guedet scott rhetorical making

7/28/2019 Guedet Scott Rhetorical Making

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Stephanie Guedet Scott

Dr. Casie Cobos

ENG 391

16 October, 2012

Inscribing the Body: Tattoo as Rhetorical Making

Write! Writing is for you, you are for you; your body is yours, take it. HlneCixous

for images, words, stories to have . . . transformative power, they must arisefrom the human

bodyflesh and bone Gloria Anzaldua

The instant the needle touched my back, the relentless buzz of the gun

accompanied by a searing, hot pain, I could exist nowhere but the present moment.

My skin cringed and twitched involuntarily. Sweat formed at the base of my back

and on my upper lip. My breath quickened and escaped in irregular bursts. I had

forgotten how much it really hurt. People who love tattoos rarely talk about the

pain; it is a necessary rite of passage. A means to an end. Like childbirth, the agony

of the experience seems to fade away with every day that the tattoo heals and

brightens, appearing, finally, as a new and beautiful permanent image. Tattooing is

a story of metamorphosis, transformation, and narrationwriting a life on the skin.

My back piece represents my sixth tattoo. Obviously, my relationship to body

modification goes beyond a passing fad. Before this project, I had some vague ideas

of why I was so attracted to the practice of body art, but it wasnt until the research

for this rhetorical making that I began to understand why tattooing has become an

integral part of my performance of self. What Im finding is how intertwined my

body art has become with my identity, not only as a woman and writer, but also as

a rhetorician. Communication studies scholar Sonja Modesti claims that tattooees

function as materialized rhetors who are negotiating issues of materiality, material


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consequence, and embodiment (206). Add life writing, narrative, and authorship to

that list, and you have a comprehensive portrait of my academic interests. I study

rhetoric to understand my life. What Im learning is that tattooing, or inscribing the

body, is one of the material and embodied ways in which I do that.

Tattooing is performative rhetoric. According to Modesti, through the act of

body modification, the nature of our natural bodies shifts, becoming a series of

performance or enactments that interact with the materiality(they) are designed

to aid in the process of identity construction (202). In her book Bodily Arts:

Rhetoric and Athletics in Ancient Greece, Debra Hawhee argues that the body has

historically functioned as a site of rhetorical production and performance (10). And

anthropologist Daphne P. Lei, introduces the concept of performative tattoo

discourse in which she identifies a split between self and bodyor interactive play

between the subject, viewer, and the tattoo. Lei focuses primarily on Chinese

female subjects as she suggests that reading/writing on the female body works

differentlyand continues, Both the body and text are performers (101) and

are read separately and simultaneously. Tattoos are about images, but they are

also about the bodies on which they are inscribed.

Tattoos are a performance of our public selves. With my tattoos, I have

clearly marked myself as a cultural Other, outside the mainstream (although not

too far due to the increasing popularity of tattooing) of which I am so obviously a

part. The surface of my body is what others see of methe visual image that I

present. Deliberately modifying that surface is a way of claiming and

communicating my identity. My tattoos stand as an expressive boundary between

my public and private selves. My tattoos encourage interpretation and at the same

time reject itdepending on the image and the placement of them. For instance,


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the peacock feather I have tattooed on my left forearm invites numerous questions

and discussions, partly because of its prominent location. On the other hand, the

sun I have tattooed on my lower back is rarely noticed or commented upon.

According to anthropologist Maureen T. Schwarz, tattoos frequently are a means to

represent and objectify some private, intuitive, and affective self, which is

conceived of as being opposed to a public, rational self (231). Thus, marking the

skin becomes a kind of claiming or reclaiming the self (and all the selves of the

self).

***

Approximately two days after I left my husband, I hocked my wedding rings

for $200 cash and got my first tattoo. It was a simple, leafy vine that wound around

my ankle. The year was 1994, and the practice of tattooing still mostly belonged to

the counter culture. Months before, I had seen a woman about my age walking

through my neighborhood in a tank top and shorts. A tattooed vine traveled from

her left ankle up her left leg, crossed her midriff, and snaked up her right shoulder.

