Tattooing is the art of inserting pigment under the dermis layer of the skin to create a decorative, symbolic, or pictorial design, and on National Tattoo Day, July 17, we set time aside to learn more about the tattooing process and its societal importance and history. If you don’t have a tattoo, you’re likely to know someone who does, and if you’ve asked them how they knew at the time when they were getting inked whether they would still want that design on their skin years or decades later, you may have just gotten a peculiar look instead of an explanation. There is certainly a fraternal connection between people who bear tattoos, a connection that those without ink can never really understand. We asked one correspondent to try to address this phenomenon, and he said, “Tattoos began as a ceremony, and they’re still kind of like that. Once you’re under an artist’s needle, it’s a little like a religious experience. It’s like the ‘Aha moment’ people talk about having in business life. It illuminates something you didn’t see before.”
