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by Jennifer Schlake for the Argonaut

By just looking at her, you can’t tell what her dreams and aspirations are. But on the small of her neck behind her ear is a nautical star filled in with black and white to represent the value she places on life and the path she wishes to travel.

Megan Kimberling, a senior at the University of Idaho, got her first tattoo when she was a junior in college.

In high school, getting a tattoo was one of the activities that Kimberling said she thought was cool but never actually wanted to do. It wasn’t until college when she was getting her nails done and the woman doing her nails had tattoos, that she became intrigued. Kimberling inquired and it turned out the woman was friends with the wife of a tattoo artist and owner of Untamed Art in Moscow. After building a relationship with the woman, Kimberling decided she finally wanted a tattoo, but it took about a year to finally make the decision. Kimberling has two tattoos and said she always takes plenty of time researching each tattoo she chooses.

“I’m not going to put something on my body without knowing what it means,” Kimberling said.

Her most recent tattoo is what Kimberling calls her “sister tattoo,” the nautical star on the back of her neck that she and her sister, Sadie, got together.

The nautical star is a symbol for sailors to help them find their paths at sea, and for Kimberling and her sister, the star not only represents finding their own paths in life, but also identifying with the roots of their family.

From the small town of Garfield, Wash., Kimberling has always had dreams of getting out of the area and producing music, but she and her sister still find family an important part of their lives and they don’t want to run away from it.

For some, women getting tattoos seems like an unusual custom, but the earliest known examples of tattoos on humans were found on the thighs of female mummies dating back to circa 2000 B.C., according to the Smithsonian Institution.

When men excavated the tombs, they found tattooing was an exclusive practice in Egypt. The excavators assumed the female mummies were of low status and had the tattoos of prostitutes. What they learned later was the women were in fact buried in an area associated with royal and elite burials, and one of the mummies was a high-status priestess named Amunet.

While older generations look at tattooing as taboo, the trend of women getting tattoos has increased over time.

Steve Franklin, tattoo artist and owner of Untamed Art, has been an artist for 20 years.

Today the ratio of men and women getting tattoos is about 50 – 50, but women may even make up more than half, he said.

“Tattooing in general has become more acceptable,” Franklin said. “There aren’t any culture stops and now women can be themselves.”

The popularity of tattooing came from people needing to express themselves, he said.

“People are literally a living canvas,” Franklin said. “Tattooing is a marker on people’s lives.”

For Jenna Giguiere, a senior at UI, a living canvas is the perfect term for her tattoo.

On the back of her shoulder is a black flag with the word “freedom” surrounded by a shade of green. Not only is the symbol significant for Giguiere as the anarchists’ movement of freedom from all oppression, but it is also significant for other people — a message she can send with the one inked on her body.

Although Giguiere doesn’t have any other tattoos, she has plans to get a rainbow with several words including “courage” and “joy.” As a member of the gay and lesbian community, Giguiere said these tattoos would be an expression of pride.

“There’s a reason it’s called art,” Giguiere said. “There’s a fine line between art and trash.”

Most women today are taking more time to decide what it is they choose to get. Before the acceptance of tattoos, it was easy for women to choose what they wanted — a butterfly, Franklin said. But now, some women take years before they finally put something on their bodies, Franklin said.

Franklin said the myth of tattoo addiction, the excessive tattooing of one’s body, is all in whether people want to cross the line, but Kimberling admits her love for getting the ink.

“I am thoroughly addicted,” Kimberling said. “My first one on my arm, I could feel the pen in my muscle it hurt so bad, but the second one didn’t hurt.”

As the popularity of tattoos increased, it allowed for more understanding of the art and the safety behind it. The art went from a simple photo on one’s body to an intricate photo of several colors.

“There are limitations for every art form,” Franklin said. “But tattooing is coming into it’s own. There are some really beautiful things we can put on people’s bodies.”
With an infinite number of ways to decorate one’s body, Kimberling said she is nowhere near finished.

She currently has a list of about eight different tattoos she’d like to add to her current two, one that includes two sparrows that represent her mom and dad.

“I’m sure I won’t be done,” Kimberling said. “There might be a whole decade before I get another one done or I could end up with 40 tattoos by the time I die.”