It was amazing. Instantly, I knew that I had to have a tattoo for reasons I was unable

to identify at that time.

My husband said no. No, no, no, nononono. He was already tired of

entertaining my thrift store clothes, knit hats, and combat boots. He could only

stand by as I moved farther away from the pretty, compliant, Christian girl he

married right out of college. I had a new edge, and I was interested in pushing it as

far as I could. I needed something to symbolize to the world, but more importantly

to me, that I had changed. It would be wrong to say that a tattoo destroyed my


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marriage, but it wouldnt be too far off to say that what that tattoo symbolized

would make it impossible to remain with my husband.

With the first touch of a tattoo gun to my skin, I knew I was free.

***

Schwartz helps me understand this affective response through her

exploration of how agency works in the practice of tattooing. She writes, Tattooing

is a basic affirmation of controlthe right and the ability to alter our bodies is,

finally a fiercely affirmative action (229). Schwarz uses the work of Daniel

Rosenblatt to suggest that body modification is in part an exploration of ways of

knowing and being in the world that have been lost in our societys preoccupation

with material goods, instrumental knowledge, and rational self control (229). Like

me, many tattooees, especially women, use modification as empowerment, as a

way to reclaim their physical bodies. My first tattoo as well as my second were acts

of rhetorical resistance and reclamation. My body is mine. Ill do with it what I want.

(I learned this the hard way.)

Tattooing is embodied rhetoric; in other words, we matter and we mean

through processes and sense-making that we owe as much to our experiences and

existence as to our conscious thoughts (emphasis mine, Modesti 202). Perhaps this

is one reason why Im so attracted to tattooingit forces me to consider the

rhetorical implications of my body as my physical form undergoes change. In the

moment of tattooing and forever after, I am consciously drawing together the

desires of my mind with the appearance of my body. Hawhees work on

embodiment reminds us how important bringing together the body and the mind

are to knowledge-making. She called this the mind-body complex and describes it


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as the way that we learn and move, mind and body, in response to a situation.

Tattooing reminds me of how my corporeality is inseparable from my identity. My

tattoos are rhetorical markings that have become, physically, a part of my body.

***

People often ask me what my tattoos mean. I used to answer that question

literally. Well, my vine symbolizes growthalso because it encircles my ankle, it

represents a continuum, a cycle or I love the sun. To me, the sun means life and

power, or some such explanation that seems to satisfy those who want tattoos to

mean something. Otherwise, why would someone permanently alter her skin,

change herself, for an image that wasnt meaningful? What do my tattoos mean?

They mean I am in control of my bodya fact that may or may not be true and that

certainly cannot be taken for granted in our current political climate that continues

to wage battles over womens bodies. A society that continues to silence women.

I dont think its any coincidence that my first tattoo appeared on my skin at

the same time that I began to really write and by really write I mean write for

myself, not for school or my job. The kind of writing that undid me because it told

me who I was. Once it was on the page, I couldnt argue with it. My voice would no

longer stay quiet. Perhaps that first tattoo, my identity written on my skin instead of

paper, was my way of moving that voice from the private (my head) to the public

(my body). My tattoo also very consciously drew attention to my body, even my

sexuality, territories that were previously off limits in my conservative upbringing. I

had never been encouraged to love my body, rather to fear (loathe) it and what it

was capable of. Every time I looked at my tattoo, I was forced to look at my body.


