Grieving through Tattoos
Tuesday, January 15 2008
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Grieving through Tattoos
Garrett "G" Sample
Where Garrett "G" Sample lives in Philadelphia, murder is rampant. When his friend was killed and his teenage brother died, "G" tried to find a way to limit his grieving. His solution was to get a tattoo.
Today, "G" has four memorial tattoos on his upper body. Dick Gordon talks to "G" about how he decides when to get a new tattoo, and how having the tattoos changes the way he grieves.
Garrett's RIP tattoo for his brother, Vance
Dick also talks with Jeff Bradbury, "G's" tattoo artist over the past 14 years. Jeff works at Popcorn's Tattoo shop in Philadelphia. Jeff says that working with people in mourning has its ups and downs, but he believes his work transforms grief into art that people can appreciate.
Music heard in this story: Dead Homiez by Ice Cube for the album Amerikkka's Most WantedM
- See Garrett's memorial tattoos
- See an interactive map of Philadelphia's homicides in 2007
- Hear another interview on The Story about crime in Philadelphia
- View a website that explains how tattoos are made
Forklift Follies
Thomas Brennan
Thomas Brennan graduated from Williams College in Massachusetts with a degree in art history and an intention to pursue architecture. But after college, he came back to the southeast and started working in construction. He found his new world to be intimidating and completely different from that of the academic world he'd just left. Thomas says the incident he was most mortified over - a forklift accident he caused - is the one that made him a true construction worker. He talks to Dick about what it was like to work in an entirely different world - with an entirely different set of rules.
Music heard in this story: Construction by Donald Byrd & Booker Little for the album The Third World
- See what Thomas looked like when he was working construction
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