps. It just makes good economic sense.

Since this is economics week I thought I would introduce part of  the mission statement from my upcoming web page that discusses the inherent worth of (good) art. Unlike apologetics, art is something I know a little about, so I feel like I can discuss it with some small degree of confidence. Economics is a subject area of which I have no knowledge at all, so I am able to discuss it with even greater confidence.

In my mission statement, I make these assertions about the economics of art:

"So, art of any kind is objectively useless, and fine art in particular (as opposed to, say, cinema) is an anachronism. And yet, people still seem to need it. I think many people with the least interest in it probably need it most. Art is a mystery, like music or story telling (whatever form it takes). It is part of what makes us human. When I hear people talk about increasing art instruction in schools because it will boost test scores, I cringe. When parents want to play Mozart for their infants solely because it will make them better at math, I shudder.

(… )

Art (good art) benefits people in a way that we can’t fully understand. We need art, but we don’t know why. Part of the dehumanizing aspect of the industrial revolution (IMHO) was that ordinary household objects were no longer made by hand, but were increasingly mass-produced in ways that favored ease of manufacture over aesthetics, ease of use over beauty, and cheapness over everything.  I believe we have suffered because of this in a number of ways. A blank, artless existence simply is not good for the human psyche. We need beauty. When God created us, he put us not in a wilderness, but in a “garden”, a place where beauty is planned, ordered and tended."

The fact that fine art is objectively useless means that making a living by doing fine art can be a bit of a trick. Especially in times of economic downturn, fine art is rightly perceived as a luxury and takes a back seat to necessities. I do believe, though, that people need art, which is why historically wherever you find people, you find art.

And beer!

But that is for another post…