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Jay Dolmages piece Metis, Mtis, Mestiza, Medusa: Rhetorical Bodies across

Rhetorical Traditions affirms the rhetorical power of the body, especially those

bodies that challenge rhetorical norms. Through the writing of Hlne Cixous,

particularly as she revises the Medusa myth, Dolmage shows us how the character

of Medusa symbolizes the stigma and confusion around, and the powerful,

sometimes violent challenges to, womens embodied rhetoricity (14). According to

Cixous, women as rhetors can either be heretical, even monstrous (like Medusa) or

silent. Cixous challenges her readers to write her self: [Women] must write about

women and bring women to writing, from which they have been driven away as

violently as from their bodies (14). Characterizing Medusa/womens bodies as

simultaneously monstrous and beautiful, Cixous suggests that the rhetorical

joining of these might be both threatening and lovely (17).Cixous teaches us that

like Medusa, we need to flee from certainty and sameness, whether rhetorical,

historical, or corporeal (18).This embodimentthis embrace of my Othermight

be the real story behind what my tattoos mean. Unwilling or unable to remain

silent, I used my tattoos to mark my body as different and, in my own small way,

to challenge normativity.

Michael Atkinson described tattooing as a flesh journey or The process of

intentionally reconstructing the corporeal in order to symbolically represent and

physically chronicle changes in ones identity, relationships, thoughts, or emotions

over time (Schildkrout 337). My flesh journey has dramatically changed with my

latest tattoo. Im revising my story as its told on my body. Originally, my tattoos

were distinct, separated by theme, concept, and physical space. A vine on my

ankle. A sun on my lower back. A hibiscus on my upper back. A peacock feather on

my forearm. None of these designs were related; each was an isolated experience.


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Consistent with the tattooing practice in the 1990s, most of the images were

selected from flash art and applied (copied) on my body. Im in a different place

on my flesh journey now as Im interested in joining all of the divergent images

into more of a cohesive look or a unified story, written by the same artist in

collaboration with me. I wonder if this new direction has something to do with my

perspective nowmy desire to look back on my life and draw the disparate

elements/experiences together to create a design that feels interconnected.

Ive given myself over to the creative vision of my tattoo artist, Alex Godair,

who, incidentally, has the words rhetoric and metaphor tattooed across his

knuckles. In a series of meetings, Alex and I looked through sketches and talked

about possibilities for covering my upper back tattoo with a fresher, geometric

image and then continuing the design down my shoulder. I struggled with the

decision to cover up one of my tattoos, particularly my hibiscus that my husband

designed. It was important to me to keep the floral motif and even some of the

same color scheme to honor the original tattoo. Still, Im a different person now. I

have a different story to tell, one that can accommodate all of the narrative threads

that run through my other tattoos and tie them together to create an overall image

of who I am now, who I want to be.

***

My body is a canvasa site where Ive inscribed myself and where Ive been

defined by others. Like life writing, my identity is constructed through the practice

of tattooing, not simply represented. Tattooing is my way of writing my own

autobiography on my body, of marking myself as Other, as telling a story of

transformation and becoming. It is a narrative without an end.


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Works Cited

Dolmage, Jay. Metis, Mtis, Mestiza, Medusa: Rhetorical Bodies across Rhetorical

Traditions.Rhetoric Review Vol. 28, No. 1 1 (2009): 128. Print.

Hawhee, Debra. Bodily Arts: Rhetoric and Athletics in Ancient Greece. Austin:

University of Texas Press, 2005.

Lei, Daphne P. The Blood-Stained Text in Translation: Tattooing, Bodily Writing, and

Performance of Chinese Virtue.Anthropological QuarterlyVol. 82, No. 1

(2009): 99-128. Print.

Modesti, Sonja. Home Sweet Home: Tattoo Parlors as Postmodern Spaces of

Agency. Western Journal of Communication Vol. 72, No. 3 (2008): 197-212.

Print.

Schildkrout, Enid. Inscribing the Body.Annual Review of AnthropologyVol. 33

(2004): 319-44. Print.

Schwarz, Maureen. Native American Tattoos: Identity and Spirituality in

Contemporary America. Visual AnthropologyVol. 19 (2006): 233-54. Print.


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APPENDIX

Planning the design.

What Alex drew.


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Covering the hibiscus.

The finished product, Phase 1.

guedet scott rhetorical making

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