#4 The Painted Lady

Slip No. 4 - Read a non fiction book

My pick for Slip No. 4 is The Painted Lady - The art of tattooing the female body by Dominique Holmes with photography by Terry Benson

Title: The Painted Lady - The art of tattooing the female body
Author: Dominique Holmes, photography by Terry Benson
Date Started: 20/02/16
Date Finished: 20/02/16
Star Rating: 3.5 out of 5
Thoughts and Quotes:  Part of the reasoning behind selecting this particular title is due to a personal interest in tattooing and body art. At present, I personally have five tattoos, two of which contain literary references.

The book itself charts a basic history of tattooing for women, and discusses the origins behind the most common themes, relating to vintage, nautical, butterflies & flowers, Japanese, Mehndi and fusion, touching upon roses, koi carp, Buddhism, swallows and many of the other common images relating to those core themes.

 

The books illustrations and photographs are crisp and clear, displaying pictures of real tattoos that relate to the topic discussed on the pages, sometimes sharing snippets that explain the personal reasons behind why they chose a particular tattoo for themselves.

I quite enjoyed the book, learning a little more detail behind the different tattooing styles as they related to female body art, making a refreshing change towards the normally male dominated angle that tattoo books use.

On a personal note, I would have given the book a higher rating if two key points that I have never seen referred to in a tattoo art book had been addressed.  (1) the nature of rip-off tattooist art work and the effect this has - many of the tattoo artists that I personally know, have worked on me or have spoken to, have all told me that the reason they never do the same tattoo twice is because they want to be artists, not just tattooists, and that it is not uncommon for people to ask for an exact replica of an image, to only find that that copying artist makes more money and gains more recognition for an image that they did not create.  This book, and others on tattooing that I own talk about looking for a picture, but never about using that picture as inspiration for a completely new and original art work.  (2) Cultural appropriation - on many occasions, I have seen men and women with tattoos of images that do not relate to their culture, and then behave in a manner which is racist or discriminatory towards those who do belong to the culture of which their tattoo image was taken from. This in itself is a clear example of cultural appropriation, and has never come up in tattoo books either. perhaps this is down to the fact that refusing to tattoo an image for this reason may result in the loss of work for the artist, who is doing their job by giving the customer what they wanted. For this reason, cultural appropriation falls to the customer. 

However, if the book were to discuss these issues, it would be a much thicker book as it would have to delve deeper into politics and social history rather than focusing on the core themes behind tattoos.

In summary, I would recommend this book to any woman who is looking to get a tattoo who wants to learn more about the images that she has in mind. It would also make a great coffee table book to anyone with an interest in female body art or tattooing in general.