Ships of the Sea Maritime Museum’s next exhibit, “Sea of Ink,” explores the permanent connection between Savannah’s seafarers and their tattoos
Written by KIKI DY
Photography by TOM SANDERS
MARITIME CULTURE TOUCHES EVERY INCH OF SAVANNAH — our oyster shell-specked sidewalks, the cavernous wooden bars of River Street, the art in our homes, our cuisine and, for many, the soft layers beneath the skin.
Walk down any Savannah street, and you may see signs of our city’s nautical connection peeking out of socks and shirtsleeves. An anchor above the ankle here, a mermaid hugging a bicep there.
A new exhibit opening on Sept. 19 at the Ships of the Sea (SOS) Maritime Museum honors that enduring connection. Titled “Sea of Ink: Savannah Maritime Tattoos,” the exhibit — the first under the care of the museum’s new executive director, Molly Carrott Taylor, and historian Tania Sammons — is equal parts anthropological study and love letter to Savannah’s seafaring past and present.
“Did you know National Maritime Day is because of Savannah?” Sammons posits among replica ships in the elegant SOS museum. “In the 1930s, Congress decided that National Maritime Day would be May 22 — the same day that our Steamship Savannah set sail.”
The idea for the exhibit hatched when Carrott Taylor met a woman with a tattoo of the Tybee Lighthouse. “What about exploring the cultural, historical and artistic underpinnings of maritime tattoos in Savannah?” she asked herself. Then she enlisted Sammons and photographers Tom Sanders and Michael Schalk to bring it to life.
CARRYING MEMORIES
Although Sammons has no tattoos, she’s had plenty of fun canvassing for museum participants. “I’ve curated about two dozen exhibitions, and I’ve never approached an exhibition quite like this before,” she shares. The translation there is she’s never had so many people spontaneously undress for an exhibition. When she explains the exhibit in public, eavesdropping strangers often overhear and unbutton their shirts or lift their pant leg to show their personal canvases.
Carrott Taylor echoes this unexpected but delightful oddity. “My smartphone is filled with other people’s bodies,” she jokes.
After many months of research and curation, the resulting exhibit showcases a dozen local tattoo artists and more than 30 proud owners of maritime tattoos, including Captain Tom Byrne.
Depending on who catches a glimpse of Byrne’s maritime tattoo — a half-sleeve of colorful singing sparrows — many assumptions could arise. A Roman Empire buff would be overcome with empathy, knowing that each rendering represents a deceased child. Students of Portuguese folklore, who believe the birds are harbingers of prosperity, could assume Byrne is a lucky man.
But a Navy woman like Samita Wolfe would know the truth: each of Byrne’s sparrows signifies 5,000 nautical miles traveled, mischief managed and perhaps some pirates encountered along the way.
The sight of Byrne’s tattoos would be reasonable cause for Wolfe to harbor suspicion that she and the Cap’n have something in common. Wolfe has a similar take on the classic sailor’s tattoo: a suitcase with a flag for each country she visited in her tenure etched between its inky edges.
For some, tattoos can serve as visual shorthand for communicating, “Hello, I’m this [insert idiosyncrasy/vocation/obsession]” to strangers. They remind their owners of who they once loved or were, who they aspire to become, or, simply, that memorable night they decided they needed a dermal souvenir.
Stokes Holmes’ first tattoo was just that — administered in a bathroom at a Savannah house party during her high school days. “The man who gave me that tattoo has since passed away,” she shares. “I’m proud to have a piece of his art to immortalize him.”
Today, her skin is an authentic, albeit avant-garde, multi-part story of her joys, losses and curiosities.
I’m not sure exactly how many [tattoos] I have,” she says with a laugh. Two of them represent the ocean: a shark tooth and a whale’s tail that invoke memories of combing her childhood home, Pawleys Island, South Carolina, for treasures with her late father. “I lost my dad when I was 17, and it’s very special I get to carry these memories of him.”
THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER
Sometimes, ink serves no nostalgia but has the equally noble mission of looking awesome. Take Byrne’s other nauti-tat, a full-arm fresco of a Kraken attacking a wooden pirate ship, as proof. Byrne has never encountered a Kraken and, indeed, doubts their existence, but had Brian Warnekros of Ghost Town Tattoo put it on his arm anyway. “I just thought it would be cool to have a cohesive sleeve, and we kept running with it,” he says, showing off his ink as we overlook his current workplace, East Coast Stevedoring Company, where he serves as operations manager.
A tattoo takes a hefty artistic understanding between the tattooist and the collector. The stakes are high when your client is your canvas and their memories your muse. How do you express the nostalgic and nebulous?
For Pat Crump, owner of With Love Tattoo, the answer hangs somewhere between knowing your strengths and having the humility to refer clients to other Savannah artists. “If you know you can do it, do it. If you’re not confident, refer them to another artist who can do it,” says Crump, who recently relocated from a space at Sulfur Studios to a larger building at 1917 Bull St.
He continues candidly, his own maritime tattoo (an anchor that says “Last Voyage” in German on his calf) in full view. “The Savannah community has this weird but great relationship where we share people. Everyone has a little bit of something else to offer.”
Tattoos themselves are also built on weird but great relationships: relationships to the self and, sometimes, the sea, a mind-reading relationship between artist and client, and then there’s what a person’s tattoo tells the world. Where the markings used to signify age or honor in South Pacific villages — today there is no one interpretation, even for the same tattoo.
“How individuals honor Savannah, the sea or themselves with tattoos is so unique. That’s what we want people to take from the exhibit,” Sammons says. “I have loved hearing all the stories and can’t wait to see [the collectors] come together.”
