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Cynthia Coronel-Madrigal
Writing 2
February 2, 2021
Tattoos Are a Form of Art
Tattoos, particularly in the US , have always been taboo and associated with certain type

of people such as sex workers or prison inmates. Those with tattoos were often stereotyped and

ridiculed for marking their body, until as of late. Although there is no clear date to when tattoos

became less stereotyped, it isn’t until the early 2000’s that we see tattoos slowly being

incorporated into mainstream media. With the media being the start of televised tattoo

competitions and a number of celebrities collecting tattoo pieces1. The growing popularity of

tattoos have interested art professors Janet Fedorenko, Patricia Stuhr, and Susan Sherlock to

study modern day tattoo culture. The purpose of their peer-reviewed article entitled “ A Body of

Work: A Case Study of Tattoo Culture,” is to reflect how their presentation of tattoos can be

used to broaden the concept of art. However, their exclusionary conventions of their article limit

the audience to well-read art critics and art history professionals, disregarding the majority of the

public to take part in the discussion. My translation genre of a museum display will help explain

and expand the professors research to a more diverse audience. Writing Professor Lisa Bickmore

classifies genre as a “ usable form for carrying out human communicative intentions in fairly

stable ways”2. My museum display follows this classification of genre as it follows a known

“display format” offering a visual representation of tattoos culture. The purpose of my translation

is to expand the idea of tattoos as an art form. What better way to do this than to actually display

tattoos as an art? This translation is effective as a museum displays because it appeals to the

public who museums are usually open to. It draws in crowds with diverse backgrounds and some

1
Thobo-Carlsen, M. (2014, December 27). How tattoos went from subculture to pop culture. Retrieved March 21,
2021, from https://www.huffpost.com/entry/how-tattoos-went-from-sub_b_6053588

2
Lisa Bickmore, “GENRE in the WILD: Understanding Genre Within Rhetorical (Eco)Systems,” Go to the cover page
of Open English @ SLCC (Open English @ SLCC, August 1, 2016).
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Cynthia Coronel-Madrigal
Writing 2
February 2, 2021
who would have not considered tattoos as an art form forcing them to witness it as such.

Convention changes such as avoiding jargon, vast amounts of imagery, and limitation of

complex concepts like academic understanding behind experimental data were made in order for

the translation to adhere to the new rhetorical situations of a museum display. To make sure I

followed these conventions I drew inspiration from the displays at the Museum of Death in Los

Angeles, California. Their displays rely mostly on photos, objects, and artifacts ranging from

gruesome murders to coroner instruments to fill the void in death education. Although my

display does not mirror these gruesome conventions, it does follow the same format of

displaying photos and objects with brief explanatory headings to draw attention solely to the

artwork.

The purpose of the peer-reviewed article was to broaden the concept of art through the

use of tattoos, while my purpose is to display tattoos as an art. In order to convey my purpose, I

changed the jargon, used mainly images to convey my purpose, and created personal engagement

with the viewers by removing the complicated summary of the complex concepts used in the

peer-reviewed article. Writing studies scholar Janet Boyd states that “ every discipline has its

own range of acceptable jargon, diction, and tone to be learned and applied”3. This is what

causes authors to navigate their discipline in a way that communicates their purpose and still

abide by genre conventions. In this case study, the discipline is anthropology and their use of

known structures for a peer-reviewed article are applied . The article uses formal diction and

jargon to thoroughly explain their findings of various interviews they had conducted with tattoo

artists and tattooed individuals. Their diction and jargon was impersonal and only included

3
Janet Boyd, “ Murder! (Rhetorically Speaking),” in Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing, Volume 2, ed. Charles
Lowe and Pavel Zemliansky (Parlor Press, 2010), 92.
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Cynthia Coronel-Madrigal
Writing 2
February 2, 2021
words like “I” or “we” to state their concluding opinions, never when presenting their findings,

unless when quoting a case subject. They also only included minimal figures to reference during

their findings, which added to the tone of a formal research paper as the figures were only briefly

mentioned to illustrate the tattoos of a certain individual. My translation of a peer-reviewed

article to a museum display did not use any personal pronouns to allude to the writer or state any

opinions. The only jargon presented were facts or explanations of images (which were most ,if

not all, of the translation). Although the jargon in the display is a formal tone as well, it is only

there to enhance the focus and thoughts drawn to the images rather than the words itself.

