Get inked !

Students tell the stories behind their tattoos.

WRITTEN

& DESIGNED

BY HOPE CARTWRIGHT

After eight long months of planning, deliberation and anticipation, Weinberg thirdyear Maggie Carlson walked up to the mirror in a private, plant-filled tattoo studio in Wicker Park to see her finished design for the first time. A king cobra coiled around a bundle of lilies of the valley stared back at her from its new permanent home on her ribs. Carlson was awestruck.

“Once it was done, it felt like a part of me, like it belonged there,” she says.

The lead-up to that moment was a long journey. In July 2021, Carlson started the search for her ideal tattoo artist in Chicago. It wasn’t until November that she stumbled upon The Same Scorpio, an independent hand-poke artist with a delicate, intricate style. She set up a meeting, paid a $150 down payment for the tattoo and met with the artist on Zoom twice to discuss the design concept before she finally stepped foot in the studio in March 2022. Still, the process was not complete: Carlson had to make the 40-minute drive into Chicago and back every other week for three two-hour long tattoo sessions.

Getting a tattoo in the Chicago area can be a daunting experience for Northwestern students — from researching artists to deciding on placement and designs to saving up to cover the costs. But Carlson says it was all worth it when standing in front of that mirror.

“From the second I saw it, any doubts wavering in the back of my head just completely vanished,” she says.

The first obstacle for many is figuring out what symbol or artwork they want to permanently emblazon on their bodies. Tattoo inspiration can come from almost anywhere: social media, family members, memorable trips or experiences, even an inside joke. Spontaneous flash tattoos –– a pre-designed image ready for inking on demand –– or random doodles may appeal to some, but others want designs that represent something meaningful to them.

Carlson is one of those people. She envisioned her snake and flower tattoo as her own personal version of a Medusa tattoo — a design commonly used to symbolize protection and one’s recovery from assault. Carlson was assaulted at the beginning of her first year at Northwestern, and getting her tattoo helped with her recovery process.

“This was part of my healing to help me reclaim my body and be like, ‘It’s mine and not somebody else’s to use,’” she says. “Anytime I feel like I’m not strong enough, I’m not doing well, it helps to look at that and know I can get through things.”

Illustrative tattoo artist Iz Mozer inks many Northwestern students at their studio in an art collective in West Town. One rewarding part of their job is seeing the impact that getting a meaningful tattoo has on their clients.

“To aid in someone’s own empowerment and liberation is such a beautiful and touching thing,” Mozer says.

Medill fourth-year Grace Deng felt that impact when Mozer tattooed her last October. Mozer inked a pill bottle with lavender growing out of it on Deng’s left bicep. The design symbolizes the combined use of holistic and Western medicine to find relief from symptoms of chronic illness — something both Mozer and Deng deal with. When choosing a tattoo artist, Deng prioritizes people with shared life experiences and identities.

After months of searching for a femaleidentifying or non-binary Asian tattoo artist in Chicago, Deng met Adele Tamae at a popup art show. Tamae, a queer, Asian American and femme-identifying artist, gave Deng her fifth tattoo on May 8. The design was a sixinch portrait stretching across Deng’s right upper arm of Jobu Tupaki from Everything Everywhere All at Once

“[The film] is universal in a lot of ways in that search for love, but also it was very personal to me,” Deng says.

While choosing a meaningful design is important to some like Carlson and Deng, others find the selection process almost instinctive. Weinberg secondyear Ethan Roe was walking through Boystown with a friend last summer when they came across Pink Rhino Tattoo on North Halsted Street. They impulsively decided to walk inside with the intention of coming out with a new piercing or flash tattoo.

As Roe’s friend got a helix piercing, they looked through each Pink Rhino artist’s flash collections. One design stood out to Roe: a lighter with a plant growing where there should be a flame. Though the artist who designed it wasn’t there that day, Roe came back later that same week to get it tattooed. Roe wants tattoos, and getting flash is a fast and easy way to build a collection of art on their body.

“There’s not a strict criteria,” Roe says. “If I vibe with it, I vibe with it.”

Mozer finds that tattoos people get for the aesthetic are often just as impactful as ones with personal stories behind them.

“I don’t think there’s a wrong intention for a tattoo,” Mozer says.