|
||
|
|
||
INKEDblog takes you beneath the skin of today's tattoo culture. Our mission is to celebrate tattooing as a modern art form which incorporates art, fashion, style, and pop culture. While paying homage and respect to the past, we look to present a contemporary take on the present and future of skin art.
Friday Apr 28, 2006
EveryBODY has a Story: Scissors
"Ever since I was a teenager, I liked to cut my friends’ hair. I guess maybe that’s an unusual thing for a straight guy but that’s how it was.
I liked the artistic elements of hair cutting. Like sculpture, I try to look at the haircut inside the hair, and just remove the extra¬– like negative space.
Perhaps there is a sort of power in cutting hair as well, people are trusting you and you are in charge. I don’t know. Whatever it is, I have liked to cut hair for a long time. I started cutting hair professionally about ten years ago. My wife works at a salon as well.
My wife and I have moved a lot in the last few years, exploring different places to live, but I think we want to stay where we are now.
She works at a salon down town, and I work at Bishops on Hawthorne. I enjoy the atmosphere here. No one is stuffy or uptight.
My wife and I have had a dream for a long time to open our own salon. Since we moved so much, we don’t have enough regular clients at the moment. We figure we have to be in the same place for about five years before we have a client base we can count on.
I got this tattoo about ten months ago around the time I decided to stay in Portland. I guess it’s pretty self-explanatory. I’m a hairdresser!"
| Friday Apr 28, 2006
EveryBODY has a Story: Little Paws
"When I was fourteen, I had a terrible time. I went to a rehab center because I was depressed, suicidal, and I was cutting myself.
I’m Native American, and while I was at the center one of the counselors asked if I had received my Native name. I hadn’t, and Little Paws was the one they gave me. I always remember how kind the people there were to me, and how much they helped.
Even though going to the center helped me a lot, I have always struggled with a deep depression. Until I was sixteen, I was still stuck in those patterns and having trouble not being self-destructive.
When I was sixteen, I got pregnant. I knew that this was the turn-around point in my life. That was the moment when I stopped doing all that stuff and decided to change.
My boyfriend is very supportive of me and my baby, and I am an at-home mom now. I am eighteen, and my baby is nine months old. He is already able to walk!
A few weeks ago, I began to feel those old feelings of depression, though. Sometimes it is so strong, I feel like I just can’t deal with reality. This time, I went and got my Native name, ‘Little Paws’, tattooed on my back to remind myself not to go down that path again."
Thursday Apr 27, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: The Fourth of July
"I met my husband more than ten years ago. At the time, he was working in a dental laboratory, and I was a delivery driver.
One day, I was walking out of the building, he was walking in, and he nearly ran right over me! He snarled as he went past, and I decided I didn’t like him very much.
A few months later, they hired me at the dental laboratory in the same department as my future husband- the denture department.
We both had other partners at the time, but we put aside our differences and became friends. After we broke up with our ex’s, we fell in love. A while after that, we decided to get married.
We had kept our relationship pretty quiet, and there was only one other person who actually knew about it. When we told everyone in the office we were getting married, they thought we were joking! It took them awhile, but they believed us in the end.
We decided to get married on the forth of July in Reno. As my husband puts it, when the neighbors see fireworks coming out of the house, they’ll never know if we’re celebrating or fighting!
But when it comes down to it, we’ve only had one dispute during our marriage¬– I like custom coffee, he likes Folgers. We seem to be able to live with that pretty well.
Now, we’ve both retired and we’re snowbirds. We’re up North for the summer, but as soon as it gets cold again, we’ll head back to Arizona. It’s a good life."
Thursday Apr 27, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Féth Less (Faithless)
"I grew up in a religious family. My parents were Christian, born-again evangelicals, and we went to church every Sunday.
Though they were religious, they were pretty moderate in some ways. I had to go to church, but we did not do any other extra-curricular church activity other than Sunday services.
