Under the Gun: Jordan Hoffart

For this installment of Under the Gun we caught up with skater Jordan Hoffart to have him explain his cool back tattoo with guns, butterflies, moths and more.

An artist friend of mine did this one. I first went to him with another tattoo and I liked what he did. I was like, “Listen, I’m thinking about doing a back piece.” And he was all about it.

I knew I wanted some desert eagles facing away. Kind of like a carbon copy, if you did the butterfly effect. We decided to do a life and death theme. If you see in the handles, there’s a woman and there’s the Grim Reaper facing off.

On one side you can see there’s butterfly’s and bumblebees and the sun rays are coming up. On the other side there’s wasps and moths and the banner is kind of tattered. It’s like straight and good on one side.

The message says “Work out your salvation with fear and trembling.” It’s a biblical quote, but I actually got that from a horror movie. It was on a tombstone of “The Exorcism of Emily Rose.” Basically this chick got possessed and she fought off all the demons inside her. So it was kind of like a battle of good versus evil.

But at the same time, the guns represent the fear. I find when you’re put in those positions of fear, you’re most honest with yourself. When it’s one of those life and death situations, you know. Then the flower in the middle, the chrysanthemum, it symbolizes life. It’s growing and has the sunbeams coming out. There’s the light and the sun is kind of giving birth to all the bumblebees and all the life that’s there. That’s kind of the whole message behind it all.

Check out the last skate Under the Gun with Andrew Pott.