Time for a mini-rant

When drafting up this mini rant, it was suggested to me by M that I should call it Thunderous Thursdays. Whilst it's silly and amusing, I think its enough of the alliteration and I'll just have my Musical Mondays.

As I mentioned in my last post, I've been studying tattooing for my dissertation, and it is a major influence for my final collection. One of the things that has really irked me however, is that when searching for tattoo magazines, there really isn't a very good selection in Australia. Most of the magazines that I've been able to find focus mainly on artwork by tattooists, with page after page of photos of tattoos by selected tattooists. It gets a bit boring after awhile.

What I'd really like to see are magazines that really capture the lifestyle of the tattooing community- it is so much more than just getting artworks inked onto your body. I cannot claim to be a full member, only a peripheral one, but it is still really interesting to me to see everything involved in it: the clothing and fashion, the music, and their other interests and influences. The problem then is- how does someone even begin to immerse themselves in tattoo culture if there isn't really an access point?

The great thing is that since tattoos are now becoming more socially accepted, there are things like the Sydney Tattoo and Body Art Expo (which I've been to both years now, and I look forward to future ones), but it would be nice to have magazines for when these sorts of events aren't on.

The two magazines that I've found that I think are much better for delving into the tattooing world are Inked, which only just recently launched an Australian version- the US version is pretty awesome with great overall articles and images, but a little bit expensive as it is an imported magazine (so I'm excited to see how the Aussie version grows and develops); and Post Modern Ink, which is based in Bondi but unfortunately is only a quarterly. Both these magazines combine photo collections of tattoos and tattoo art, with other articles like interviews with tattooed celebrities. Post Modern Ink's lastest issue has an article about the tradition of facial tattooing the women of Myanmar- really interesting stuff!

So I really hope Australia gets some more interesting tattoo magazines soon. I think I'll be heading to Kinokuniya in the next few days, and they usually have a big magazine selection so if I find anything interesting there I'll post an update.

To be continued...