The other kids I hung out with were very religious too. In fact, all the people I hung out with who were my age all went to the same church. At our church, there was a program called ‘Youth with a Mission’, or ‘King’s Kids’.
My friends and I became very involved with this evangelical program. I was about fourteen when I decided to take Christianity much more seriously. I really believed in Christianity, and I felt like it was my ordained duty to help people understand by spreading the word.
The program that we participated in was mostly singing and choreographed dances. We traveled all over the world (Canada, Mexico, Greece, Albania, Spain, and the Philippines) singing Christian rock songs. Most often, we sang in churches, but sometimes we sang in the street or on a boardwalk.
I did not do this in order to travel. I didn’t really get a chance to spend anytime seeing any of the other countries anyway. We were busy with performances all the time. My parents were all right with my evangelicalism, but they did not share it in the same way I did, at all.
I took this all very solemnly until I was about sixteen. At that point, my parents got divorced. After they were divorced, everyone in the church shut them out. These are the people I had known since I was born. The whole thing was disgusting.
A that point, I came to my senses about religion. I guess everyone needs to find their own beliefs at some point outside of their community and their family and that was my time to figure it out for myself. I felt after that, that Christianity was a sham, that I had been manipulated.
All of this sh-t that I had been told about what would happen to me after I died was nonsense. The bible, this book I had thus forth based my entire life on, was simply a book like any other. It was written by people. It did not fall out of the sky one day. And when you consider how many times it’s been translated, it is an even farther stretch of the imagination to believe that any person can say they do exactly as God has requested."
Thursday Apr 27, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: A Portrait of my Parents
"When I was growing up, my parents lived most of the time in Salem. First, my father worked at highline construction, and then trucking.
We moved often. When I was in second grade, I went to six different schools. You might have thought this was hard for me, but you really only know what you know. I remember meeting this girl who had lived in the same house on the same street all her life, and I just couldn’t imagine!
My parents had a very happy marriage. Their secret? They both thought they were the boss of everything, but were polite enough not to tell the other… This seemed to work very well for them as they were married for forty-seven years.
My dad died in the eighties, and my mother died in ’99. I thought for a long time after that about getting a portrait of them tattooed on me.
My son was a body piercer at the time, and when they needed a front person at the shop, I decided to do that part time. While I worked in the tattoo and piercing shop, I was exposed to many different kinds of tattooing. Portraiture was a style that appealed to me especially.
I had a fair number of snapshots of my parents, but I chose this one because they look so happy and young. I was actually two years old at the time and in the picture, but I didn’t want to have a picture myself in the tattoo, so I took that part out.
My parents were in a park in Salem in this picture and I’m not sure who took the picture, maybe one of my grandparents but I was too young to remember. I am an only child, so there were no other siblings in it either."
Wednesday Apr 26, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Philippine Beauty
In the 80’s, I was in the Navy, stationed in the Philippines. We worked our asses off during the day, but it was like a regular job, you know? When we were off work, we were OFF.
The port we were stationed at was kinda set up for us Navy guys. It was actually a boardwalk comprised of a mile and a half of bars. At the time, the dollar exchange was really good, too. So everything was cheap as hell.
All the guys would get off the ship, and go tearing into any one of the hundreds of bars the port had to choose from, but I had a different craving…
There was a tattoo shop in the middle of the strip. That’s where I went first. It was a funny place. With the dollar exchange the way it was, the tattoo guy made more money than most of the other guys working the boardwalk.
The owner was a real little dude, named Orlie. He was a hell of a tattoo artist, and sort of a celebrity around town, too. He had this huge bodyguard who stood in the doorway of his shop, and Orlie left piles of cash out on the counter, just to let people know business was good.
Business was good- my business that is… I went in there all the time, just couldn’t get enough. It wasn’t anything like it is now in the states– all Orlie did to sterilize stuff was pour a bunch of grain alcohol over your back, but it worked for me. This is one of my favorite tattoos ever. I swear, hanging in that shop, on that boardwalk, at that time with those guys was like a fantasy Disney land for guys. I don’t think I’ll ever have it so lush again."
