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Lindsay Haight

Art teacher Chris LaValley

Chris LaValley:

Tattoos are often viewed as a form of art, and this is especially true for art teacher Chris LaValley whose tattoos combine her personal beliefs as well as her own artwork. LaValley has designed and drawn three out of her five tattoos.

“I have [a tattoo] on my ankle that is just a doodle that I do a lot that I turned into an anklet,” LaValley said. “Then, the last two [tattoos] I’ve gotten have to do with my following of Buddhism. The one on my back is a lotus flower, and a mantra for compassion, and then [the one of my wrist] is part of a Buddhist eight-fold path. They’re more personal because I actually wrote out these characters, found the translations on a website and drew it out.”

LaValley said the process of getting a permanent tattoo includes application of the design to a transfer, which then goes onto the skin. After this transfer has been applied, the actual tattooing ensues, which goes far enough down into the skin that it draws blood. A scab forms, and lotion must be applied to it. Various mishaps can occur such as the tattoo artist messing up or the ink bleeding out. For LaValley, her first tattoo was a maze-like Chinese symbol for longevity that ended up bleeding together.

“Tattoos with age can bleed out a little bit, [so if] you’ve got really narrow negative space and it bleeds, that space starts to disappear,” LaValley said. “[The tattoo] started to look like a black spot because of that negative space. This was a young guy who did it, and he was new to it, so he probably should’ve shared that with me so I could’ve either picked something else or tweaked the design.”

Since the design is the most important part of the tattoo, LaValley said she always carries around her design before deciding to get it done. LaValley said because of this, she does not have any remorse about her tattoos or designs.

“You can’t really [have any regrets] because it’s there and it’s permanent,” LaValley said. “I would sit on [the design] and have something that means something to you and make sure it’s something that you really want to happen.”

While some believe that a stigma still exists for teachers having tattoos, LaValley said she does not think there is a stigma against tattoos anymore because times have changed.

“When I got my first [tattoo] there was a lot more [stigma], just because it wasn’t as common and people you saw with tattoos were, you know, bikers, or people who you thought were kind of shady,” LaValley said. “After I got the one on my ankle, my mom who was like in her fifties got a tattoo on her ankle, so if your mother gets one after you get one, then I guess [not].” 

Sarah Derks:

From the bible verse on her ankle to the cross on her back, each of science teacher Sarah Derks’s 10 tattoos have a story of religious meaning to her.

“They all remind me of things in my life where I feel like God has been present,” Derks said. “They’re all important, and they all have a story. They all have a meaning to me.”

Even though Derks has many tattoos, she said she has a system where she must wait at least a year after thinking of a design before getting it tattooed.

“If I still want [the tattoo] after a year then I’ll start saving money because they’re expensive,” Derks said. “I ask myself, when I’m 70 years old and my niece asks me about my tattoos am I going to be like, ‘Don’t ask me?’ No, because I really though long and hard about all of them and I feel like they tell a story about my past.”

Derks said the biggest thing she did not expect was how much she would like getting and having tattoos, and that she does not mind the pain one must endure to get tattooed because she has a pretty high tolerance for pain.

“[Tattoos are] a little bit addictive,” Derks said. “I don’t mind the pain… I like getting them; I like having them. They’re mine. They aren’t necessarily for show or display.”

Teresa Hogan:

While tattoos are almost always pieces of art inked onto skin, math teacher Teresa Hogan has a tattoo of a soccer ball on the exterior of her bottom right tooth. Hogan has had this tattoo for around 14 years, and got it because both of her children were avid soccer players at the time.

“My dentist told me about it, and because both my kids were such soccer freaks and I was a soccer mom, he said, ‘You have to have this,’” Hogan said. “It was a very quick decision.”

Contrary to a tattoo on skin, Hogan said that there is little to no pain when a tooth is getting tattooed.

“They were doing other repairs to that tooth anyways…I didn’t feel it at all,” Hogan said. “My dentist was happy. He wanted to do [mine] because he had only done a tooth tattoo on one other guy. That guy had a pot leaf done, and [my dentist] couldn’t brag about that, so he was really happy to have one he could brag about.”

Although the decision to get her tooth tattooed was a quick one, Hogan said she does not have regrets about the actual tattoo. However, she said sometimes students treat her tattoo as a mysterious secret.

“Kids tell each other like it’s some big, deep, dark secret and it’s not a deep dark secret because it’s a little soccer ball – not really anything that embarrassing or painful,” Hogan said. “They always want to see it, almost always after I’ve eaten lunch and then I feel bad because I haven’t had the chance to brush my teeth… People just have ideas about what you should and shouldn’t do, and [my tattoo] is a weird thing that [I] have, so they think it’s different.”

Although Hogan said she does not think her tattoo is a big deal, she said it is unique and that she has never met anyone else with a tattooed tooth.

“We have the gangsters that have the bling [on their teeth], but that’s not quite the same thing [as a tattoo on the tooth],” Hogan said.