LoveChicago Interview
Chicago TV icon, film actress and musician extraordinaire Mia Park gives the lowdown on her tattoo collection – from the commemorative to straight-up rebellious.
A Lifetime in Ink
Chicago TV icon, film actress and musician extraordinaire Mia Park gives the lowdown on her tattoo collection – from the commemorative to straight-up rebellious.
Perhaps best known as the perky, punky host of public access dance show, “Chic-A-Go-Go,” “Miss” Mia Park is Chicago’s quintessential post-modern renaissance woman. Musician, writer and actor, Park’s eclectic resume includes time spent with local bands Kim, Cats and Jammers, Illinois First!, and the Baltimores, as well as drumming with Tatsu Aoki’s Miyumi Project Big Band.
She is one of the founders of Korean-American performance ensemble Team Do!Boo!, was in "The Lake House" with Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves, has recently been working with local theater group The Anatomy Collective, and is featured in Michael Smith’s film, “The Minx.” She is also the proud owner of an impressive collection of tattoos. Love, Chicago’s Emily Agustin recently spoke with Park about her eclectic collection of ink.
Emily Agustin: How many tattoos do you have?
MP: It’s really easy to think of tattoos as segmented because we want to quantify things, but it’s hard for me to count them that way because they’re so attached. I have 19 … no, 20. I’ve been getting tattoos for 18 years. I started playing drums and getting tattoos the same year.
EA: Do you think those are connected?
MP: Oh, totally! (laughing) I was 19, and figuring out who I am and I was like, “I’m gonna be a rock star, get a tattoo, and play drums,” and those are still things that I do! I kind of crack myself up, because I feel like a sailor … I get tattoos from different countries I’ve been in. To me, it’s commemoration, but it’s also kind of a “weird dude” thing to do. In America, I’ve been tattooed in Arizona, Chicago, Philadelphia, New Orleans, and Austin. Overseas, I’ve gotten them from Thailand, New Zealand, Korea, Hong Kong and Paris. A lot of my tattoos have to do with geography and location.
EA: What originally attracted you to tattoos?
MP: I started getting them as an angry teenager. I’ve always loved music and been kind of artsy, and since I hung out in those circles in Philly – this was in the late ’80s – there were all these tattooed people. Back then it was like “super-freak,” but I was always attracted to it, and their behavior gave me permission to collect my own. It was a way to control my body image and channel youth anger and family issues and all that stuff, and to kind of create more of who I am. Now, I feel like my identity is already established, so I don’t feel like I’m creating more of myself in the tattoos. It’s more of an expression than a creation.
EA: Do you ever find that your tattoos are an obstacle in day-to-day life?
MP: Totally! I’m a union actress, which means that I have to look as normal American as I can, so I have a collection of thin cotton shirts with sleeves. Ninety-five percent of the time I have to cover up my tattoos. I once did an AOL commercial and they loved my tattoos … the director was just like, “Oh
my god, they’re great!” And I’m in the commercial for literally four seconds, and from the shoulders up, so you can’t even see them! But the director thought it was so exciting, he actually cast me because of the tattoos. So it works out in your favor every once in a while. These days, as a musician, it doesn’t matter if you have them or don’t have them, but I want to be able to turn off. I want to be able to look as normal as possible and move in and out of whatever circles I want, inconspicuously. And I think a lot of people are kind of like, “Oh, that’s so not true to the code,” or “You’re not really making the statement,” and I don’t care about that. I mean, it has to do with my income, and I just don’t want to be obvious.
EA: You mentioned “collecting” tattoos. Do you think of your tattoos as a collection?
MP: Definitely! It’s a permanent art collection. On the rare day that I forget earrings or forget to wear my rings, I’m like, I have so much stuff going on that I don’t need anything else. I’m comfortable with my body image now, more so than I’ve ever been, so I don’t feel like I need to push to have any
of that other stuff.
EA: What do you think about the fact that tattooing is so commonplace now?
MP: I’ve seen a lot of tattoos that have a lot of meaning. I think that as long as anyone is getting them to be true to themselves or to tell a story that’s got significance and value to them. In other words, I think it’s fine as long as the tattoos are symbols instead of signs. I would think that so many young people load up so quickly that there are more signs than symbols. I feel a lot of it is fashion, that it’s just the trend, and that’s fine. We all have dumb tattoos (laughs). The tattooing epidemic, so to speak, gives social freedom for other things to open up, and I think it takes a movement to make headway. So the fashion tattoo rock and roll kids are “eh,” but they’re going to give the new generation freedom to express themselves in a new way, and that’s cool.
EA: What do your parents think of your tattoos?
MP: Oh my god, they hate them! My parents are from Korea, man, they hate them!
Mia Park's Tattoos:
(Cat tattoo, inside left calf)
“My first one was this little teeny tiny cat. I was really into rockabilly and I used to breed Manx cats, so that’s a black Manx cat.”
(right bicep – Interconnecting circles, left bicep – circles and an X)
“These are signs that hobos would chalk inside freight cars or scratch in sand in front of people’s homes. The one on the right means ‘don’t give up,’ and the one on the left means ‘safe camp.’”
(Water, right bicep, fire, left bicep)
“I was getting a lot of postage stamp tattoos and I thought that symbolically, I’m at a point in my life where I’m feeling more together and I thought it was about time to tie them together. And aesthetically, they were bothering me! Fire and water are great opposites, and the flames are Tibetan prayer flames.”
(Lotus, left bicep)
“I got this one in Thailand in 1991… I have another lotus on my back. I like the Buddhist idea of the lotus.”
(Flower, inside right calf)
“I was in Paris, and I just said, ‘You know what? I’m in Paris and I want an art deco flower!’”
(Swallow, left bicep/shoulder)
“Sailors would get a swallow for every sea they crossed, so that’s sort of an ode to Americana tattoos. I have another swallow that’s actually a commemorative tattoo for my dog that died.”