Wednesday Apr 26, 2006
Every BODY has a Story: Lyle Tuttle’s Signature
Well I met Lyle Tuttle maybe thirty-five years ago, give or take a few. I used to sneak into his shop as a kid and watch him work ‘til he kicked me out.
Lyle is probably one of the most famous and influential tattoo artists in the world. He’s the guy most people think started this whole tattooing craze. In the sixties, when he started, tattooing was a dying art. There was even talk about banning it for safety reasons! He’s tattooed everyone from Janis Joplin to Cher and in the process turned tattooing back into the art it’s meant to be.
Lyle even worked with the health department to standardize all the sterilization techniques, making tattooing safe and available for everyone.
A couple of months ago, I was doing a video on single needle tattooing. Single needle tattooing makes for a kinda textured shading, and I built some of these machines to bring to this convention.
When I saw Lyle there, I asked him about single needle shading. He said he had never done it before. I asked him if he wanted to give it a try and he gave me this signature in my arm. When he was done, he asked if I wanted to do a little piece on him. He had a rose on him, and I decided to add another tiny black rose in the center.
The guy’s in his seventies now, but what a life!
Tuesday Apr 25, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Happy Birthday Pegasus!
"When I first moved to town, I wanted to work in a tattoo shop very badly. Everyone I talked to told me that Raven Tattoo was the best, so that’s where I decided to go. I had some sketches and I had designed my own tattoo in the past, but it’s very hard to get people to take you on as an apprentice.
I became friends with a woman named Tomma who was incredibly nice. She worked at Raven, and was very supportive of me. I started working at Raven in the front beginning in January. If all goes well, I will begin my apprenticeship soon. After I worked there a few weeks, it was my birthday. The owner of the shop, Wade, told me he would give me a tattoo for my present.
I drew out a tiny, little Pegasus and Aquarius sign and gave it to him. He laughed when he saw it. “We don’t do little tattoos on our staff!”
He drew up this tattoo which looked HUGE to me when I saw it. I was very nervous before I had it done. When I was a kid I did a lot of sports and skateboarded and I used to get terrible calf craps. I associated that part of myself with discomfort. I loved the design though, and as I debated, Tomma encouraged me. “It’s going to look great!” she said.
And it did! I love it. It didn’t actually hurt like I thought it would at all. The picture represents my astrological sign, Aquarius (the Water Bearer) and the Pegasus represents my constellation, which is Equuleus. Equuleus was the brother of Pegasus. The snowflakes are there to symbolize my birth in Minnesota. As soon as we have the time I will have it filled in, but business is never slow!"
Tuesday Apr 25, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: The Phoenix
I grew up in Phoenix, Arizona living most of the time with my mother. It was not an easy living situation. In addition to the rest of our complicated life, my mother had issues with drug addiction.
My father and my stepmother were great though. Unfortunately, I only saw them on weekends because they lived in a small town away from Phoenix.
I had always wanted to get a tattoo, but it seemed that the road to getting a tattoo was a bumpy one. I remember when I was thirteen, I always drew. I drew all over the arms of friends at school and it was then that it first occurred to me that I wanted to draw tattoos for a living and get a tattoo as soon as possible. When I told my mother this she said that tattoos were for bikers and bad elements and they were bad news all together. She said all sorts of negative sh-t. My dad and stepmother were far more interested, however, in my future plans.
Two weeks before the end of high school, things came to a head. My boyfriend had friends and family in Portland who we could live with and he asked me if I wanted to come. I decided that I did though it meant not getting my high school diploma.
My father and stepmother were ok with it as well, and my boyfriend and I moved there together five years ago. We are still together and after we arrived I got my GED and entered community college.
