Sheffield portrait Matthew Hise.
designer for commercial manufacturers.
She was 24 and wanted a hand tattoo. “My
brother and I had a conversation about hand
tattoos, and we called that a job stopper. But
I thought, ‘I don’t ever want to work at a
place that will not hire me based on a draw-
ing on my hand.’” She got one, and in a way
it forced a decision: soon she left that job to
start her business, with no regrets for either
choice. Like her jewelry and clothing lines,
her tattoos have an air of weird old Ameri-
cana to them: Sailor Jerrys, mermaid flash
art from the 1940s and even a “pokey” (a
crude tattoo done by an amateur) that reads
“ LFO D ”—for “Live Free or Die,” the motto
of her home state. New Hampshire.
Philip Crangi©, a jeweler influenced
by both Castellaui (Italian “archaeological”
jewelry) and African ceremonial neckpieces,
sees his numerous tattoos as mementos. For
him, tattoos and jewelry function in similar
ways. “I’ve always assumed that they came
from the same place.
... Ornamentation is
one of the oldest human impulses, that and
the domestication of dogs.” Crangi has a
trompe-l’oei] bracelet tattoo, a piece of rope
around his wrist and a tattoo on his chest
that reads, “Je ne regrette rien” (I regret
nothing). He once had a friend solder a
bracelet around bis wrist so that he could
not take it off: “I used to think of jewelry
as this permanent thing that you put on and
don’t think about.”
Jeweler Anna Sheffield© grew up among
the Navajo on a reservation in New Mexico,
where her father worked as a doctor; she
was also exposed to the mystical Catholi-
cism her mother practiced. As a teenager,
Sheffield decided she would read every' reli-
gious text there was. Her tattoos, done in
a variety of styles and over the course of her
lifetime, likelier jewelry collection, reflect
her hybrid cultural upbringing and her life-
long spiritual quest. On one arm, alongside
flowers inspired by Buddhist Tonga paint-
ings done by Chris Conn, is a line from the
Bhagavad-Gita that reads, in Sanskrit:
“Knowledge, I am wisdom." On the other
side, in homage to her mother’s religion,
are seven birds tattooed by Scott Campbell,
one for each of the seven sorrows, as well
as a sacred heart that looks like Toleware.
On her shin is a white bee, in reference to
a Pablo Neruda poem she found inspiring,
done by her friend Henry Lewis. “I’m
interested in animism and in the symbols
that people think will protect them,” she
says.—m .l .
Tattoos
In a time of malleable identities, when peo-
ple reinvent themselves by overhauling
their online profiles, the stubborn mark of
the tattoo may be the only part o f your past
that can’t be rubbed out. Simply' having one
can be seen as an allegiance to a certain life-
style and ontology. Likewise, consciously
or not, being a maker today is a radical deci-
sion that forces you to assume an identity
contra the assembly line. In these pages
Faythe Levine was quoted as saying, “I be-
lieve the simple act of making something,
anythi ng, with your hands is a quiet political
ripple in a world dominated by mass pro-
duction.” Though not all makers have tat-
toos and not all tattooed people make things,
tattoos are irrefutably vows of some sort,
and they can be proof of devotion to one’s
vocation. We spoke to three jewelry makers
in New York about their tattoos, their life
choices and their adornment, removable
and permanent.
Before she started In God We Trust (a
clothing and jewelry line in Manhattan and
Brooklyn), Shana Tabor© worked as a
www.journal-plaza.net & www.freedowns.net
fcb/mar
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