For thousands of years, Native Americans used the physical act and visual language of tattooing to construct and reinforce the identity of individuals and their place within society and the cosmos. This book offers an examination into the antiquity, meaning, and significance of Native American tattooing in the Eastern Woodlands and Great Plains.--Publisher description.

The human desire to adorn the body is universal and timeless. While specific forms of body decoration and the motivations for them vary by region, culture, and era, all human societies have engaged in practices designed to augment and enhance people’s natural appearance. Tattooing, the process of inserting pigment into the skin to create permanent designs and patterns, is one of the most widespread forms of body art and was practiced by ancient cultures throughout the world, with tattoos appearing on human mummies by 3200 BCE. Ancient Ink, the first book dedicated to the archaeological study of tattooing, presents new, globe-spanning research examining tattooed human remains, tattoo tools, and ancient art. Connecting ancient body art traditions to modern culture through Indigenous communities and the work of contemporary tattoo artists, the volume’s contributors reveal the antiquity, durability, and significance of body decoration, illuminating how different societies have used their skin to construct their identities.

This account of the vanishing art of wmen's tribal tattooing is the record of anthropologist Lars Krutak's ten year research with indigenous peoples around the globe.

"For thousands of years astonishingly rich and diverse forms of tattooing have been produced by the Indigenous peoples of North America. Long neglected by anthropologists and art historians, tattooing was a time-honoured traditional practice that expressed the patterns of tribal social organization and religion, while also channelling worlds inhabited by deities, spirits, and the ancestors. This book explores the many facets of indelible Indigenous body marking across every cultural region of North America. As the first book on the subject, it breaks new ground on one of the least-known mediums of Amerindian expressive culture that nearly disappeared from view in the twentieth century, until it was reborn in recent decades"--Page 4 of cover.

Tattoo artist Megan Massacre presents a beautiful collection of her best work, with instructive how-to and inspiration for both professional tattoo artists as well as tattoo aficionados. With a personal behind-the-scenes peek into the making of a tattoo, from concept to execution, plus fan favorite tattoos and tattoo cover-ups, this approachable, full-color paperback will feature everything Massacre has learned over the years. Part idea sourcebook, part tattoo opus, this is an art book that tattoo fans will be eager to read and display.

Annotation. Trish has always been fascinated by miniature art and for years has had a yen to try and embroider smaller pieces. There is something so endearing about little paintings with all the detail and form of a larger piece, not to mention the fact that they are much quicker to stitch! Here she has compiled fresh and appealing designs that depict the pretty, romantic illustrations typical of the Victorian and post-Victorian eras. Each project is accompanied by a detailed thread diagram which shows exactly which colour should be used and where. The small size of the designs allows for great flexibility in their final usea such as group framing, making up into cushions, book covers, quilt squares, needle cases, box lids, tote bags, pockets on clothing and so on.

The Renaissance woman, whether privileged or of the artisan or the middle class, was trained in the expressive arts of needlework and painting, which were often given precedence over writing. Pens and Needles is the first book to examine all these forms as interrelated products of self-fashioning and communication. Because early modern people saw verbal and visual texts as closely related, Susan Frye discusses the connections between the many forms of women's textualities, including notes in samplers, alphabets both stitched and penned, initials, ciphers, and extensive texts like needlework pictures, self-portraits, poetry, and pamphlets, as well as commissioned artwork, architecture, and interior design. She examines works on paper and cloth by such famous figures as Elizabeth I, Mary, Queen of Scots, and Bess of Hardwick, as well as the output of journeywomen needleworkers and miniaturists Levina Teerlinc and Esther Inglis, and their lesser-known sisters in the English colonies of the New World. Frye shows how traditional women's work was a way for women to communicate with one another and to shape their own identities within familial, intellectual, religious, and historical traditions. Pens and Needles offers insights into women's lives and into such literary texts as Shakespeare's Othello and Cymbeline and Mary Sidney Wroth's Urania.