Religious imagery remains popular among tattoo requests
THE TOLDEO BLADE
By Nicki Gorny
TOLEDO---According to the business research website Ibisworld.com, Americans spent $2 billion on tattoos in 2017, a large segment of that work representing their faith. In Christianity, certainly, the documented roots of bodily adornment run deep: Chicago-based historian Anna Felicity Friedman said the earliest adherents of the faith are believed to have identified themselves and each other with tattoos. “As early as 528 CE, Procopius of Gaza wrote of Christians tattooed on their arms and shoulders with crosses, Christ’s name, the acronym INRI, and other Christian symbols, including fishes and lambs,” she wrote in The World Atlas of Tattoo. “These marks, in addition to expressing devotion to their faith, may also have helped confirm the identification of one Christian to another.” [More]
By Nicki Gorny
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| Michael Klein shows his "Pray Bold" tattoo at Ink and Iron Tattoo Parlour in Toledo, Ohio. |