I had not forgotten that I wanted a tattoo though, I asked around and found a guy who had a home tattoo operation. I got the tattoo, then came back to him to have it colored in. After the first time, I knew it wasn’t going well. The tattoo he had done looked nothing like my drawing. After I came back for the color, it was even worse! Not only did he do a terrible job, I heard later that he did not have an autoclave either.
I was lucky that I didn’t get an infection, but I ended up going to a much better artist afterwards who fixed the tattoo up much better.
The tattoo ironically enough is a phoenix. I always say “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”. I’m not dead yet, and this tattoo is still here with me, a tribute to the struggles I have gone through and the strength they have given me."
Monday Apr 24, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Hindi Ohm
"In November, I started my apprenticeship as a tattoo artist. I have always been an artist, but this medium is a new beginning for me. This is the first tattoo I did for myself (both the drawing and the actual tattooing). I did it very recently, just a few weeks ago. I mixed all the colors myself and am happy with the result.
This symbol of Ohm is the traditional symbol or glyph for the god Shiva, in the Hindu religion. Though some think of Ohm as a Buddhist element, Buddhism actually originated from Hinduism.
Shiva is the destroyer who tears down in order to be able to rebuild. With his many arms, he is also called the dancing god. When he lands on one foot, there is destruction. When Shiva lands on the other, there is creation. Whichever foot he lands on, the dance of life continues.
This glyph is very much simplified compared to some of its other forms in order to make the best image for a tattoo. I have a Buddhist image on my other leg, and this symbol of Shiva balances the Buddhist beliefs of detachment with its dynamic energy. Though this is a static image, it represents powerful and energetic life forces."
Monday Apr 24, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: The Hand of Buddha
"On my fortieth birthday, I decided to get a tattoo as a rite of passage. For me, tattoos are markers of time and change, and this was a moment I wanted to remember.
I was deeply involved in Buddhist culture at the time, and had planned on going to Tibet, Nepal and India the following year.
This image is an iconic image of the hand of the Buddha. It is not a Mudra (or symbolic hand gesture) like many of the images of Buddha’s hands. It is a more generalized vision of Buddha and Buddhism.
The symbol on the Buddha’s hand is the Wheel of Dharma. The Wheel of Dharma represents the endless cycle of birth, life and death.
For me, the tattoo reminds me of the teachings of Buddhism. Life is about suffering, but we create the suffering ourselves through our attachment to the world. This is a reminder to relinquish the world of desires and participate joyfully in life.
I drew out this tattoo myself and had another artist tattoo the image. The artist I chose was a very traditional tattoo artist. I wanted very brilliant colors that needed to be mixed (as one would with a paint palate) to be achieved. The artist believed that the colors should only be used from the original bottles, and did not want to use the colors I had selected.
After I got the tattoo, I made some changes. I got the black outline later because it was hard to see that the hand was touching the flower before that. I like it much better now, but I intend on doing more work on the piece."
Monday Apr 24, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: The Virgin of Guadalupe
"My husband came home one day in 1998, and said he was done with our marriage and was leaving me forever. It came as a complete surprise. I noticed that he had seemed unhappy for about a year before that and I kept asking him what was wrong. He would come up with one thing or another but never mentioned our relationship.
While we were separated and in the process of divorce, I felt deeply that I needed to regain some of the personal power I felt before the split. This divorce had made me feel vulnerable and powerless and I needed to make a tangible image to counteract the loss.
I am an artist of many mediums, and at the time, I was making jewelry. I was working almost exclusively with iconic Mexican imagery. There is a Mexican card game called Lotteria that contains images such as La Sirena (a mermaid), The Devil, and other images.
For the jewelry, I took these images and put them under glass, encircled them with silver, and surrounded them with stones. I also became very interest in the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe.
The Virgin of Guadalupe is the patron saint for the downtrodden. She represents the struggle against the oppression of the Spaniards and female power in general.
