Tattoos at Grace
Stella F. ‘27 has the north star on her left wrist, which she shares with the rest of her family. On her right wrist, she has a heart matching her sister’s. “She and I are fraternal twins, but we look nothing alike, so we wanted something that we had in common.”
Fletch K. ‘27 has his grandfather’s glasses tattooed on his left arm along with an A for his name, Ari. “It means everything to me when I wake up,” he said sentimentally. He shares this tattoo with his mother.
Mr. Chan got his Chinese last name tattooed on his left wrist when he turned 30. He notes that he is the only one in his family with a tattoo.
Mr. Loverude has a number of tattoos that are typically visible when he’s teaching or walking around campus. On his right arm, he has a tattoo of the “Pooteeweet” birds from Slaughterhouse Five. “It’s what the novel opens and closes with, and the birds say ‘Pooteeweet’ no matter what,” he explained. Below, the fox is from the design of a coffee cup that broke, which reminds him of Rose.
On Ms. Smith’s left arm, she has a colorful tattoo of a bee and a hive. “I was on the book committee for the Prince Awards, which select the best YA book of the year,” she explained. “That year, the winner was Bone Gap, which featured bees on the cover. So all of us on the committee got different tattoos with bees on it.”
Mr. Romero’s right leg features a lucky koi fish, representing the legend of the koi that jumps up a waterfall to become a dragon. To him, it reminds him that great potential can lie in small places.
Shay S. ‘26 has three tattoos. One of them is an eye with a clock in the iris, which represents looking back to the past. He also has a music sheet, with the first half containing the notes to his father’s favorite song, and the second half, his mother’s. On his collarbone, he also has a tattoo of two guardian angels, which he got after a bad car accident.
Rostam S. ‘26 has a tattoo of his name in Persian. “It’s from a Persian epic called Shahnameh by Ferdowsi, which is one of the most famous Iranian poems,” Rostam said. “When my dad turned 18 he got a tattoo from this epic of his name and then named me after the character, so I got a tattoo of it as well.”
Dr. Gervasio has the most impressive tattoo collection of any member of the Grace community. “A lot of my tattoos are very literary,” she noted, showing us quotes from Sylvia Plath, the imprint that first published The Odyssey, and the gypsy from The Hunchback of Notre Dame. She also has a large tattoo of a shattered Grecian bust, a rainbow sparrow to commemorate her coming out, mementos from her travels, lilies for her grandmother, pandemic voids, homage to her dog, and many tributes to Columbia University.
Caitlin L. ‘27 and Antonia A. ‘27 are staff writers for the Grace Gazette. Photographs taken by Antonia.