Chest tattoos are becoming increasingly popular among both men and women alike, and some of the most common tattoo designs we've seen are flowers, hearts, birds and stars among other cosmic artwork.
This photo gallery displays some exceptionally nice chest tattoos which might help you decide on a style for your own personal design. Enjoy the pics.
Reader Dawn spotted this beauty through a Facebook ad, and just like our other fabulous Facebook find (the "Spirit Guides" tomahawk), it comes from the company "Collectibles Today." Ready for the description?
"With her Medicine Wheel and her eagle spirit guide, she has the power to bring protection and healing to her people. The Eagle Medicine Woman alone can unlock the secret of the majestic bird's great strength. Now you can experience the deep spiritual meaning and stunning beauty of her essence with this collectible ball-jointed doll, available only from The Ashton-Drake Galleries. 13 individual ball joints bring this masterwork doll to life in endless posing options.
Crafted in collector-quality vinyl, this poseable doll wears a beautiful, exclusively designed outfit showcasing thrilling full-color art of her eagle spirit guide in flight. Her custom ensemble is further lavished with beaded accents, graceful fringe, an authentic headdress and matching boots. She even comes with a quad-colored Medicine Wheel, perfect for posing with her. Strong demand is expected for this important achievement in the doll world, so order now!"
I, personally, am partial to the lines "The Eagle Medicine Woman alone can unlock the secret of the majestic bird's great strength." and "authentic headdress and matching boots." Below, "authenticity" at its best:
As a light-eyed Indian myself, I appreciate validation of my authenticity as Native through the blue eyes. ha.
But on a serious note? The appropriation of sacred religious symbols is effed up. Medicine wheels and eagle feathers are not child's play.
Last night marked a historic day in the continuing education of Adrienne K. I finally saw Dances with Wolves. How, you may be asking yourself, did I survive 24 years of life and 6 months of blogging about Native images in pop culture without seeing this piece of American history? Your guess is as good as mine. Frankly, I just never got around to it. So I won't do a play-by-play analysis of the movie, there is a lot of good and bad throughout, and most of you probably saw it 20 years ago when it was released (20 years! can you believe it?). But one thing that struck me, after sitting through all 3 hours and 4 minutes? Nothing happens. There isn't some elaborate plot line, there are two or three pockets of action, but that's it. Yet, it was a critically-acclaimed film that won several Oscars. In the words of my friend H., "It won the Best Picture Oscar because it was 3 hours of straight-up imperialist nostalgia.*" and I agree.
If you needed any proof, remember the final text of the movie? I.e. the last image movie-goers have in their mind as they leave the theater?
"Thirteen years later, their homes destroyed, their buffalo gone, the last band of free Sioux submitted to white authority at Fort Robinson, Nebraska. The great horse culture of the plains was gone and the American frontier was soon to pass into history."
Yeah. What about all those Native actors that you used to make your fancy movie? What about the Lakota language used throughout that obviously someone had to teach you? While the movie made some important steps (for its time), that final screen negates it all for me. Solidifying, once again, that "real" Indians don't exist anymore, that we are a part of history and not the present day, etc.
I kept thinking back to the trailer for the documentary "Reel Injun" (I've mentioned it briefly before, and I can't wait to see it). The film explores the origins and history of the created "Hollywood Indian", but the trailer has a bit of analysis about Dances with Wolves (starts at about 1:04):
I love when John Trudell says "It's a story about a white guy. And Indians are just the T and A." So very true.
Next on my list of "important" modern movies about Indians I haven't seen? Last of the Mohicans.
*Imperialist Nostalgia: a mood of nostalgia that makes racial domination appear innocent and pure; people mourning the passing or transformation of what they have caused to be transformed. Imperialist nostalgia revolves around a paradox: A person kills somebody and then mourns the victim; or someone deliberately alters a life form and then regrets that things have not remained as they were. . . Imperialist nostalgia uses a pose of "innocent yearning" both to capture peoples' imagination and to conceal its complicity with often brutal domination (R. Rosaldo, Culture and Truth: The Remaking of Social Analysis) (AK note: embarrassingly I have this book within arms reach right now)
Debra Wilson is a talented American comedienne and actress, best known as a long time cast member on the sketch comedy show, MADtv.
Debra is virtually completely covered in tattoo designs and is perhaps the most tattooed celebrity in the business.
She has two complete sleeves on both her arms containing dozens of tribal designs, along with a large sun on her left shoulder and a beautiful lotus flower on her right tricep, plus a ring of flames and stars on her right wrist and forearm area.
The tattoos on her back include, a heart with crown and a tribal sun design.
Some of her other tattoos include, a lotus flower on her lower abdomen and extensive tribal hooks on her lower back and hips.
Well, it's official. The hipster headdress has gone British. Last week was the Glastonbury music festival in the UK, a huge music spectacular not unlike Coachella, or The Bamboozle, or Sasquatch! or Lightning in a Bottle here in the US. Boston.com posted an image of festival goers sporting the (no-longer) edgy hipster headdress, maddening, but pretty unsurprising, actually. It was only a matter of time.
However, not to be out done by their former subjects across the pond, these British hipsters took playing Indian to a whole new level. Observe the "tents" at this year's festival:
Yeah. Those are tipis. A whole lot of tipis. So while you're wasted, or high on something or another, gallivanting through the fields and communing with nature while rockin' out, you can "authenticate" your wild-man experience by coming back to your tipi--living like the original bad asses, those Indians who didn't give a damn, no rules, no "civilization", just one with life, man.
Snarky imaginative narrative aside, there is a really interesting dynamic of playing Indian in countries other than the US/Canada--there are "powwow" communities, especially in Germany, where participants make painstakingly "authentic" regalia, sing in drum groups, etc. That's a whole post in itself, but it raises the question of how these actions are perceived and interpreted in a country without Native Americans, lacking both the genocidal history or contemporary culture to provide context and understanding of their actions.
Not that people in the US, even with that context, have some greater understanding (or my blog wouldn't exist!), but it reminds me of the incident a few months ago when Harry Connick Jr was a guest judge on a show in Austrailia, and participants came out in blackface to perform Michael Jackson:
As an American, Connick Jr. was offended, and rightfully so. However, the Australian community shared no such outrage, because wearing blackface has no history in their country. There was a lot of back and forth debate, and there are any number of similar examples, but it goes to show that history and context is key in the understanding of racist actions.
Does it make it ok? absolutely not. Just like I'm not ok with british headdress wearers or a tipi village at a music festival overseas. Perpetuating stereotypes and erasing the current presence of Native people is never excusable in my book, even if it occurs thousands of miles away.
This photo gallery displays some exceptionally nice chest tattoos which might help you decide on a style for your own personal design. Enjoy the pics.
Chest Tattoos
Different strokes for different folks is what somebody once said, however i think facial tattoo are directly related to lack of adolescent hugs.
Face Tattoos
This set of tattoos is of the traditional grey style of alien life form.
Grey Alien Tattoos 
Debra is virtually completely covered in tattoo designs and is perhaps the most tattooed celebrity in the business.
She has two complete sleeves on both her arms containing dozens of tribal designs, along with a large sun on her left shoulder and a beautiful lotus flower on her right tricep, plus a ring of flames and stars on her right wrist and forearm area.
The tattoos on her back include, a heart with crown and a tribal sun design.
Some of her other tattoos include, a lotus flower on her lower abdomen and extensive tribal hooks on her lower back and hips.