I had always loved this image, but I then became interested in getting it as tattoo. I had never had a tattoo before, and I researched my artist for a long time before I decided which artist to choose. Since I am an artist, the craftsmanship of the tattoo was very important to me.
I went through many portfolios, and selected an artist named Louie. He had a stencil of the image but he did most of the work freehand. All aspects of this image are meaningful from the stars on her mantle (representing the heavens) to the angel at her feet holding the moon.
At a time when I desperately needed more power in my life, the Virgin of Guadalupe appeared on my own skin as a reminder of the mystery and strength of women."
Friday Apr 21, 2006
Every Body Has a Story: My Heart Breaking Kidney
I got this tattoo in 2004, two years ago, and seven or eight months after I was diagnosed with kidney disease.
It was such a surprise, becoming so sick. I have always been so healthy! I had just opened a store, I was married, it felt like the beginning of everything good when the bottom dropped out.
This tattoo is anatomically correct, your veins and your arteries run along your spine right there. In place of my kidneys, however, I have broken hearts.
I suppose I went through all of the other emotions as well- anger, shock, denial, but after I worked through a lot of these feelings, the one I was left with was brokenheartedness.
I had always been a carefree person. I really prided myself on that, in fact. I was able to take life lightly and I had always seen this as an intrinsic part of who I was. Part of this confidence was created by my faith in my body and my spirit of optimism.
In some ways, that carefree person will never exist again. Now, I need to always be careful, to think before I act, to limit myself. It has gotten easier, but at first I felt like I was losing track of who I was.
I went to go visit my family in San Antonio. While I was there, I saw a dear friend of mine, Terry Brown. I had known him since I was about nineteen and he was a tattoo artist. The fact that a friend did this tattoo means a lot to me.
Since then, I got a kidney transplant from my brother. Everything is going much better but he did have one request- do not do anything that could possibly strain my health. Because of this request, this tattoo is the last I will ever receive."
Friday Apr 21, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Della the Brave
“I was born in Kingman, AZ which is a really small town in a beautiful but desolate area. When I go back to visit, people always say about me- “Tomma’s the one who moved to the city and got pink hair…”
But people from my town have known me my whole life. In fact, most of the town has known my whole family their entire lives! I think people know I am still the person they remember, though my great-grandmother (Veda) always said that I was more like Della than anyone else.
Della was my great-great grandmother. She was part of the Neal family that actually settled this town in Arizona. Hard to imagine what a fierce life it must have been at that time.
Della had five or six brothers and she was the only girl in the family. You’d think she would have played it up and gotten her brothers to take care of her- but not Della. She was known far and wide for her fierce spirit, her independence, and her sometimes hilarious eccentricity.
I was the first of my family to ever leave Kingman. When I was around 18, after I had moved away, I was in a tattoo studio. There on the wall was a strangely familiar piece of flash. It looked almost exactly like the tattoo I have now- it even said “Della”!
It was such an odd coincidence that I started looking for old pictures of Della to make a custom one for myself. I ended up finding a picture of Della wearing the same scarf as was in the tattoo flash. I put the Veda tattoo on Della’s arm because she loved her daughter so much, and I bet if she were alive today, that’s what she would have done."
Friday Apr 21, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Classic Nurse
"There was a tattoo artist from forever ago named Stoney Sinclair. I think he was tattooing in the thirties or forties. As the story goes, he was a paraplegic and a tattoo teacher.
Though that sounds engaging, he was actually a historically terrible tattoo artist. You can still see his flash around, and it has a beautiful stylized feeling, but it is very raw.
I decided to get a tattoo and the tattoo artist was a friend of mine. He was a very educated guy. He would tell me about history, stories, books; you name it, he knew about it.
I pretty much let him do the tattoos that he wanted because he came u with really interesting stuff. When he told me about Stoney Sinclair, I was captivated. We decided that it would be cool for him to redraw some of Stoney Sinclair’s flash and adapt it for one of my tattoos.
