Celebrate the exhibit Tattoo: Identity Through Ink on July 18 from 5:00-8:00 p.m. with a free community event. Free Admission. Everyone is invited.

Remarks will be at 6:00 p.m. There will be appetizers, wine from the Rowley Family Vineyard, and the last chance to try Valkryie Strike IPA from Toppling Goliath Brewery.

We’ll have a tattoo design contest, so come ready with your own original design, or make one at the event from 5:00-6:00 p.m. Visitors will vote at 6:30 p.m. The winning design will be announced at 7:00 p.m. and will be made into temporary tattoos for sale in the Museum Store.

The exhibition Tattoo: Identity Through Ink is open June 1, 2019 through April 26, 2020, and it tells the story of tattoos and the people who have them. Of course there is a Scandinavian connection–with celebrated artists like Norwegian Johan Frederik Knudsen and Norwegian-American Amund Dietzel, the question of whether or not Vikings had tattoos, and the rise of a whole modern Neo-Nordic style of tattooing. But the exhibition also looks more deeply at the traditions of body ornamentation in other cultures and connections to them.

The guest curator is Lars Krutak, a Research Associate at the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe, New Mexico, is a scholar of body art and has authored four books on the subject of Indigenous body modification. The exhibit is sponsored by Nick and Courtney Rowley with community partners Toppling Goliath Brewing Co. and Brock’s Valhalla Tattoo.

Find out more about the exhibit and other exhibit events here.