Eighteen is the year many teenagers look forward to.
They are only three years away from turning the big 21. This is also the first time in their life they are being exposed to new freedoms they once did not have.
One of these freedoms is being able to get themselves a tattoo without the permission of their parental figures.
“I think it’s because it’s finally something that they are able to do. It was something they were not able to do up until this point, and they want to do it as a sense of being able to do something on their own without parental consent,” Jessica Jortberg, a student at Keene State College said.
Shannon Flynn / Social Media Director: KSC junior, Jessica Jortberg, has a tattoo of a heart behind her ear, as well as a four-leaf clover on the back of her foot. “I have a heart behind my ear and it’s in my mom’s handwriting. I have a butterfly and my mom also has the same one as that,” Jortberg said.
Jortberg is a 20-year old junior at KSC, and she has five tattoos herself.
She said she has one tattoo of a four-leaf clover on her foot, the quote “life is short but sweet for certain” on her rib, a heart behind her ear, and a butterfly and flower.
According to Jortberg, some of her tattoos have meanings and others were just because.
“The one I got on my ribs I think I just got because I was eighteen and I could go get a tattoo if I wanted to. The one on my foot I got because I’m Irish and it’s a four-leaf clover, and also because my friends and my class got cancelled one day and we were just like, let’s go get tattoos. I have a heart behind my ear and it’s in my mom’s handwriting. I have a butterfly and my mom also has the same one as that. And also the flower I got this summer I got just to add on,” Jortberg said.
Shannon Flynn / Social Media Director: KSC junior, Jessica Jortberg, has a tattoo of a heart behind her ear, as well as a four-leaf clover on the back of her foot. “I have a heart behind my ear and it’s in my mom’s handwriting. I have a butterfly and my mom also has the same one as that,” Jortberg said.
Jortberg said she got four of her tattoos done by a family friend of hers. The tattoo of the four-leaf clover on her foot was done here in Keene, according to Jortberg. She said she got it done at Secret Lake Tattoo.
Like Jortberg, Amanda Diiulis, also a 20-year-old junior at KSC, also got one of her tattoos at Secret Lake Tattoo.
Diiulis has two tattoos herself. She said she has one of a flower with a quote and one that is a “lined design of a bear.” Diiulis said her tattoos are for her family and represent life events. When asked why she got them at the time she did, Diiulis said, “Because I was at college and there were a lot of tattoo places around, so I was like why not?”
Since April 2013, Secret Lake Tattoo has become Elm City Tattoo. It is currently being run and managed by Mark Manley, 32 years old.
According to Manley, he has been in the tattoo business for the last seven years and has been tattooing in New Hampshire for the last four and a half years. The company also offers body piercing.
Elm City Tattoo piercer, Pj Deleon, 29, has been with the company since April and has been piercing for the last four years.
“I like working in Keene. I just moved up to Keene in January of this year, and I was from Tampa, Florida. I like the laid back atmosphere of Keene. It’s a busy little college town so it’s definitely a fun place to pierce,” Deleon said.
Shannon FLynn / Social Media Director : Junior Amanda Diiulis has a tattoo that reads: “Hope is the dream of a soul awake” on her back.
Cynthia Finch, 30, is one of the main tattoo artists at Elm City Tattoo. Like Deleon, Finch has been with Elm City Tattoo since April and has been tattooing for the last four years.
Prior to tattooing in Keene, Finch was working at a tattoo shop in Boston, Massachusetts.
“I like working in Keene better than anywhere else. I didn’t like Boston as much as I like it here. The people in Boston are not as into the important parts of tattooing. It’s really about quality, not quantity. In Boston, people don’t really look at it like that,” Finch said.
The Elm City Tattoo crew said they get about 15 to 20 students in a week for either a piercing or tattoo.
“We get a lot of walk-ins,” Manley said. “I think it depends on if papers are due or not,” Finch said.
Deleon said this past Sunday he had 20 female students come in and they all got pierced.
Finch said this past Tuesday she was working on a tattoo and four of that client’s friends came in and made appointments.
“We get a lot of freshmen right around now,” Manley said. Manley, Deleon and Finch all agree that being located in a college town has a huge impact on business, especially since they do piercings as well as tattoos.
According to Finch, some of the most common tattoo ideas she sees are: quotes, infinity symbols and feathers with bird silhouettes.
She said the most common areas right now are the ribs and fingers. “I don’t understand the fingers. First off, they hurt. Second they fade and third, it’s a job-stopper. Why would you go to college and get a job-stopper tattoo,” Finch said about tattoos that prevent getting hired.
When it comes to why 18-year-old freshmen college students get tattoos, Manley, Deleon and Finch all said they think it has a little to do with peer pressure.
They said it is not peer pressuring someone to do it who had no want or intention of getting one, but more of a push on someone who was considering getting one.
“It’s peer pressure in a good way,” Deleon said.
Diiulis thinks freshmen get tattoos when they get to college because they have the freedom to.
“They have the money to and they have the freedom to without any immediate consequences,” Diiulis said.
Shannon Flynn can be contacted at sflynn@keene-equinox.com