I looked through a bunch of Stoney’s work, and settled on the nurse. I like this iconic image because it makes me think about a sort of perfect past. She reminds me of the nurses from World War 2 who took such chances to care for the soldiers.
I like the image of the nurturing woman; it feels nostalgic to me."
Thursday Apr 20, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Sleepwalk
When I was sixteen, all my friends and I worked at sh--ty jobs so we’d have enough money to go to motels on the weekends to hang out. We were very selective: we would only go to a certain style of motel- old ones that had palm trees in front of them.
At the time, we were all into dark romance. We watched Natural Born Killers, True Romance, and any other shoot em up dark-love movies we could find.
Generally, we all listened to punk music, but when we were in the motel this time, we were listening to the oldies station, and heard the song Sleepwalk, by Santos and Johnny. We loved that tune. I still love it actually. It was the opening tune from the movie La Bamba, and there is this darkness in it that suits that time of my life perfectly. A lot of bands have covered it; even Modest Mouse has a version.
We recorded Sleepwalk off of the radio that night in the motel and after that, we put it on repeat forever.
A few years later I was thinking about that time in the motels, and how I always wanted to remember what that feeling felt like. I was twenty at the time and thinking about a friend.
I walked to a tattoo studio directly after that, and got this done."
Thursday Apr 20, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Busty Mermaid
"Ever since I was a kid, I wanted a tattoo. I wasn’t sure what exactly, but I remember going to skate shops with my older brother and seeing the guys with sleeves and thinking that was what I wanted to look like someday.
I knew I would get one sometime, but the time came the night before I left to go live in Germany. I was twenty years old. Since I was leaving, my friends and I were having a party all night. By four in the morning, all the bars were closed, what to do?
We decided that I should get a tattoo but I couldn’t go to my friend’s house (who was the tat artist) to do it because his wife was asleep. Instead, we went to his tattoo studio and partied there for a while.
Against all tattoo advice, my friend and I were both completely wasted when I came time for the tattoo. They were handing me all these books to look at, and I didn’t know which thing to choose. They were all trying to get me to get a skull with butterfly wings. No way in this lifetime.
I flipped through the book some more and found this mermaid. It cracked us up all up, because there aren’t that many women with tattoos like that. We finished the tattoo and I passed out. When I woke up I felt the bandage on my leg and couldn’t remember what had happened. I pulled it off, and found the mermaid. F—kin’ awesome. Exactly what I wanted."
Thursday Apr 20, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Cassiopeia the Star
"This is Cassiopeia. She and her husband Cepheus were the king and queen of Ethiopia. Cassiopeia and her daughter Andromeda were incredibly beautiful. Though she knew better, queen Cassiopeia bragged that she and her daughter were more beautiful than the goddesses of the sea, the Nereids.
Outraged, the sea goddesses asked Poseidon to intervene and he sent a flood and a sea monster to punish her.
An oracle advised the king and queen to sacrifice their daughter, Andromeda to the sea monster to get rid of the curse but luckily, Perseus (son of Zeus) saw Andromeda tied o a rock. When he saw how beautiful she was, he told her parents that he would save her if she could marry him.
Andromeda was happy with this, but her vain mother still interfered. She sent armed troops to the wedding to break it up. Perseus was furious and turned all the guests to stone, and Zeus decided to punish the queen for ever- the queen of vanity was hung in the sky in her chair, but upside down as a humiliated constellation.
Personally, I think she’s hot.
I always liked this constellation because it’s easy to find in the Northwest. It’s the ‘W’ located next to the Big Dipper.
Though I didn’t know the stories until recently, I have always been interested in the shapes and placement of the constellations. When I was ten, my friends and I discovered this constellation. We each choose a star and we thought that if we looked at our stars at the same time, even if we were in different cities, we could talk to each other.
We’re still friends, and though I am the only one with the drawn out myth, each of my other friends has a set of three tattooed stars."
