Second-year College student Ben Justice was at the Commerce School Career Fair, conversing professionally with suit-and-tied business folk, when an unsettling thought suddenly crossed his mind: Hidden underneath his collared dress shirt -- safe from the eyes of future employers -- lay 10 tattoos spread all over his torso.
"I couldn't help but think yeah, my body's covered in ink," Justice said. "Although horribly unprofessional, I'm not blatantly unprofessional."
Justice, who has ornamented his body with 10 tattoos in the past two years, is not alone. Clothes often hide more than just skin.
Visual basics
"A tattoo is really a picture on paper on skin," Justice said. "It bridges a gap between what's in your mind and what's on your body."
An avid DJ who always has been intrigued by computers, Justice has incorporated tattoos of song lyrics and the Macintosh Apple logo onto his body.
Memory is not always so painless, however.
Third-year College student Rupa Dasgupta's tattoos help remedy the grief of losing a loved one.
"Someone I lost had passed away and all of my tattoos are related to him, to memorialize him so that I never forget what we went through together," Dasgupta said.
While Dasgupta was initially driven by these desires, over time she said her tattoos came to embody her personal changes as well.
"In the beginning I got things for therapy; they served a purpose," she said. "Now they have a value in and of themselves."
Like Dasgupta, third-year College student Kim Dylla has put careful thought into her tattoos. Her wrist, which has the infinity sign and the number zero tattooed on either side, carries meaning far beyond its small size. The physical proximity of the two figures, which were "another therapy tattoo," is meant to show their inherent connection, Dylla said.
"It's how infinity can go to zero really fast," she said, demonstrating with a flick of her wrist. "As much as they're different, they're the same -- a love/hate kind of deal."
Pallet of the body
Not all of Dylla's tattoos take up such minimal space. Her crowning masterpiece stretches across her back, covering much of it with a self-inspired tribal design. Then there are the more subtle tattoos on her face, her carefully calibrated eyebrows. Finally, Dylla sports a tribal bat on her lower back -- her first tattoo, also self-designed -- that is etched with the same dark, bold lines that cover her back. For Dylla, placement is as important as content.
"A tattoo for me enhances the canvas of the body. My tattoos are on my back, which is such a blank expanse of skin," Dylla said. "To me, if you're drawing on your body it should be incorporated into the part of your body you're trying to enhance or decorate."
An artist by academic major, as well as by character, Dylla said she is as critical of the image a tattoo produces as she is of its meaning.
"I don't want to get tons of tattoos though. It just gets all jumbled," Dylla said. "They should be placed delicately, or a motif. They all mean something but they're definitely aesthetic."
Dasgupta, another artist by both birth and trade, also caters to the underlying art of every tattoo. Thus, she shies away from color in her tattoos -- all self-designed -- which she sees as "more decorative," and "unnecessary" for getting her point across.
Both Dylla and Dasgupta have had their artistic talents employed by others for the sole purpose of tattoo design.
"In some cases they've seen paintings that I've already done and they wanted to get them tattooed," Dasgupta said. "I was very honored and flattered that they wanted to get something I'd made put on them permanently."
Dylla has extended her tattoo sales to an informal online business that generates orders from around the globe, usually numbering two or three per month.
Dasgupta reiterated this demand for personalized tattoos herself, saying she feels putting her artistic creations on her body strengthens the bond she has with them.
"I'd definitely feel strange putting something on my body that someone had designed with nobody specific in mind, something generic," she added.
"Images of choice"
Originality does risk confusion, however, as others try to interpret and label self-designed images.
Second-year College student Robyn Headley often has encountered questions about the ambiguously entwined tattoos on her back -- the circular Tibetan symbol of eternity, and a snake from the ancient Mayan culture that represents an "intermediary between the physical and spiritual worlds."
Among the questions Headley faces is the inevitable one of permanence.
"This is going to be on me forever, but I'm going to go away, my body is going to go away. This is not the biggest issue of the century," Headley said. "I thought it was a really beautiful concept and I wanted it to be a part of me."
And for now, Headley is satisfied with her two.
"I was at a time in my life when this is the way I wanted to remember something," Headley said. "But I have other ways, and I don't have that much skin."
To minimize the waste of valuable skin, Dylla carefully tests her desire for every new tattoo.
"My policy is I have to wait at least a year because it's going to be on my body permanently, and I want to let myself get through any phase I might be going through," she said.
Justice acknowledged, however, that he may very well outgrow his tattoos in the future. Despite this possibility, he said he is fairly confident that the value of his tattoos will never expire.
"This is a time in my life that I'll always want to remember. It's a journal that I'll never lose, it's a file that I'll never erase," Justice said. "Even if I really end up hating it later on, I still can't forget that that's who I was at the time."
Besides, if Justice's track record is any indication, the possibility of adding new tattoos to represent new phases always exists.
"There's not a day that goes by when I don't want another one," Justice said. "You never stop at one, I guarantee you."
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