The rhetorical situations in the peer-reviewed article were changed in order to fit that of

the new genre such as the lure of a new, diverse audience. Hypothetically, the proposition of my

display would be held in a state like California or New York who already draw people from all

over the world because of its tourist attractions. Due to the popularity of these places my display

could lure in these diverse audiences as they are already in that space. Professor Kelly Dirk

articulates that in genre, writers make specific choices to elicit a specific response from the

reader4. The peer-reviewed article’s audience are literary art critics and scholars who want to

expand their notion of what art is. The article appeals to this audience not only by how the

reading is structured, but also where it is published. The structure follows one of a typical

research paper: distinct sections of an abstract, methods, and conclusions. These sections are

filled with formal tones that present only findings and the researcher’s opinion leaving the

audience to decipher if this study truly broadens the concept of art. The article is also published

in a University Press, limiting the audience to other scholars and individuals who deliberately

4
Kerry Dirk, “Navigating Genres,” in Writing Spaces: Reading on Writing, Volume 1, ed. Charles Lowe and Pavel
Zemliansky (Parlor Press,2010), 254.
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Cynthia Coronel-Madrigal
Writing 2
February 2, 2021
seek out this type of publication. For the museum display translation, the new audience is the

public who values art and might not have considered tattoos as another branch of art. The

purpose of a museum display is to showcase the objects, in this case images, to onlookers and

only provide brief excerpts to adequately explain certain items or terms. My translation does this

by following some of the formats utilized by the Museum of Death in Los Angeles, California.

The museum as a whole display’s gruesome memorabilia from serial killers, crime scene photos,

taxidermy, and coroners’ instruments to anyone who is interested in such dark matter (usually

mature adults)5. The objects seen in the museum elicits a shocking and oftentimes horrid

response from the viewers. Nonetheless it causes them to face death as it is something that

happens to everyone but in vastly different ways, even in the most obscene sense. Although my

translation is nowhere near as grotesque as the Museum of Death, it still forces viewers of my

display to face tattoos as an art form. The images are in that space to represent the expansion of

art by displaying photos of who gets tattoos, why, and the styles artists have created over time.

Certain design constraints of my translation had to be adapted not only to reinforce my

purpose, but to also fit the contexts typically found in museum displays. Not only did I

incorporate shortened word responses to limit the amount of time spent reading to instead draw

focus on the images. I also added another concept the authors failed to mention when trying to

extend the concept of art: style. By the peer-review article failing to include this concept in their

paper they do not offer another idea to convey readers of their purpose to expand the meaning of

art through the use of tattoos. When developing the museum display, I had to make sure the

length of the texts was brief as a lengthy stream of texts can be hard to follow and readers can

5
Museum of Death. (Los Angeles, California, 1995)
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Cynthia Coronel-Madrigal
Writing 2
February 2, 2021
lose their place6. Excessive text lengths will hinder my purpose of displaying tattoos as an art

form when the viewers are mainly focused on the texts and not the images. The concept of style

in my display was added to further illustrate tattooing as an art. The vast amount of styles created

by tattoo artists demonstrate the amount of talent, skill, and creativity that is seen in many art

forms that go beyond the realm of tattooing.

Amidst the rising popularity of tattoos in the US, researchers Fedorenko, Sherlock, and

Stuhr utilized this in hopes to broaden the concept of art through the use of a peer-reviewed

article. By translating this paper into a more comprehensible and visual experience, I was able to

create a museum display that showcases tattoos as an art. The use of a display forces viewers to

come face to face with the notion that tattoos are another branch of art and are not this taboo idea

that once stereotyped individuals. Hopefully, this translation and the study conducted by these

researchers, along with many others, aid in the fight to destigmatize tattoos and instead have

them viewed as another form of art.

6
Museum of New Zealand, “National Services: Working Together with Te Papa. Exhibiting Display Techniques”
(New Zealand, 2017), 10.
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Cynthia Coronel-Madrigal
Writing 2
February 2, 2021
Bibliography

Bickmore, Lisa. “GENRE in the WILD: Understanding Genre Within Rhetorical (Eco)Systems.”

Go to the cover page of Open English @ SLCC. Open English @ SLCC, August 1, 2016.

https://openenglishatslcc.pressbooks.com/chapter/genre-in-the-wild-understanding-genre-

within-rhetorical-ecosystems/#genredefinition

Boyd, Janet, “ Murder! (Rhetorically Speaking),” in Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing,

Volume 1, edited by Charles Lowe and Pavel Zemliansky, 249-262. Parlor Press, 2010.

Coronel-Madrigal, Cynthia. “ Modern Day Tattoos: Who Gets Them and Why.” January 27,

2021.

Dirk, Kerry, “Navigating Genres,” in Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing, Volume 1, edited by

Charles Lowe and Pavel Zemliansky, 249-262. Parlor Press, 2010.

Fedorenko, Janet S., Susan C. Sherlock, and Patricia L. Stuhr. "A Body of Work: A Case Study

of Tattoo Culture." Visual Arts Research 25, no. 1 (1999): 105-14. Accessed February 2,

2021. http://www.jstor.org.proxy.library.ucsb.edu:2048/stable/20715974.

Museum of Death. California, Los Angeles, 1995.

Museum of New Zealand. “National Services: Working Together with Te Papa. Exhibition

Display Techniques .” New Zealand: Wellington , 2017.

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Cynthia Coronel-Madrigal
Writing 2
February 2, 2021
Thobo-Carlsen, M. (2014, December 27). How tattoos went from subculture to pop culture.

Retrieved March 21, 2021, from https://www.huffpost.com/entry/how-tattoos-went-from-

sub_b_6053588