Editor's note: Tat-Tuesday is a weekly series that features students around campus and their tattoos.

Sage Hadley

Though senior Sage Hadley’s major is communication sciences and disorders, her passion lies in writing fiction. Her tattoo, a feather quill with the words “Write to Breathe” in Latin, expresses this deeper love.

“Writing has no guarantee of money, but it’s an art form,” Hadley said. “There’s a lot of pictures words can paint and meaning they can bring to things you never realized had meaning before.”

Though simple in design, her tattoo hints at something complex lying beneath the surface.

“Writing is a part of who I am,” Hadley said. “If you get the right words in the right order at the right time, it can be really magical.”

Priyanka Parikh

Viking funerals hold a special meaning to psychology junior Priyanka Parikh and her group of high school friends.

When one of them died of a heroin overdose, they held their own personalized version of a Viking funeral, writing messages to their late friend, folding them into paper boats and lighting the paper boats on fire as they floated down a river.

“All of us wanted this to not just be an event in our life, but something we could look back on,” Parikh said. “It made sense for us to also get a tattoo, because it was a great way to remember his life and what he meant.”

She said this traumatic experience marked her transition to adulthood. It changed her friendships, the way she valued life and her broader perspective.

“I was very reckless in high school, I had that god complex, and everything changed,” Parikh said. “I got more serious, and I started valuing everything in life more.”

Daniel Krasnicki

Sociology junior Daniel Krasnicki’s mother loved the band The Grateful Dead. His childhood home held memorabilia all around the house, so he could not help but learn to admire them as well.

Though she passed when he was 12, Krasnicki decided to honor her memory with a tattoo when he was 20. 

“There’s a ton of imagery associated with the Dead,” Krasnicki said. “This is one of the main ones. This thing was staring me in the face pretty much my entire childhood.”

Krasnicki credits his mother with molding him into the curious, questioning person he is. Their shared love of the band is a microcosm of his mother’s impact on his life. 

“Any time I look at it, I pretty much think of her,” Krasnicki said.