Tattoos turn heads for sure. Not that they are uncommon these days, on the contrary, they just reveal a lot about the person. Tattoos are a great way to wear your taste and your outlook on life on your sleeve.
Art History student Laura Jurmu got her first tattoo – surprisingly – quite spontaneously. “I had wanted to get a tattoo for a long time. For me, tattoos at their best are beautiful and significant: like jewellery you don’t need to take off. I just couldn’t decide on the picture. I had planned that before going under the needle I’d wait at least a year to see if I was still happy with my tattoo idea.”
Despite all the careful consideration, Laura got her ship tattooed on a whim when she was visiting her sister and her husband in Riga. He was getting tattooed and Laura went to Olafs Taube tattoo parlour with him. The prices turned out to be insanely cheap for such a clean and professional tattoo shop. “That evening I had a couple of glasses of wine in the hotel bar and thought over different symbolic elements and what I considered meaningful in life (these little things, you know!)”.
Inspired by the traditional sailor style, Laura roughed out a sketch which she emailed to the tattoo shop. A few days later she got a permanent souvenir on her arm.
Laura admits that she still has the tattoo fever. Next year she is heading for Eastern Europe and since getting tattooed there isn’t as expensive, she might come back with some new artwork on her skin. “I have lots of ideas, ranging from pugs to The Birth of Venus and lighthouses…”
English philology major Karra Väisänen is a regular customer of Laura Paasonen from New Era Tattoo. For him, getting tattooed is a continuous process.
Karra got his first tattoo at the age of fifteen as a tribute to one of his favourite novels. “I have always been a fan of Alice in Wonderland, and I thought the Cheshire Cat would look cool.” After a couple of years Karra went back to the tattoo studio with a similar tribute idea in his mind: he decided to dedicate his left arm to his childhood memories and got the arm covered in Nightmare Before Christmas and Kingdom Hearts characters.
Since then Karra has gotten inked several times, in colour and in sepia, always by the same artist. He now has tattoos on his chest, arm and both legs. For Karra, the most important thing is the visual aspect of his tattoos. The piece on his legs was an impromtu decision: he saw a sketch by Laura Paasonen and was so impressed with it that he chose to have it done. The piece combines elements of religion, life and death and, of course, it “just looks cool”.
“The words Diamonds aren’t forever on my chest are there to remind me that our time is limited. If you have a dream, pursue it.” Another motivational quote on his skin reminds him to be himself, no matter what. “Kurt Cobain said it: ‘I’d rather be hated for who I am than loved for who I am not.‘”
Not all his tattoos have symbolic meaning. At the moment Karra is inspired by Greek mythology, and that’s where his newest piece, a phoenix, comes from. In the future he hopes to expand the theme on his right arm. “I’m definitely going to get more pics tattooed – I still have lots of empty canvas left!”