The art of tattooing has been traced back 7,000 years. While the significance or reason behind the oldest-known tattoos are total speculation, we do know that often, they were applied as sacred rites, and awarded as a signifier of adulthood. In Ancient Egypt, it鈥檚 likely they were used as a means of safeguarding women during pregnancy and birth. And in the ancient Greco-Roman world, they were applied on enslaved people who got caught trying to escape.
But today, the reasons for getting a tattoo are as distinct as the person getting them. Sometimes, it鈥檚 a memorial to a person or an experience or an idea. Sometimes, it鈥檚 nothing more than something that just looks really cool!
Now and then, though, the meaning changes, and the artwork needs to be covered up. So today, you鈥檒l hear stories about how people have used tattoos to allow their skin to, shall we say, evolve.
For this episode, I put a call out on social media - BTW - for stories about tattoo coverups, and I got so many, they couldn鈥檛 all fit in this show. So here are six more people who went through the process:
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GUESTS:
- Chris Gladis is a high school teacher living in Osaka, Japan. He has yet to be tattooed
- Jim Bonaldo is a father, husband, improv comic, storyteller, and tattoo canvas, living in Wethersfield
- Tracy Wu Fastenberg is a fundraiser for a nonprofit, and babywearing enthusiast of her two children in West Hartford
- Addy Irizarry was a professional boxer, and is now a school safety officer and boxing trainer living in Tolland
- Michael Kalinowski is a 37 year-old from Baltic, with a wife and 3 daughters
- Jessica Pain lives in Bristol with her wife, 3 children, 4 cats, 2 dogs, and a ball python named Ozzy. After working as an Emergency Room Nurse for over a decade she now has a career in the
- Mikaela is a firefighter and EMT living in Vermont
- Alex Lawrence is the owner of in Bellows Falls, Vermont
- is a 34 year-old husband and father of three, living in Cincinnati, Ohio. He鈥檚 the founder of the 鈥溾��, a non-profit helping people remove or cover up racist tattoos
Catie Talarski contributed to this show.