Wednesday Apr 19, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Upside Down Cross
"I got this cross recently, but it is something I have thought about a lot. I guess I’ve always been sacrilegious, not anti-Christian by any means, but angry and disgusted with organized religion.
When I was young, my parents were Mormon. They weren’t really practicing Mormons, just in name. My grandparents were very religious, and I remember my grandmother being involved especially.
After my parents decided that they were not Mormons, they sent me to Catholic school for a few years. There was never any discussion about God or Christianity. Before my mother died, she was a drug addict and my step dad was working all the time trying to support us, so I guess they just didn’t have the time.
After my mom died, I lived with my grandmother for a while. The ridiculousness of religion was apparent to me even at that age. I think I actually hate Christianity in its organization.
I am a very spiritual person though, and I take my spirituality very seriously, but the hypocrisy in the church makes it hard to take them seriously.
As for the upside down cross, there are a couple of things to say about that. First, yeah, it is meant to be somewhat disrespectful, but a symbol should not hold that sort of meaning in the first place! Secondly, the upside down cross did not always mean what it means to day. These symbols shift their meaning at different times.
An Arch Cardinal who was sentenced to death by crucifixion requested to be crucified upside down as a symbol of hi devotion to Jesus. He felt he wasn’t holy enough to die in the same manner as the lord. After his death, the upside down cross was a symbol of intense devotion."
Wednesday Apr 19, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Viva La Revoluciøn
"I got the lettering for this tattoo about a month ago, but the gun and the knife were added last week. Originally, I was thinking about getting some Hate Breed lyrics, but too many people have lyrics tattooed these days.
Viva La Revolucion was an expression first coined by Simon Bolivia. He successfully fought off Cortez from some of the remaining parts of South America with an organized rebellion. Later, the expression was famously used by Che during the Cuban revolution.
Revolution is something I can relate to. I am positive that there will be an American Revolution in the next twenty years, and I want to do everything I can to support it. I am not pro-violence, but I think that sometimes violence is the only thing that people understand. If there could be a bloodless revolution, I would be all for it, but that’s just not going to happen.
I am not a Communist, though I subscribe to some of Marx’s beliefs. I am somewhere between a Socialist and a Libertarian but the critical issue I see in this country is equality. True equality. Capitalism makes this impossible. The biggest issue in this county is not racism, it’s classism. Capitalism is taking over, using the bodies of the poor as fodder for its ovens.
In order for this to take place, there will need to be a series of spontaneous events. Events of this nature are happening with more frequency due to the US’s policy of unilateral politics provoking violent reactions worldwide.
I would like for protests to work, but I do not think that they do. The revolution must live."
Wednesday Apr 19, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: No Regrets
"Underground music culture has had a major influence on my development as a person. I first started listening to underground when I was a younger teen. Though there weren’t many other straight edge kids in my area then, I got very interested in straight edge at that point. I had never been a big party kid to begin with, and the straight edge movement makes sense to me.
At the time I got this tattoo I was listening to a lot of Buried Alive, and Stay Gold which are old-school hardcore bands, influenced by Minor Threat. I also listened to a lot of Prayer for Cleansing, which was more of a Metal Core band.
I decided to get this tattoo a week before I got it. I was fifteen at the time, and hadn’t spent a long time thinking about getting a tattoo, or planning out the design. I am the kind of person who when I want to do something, I go do it.
I asked around to find someone who would give me the tattoo. I ended up finding this kid who was actually younger than me at the time. He was fifteen, too. Though he was pretty new to tattooing, he was very careful about keeping everything clean and he did a nice job. I think it was one of the first tattoos he had ever done. I found out later that he had also done one for his step dad.
His step dad and mom actually walked in while this kid was doing the tattoo. They told me they though it looked good. I guess they were potheads or something. The irony doesn’t escape me: I got a straight edge tat from potheads, but I guess it’s how you feel about the tat more than who does it.
A lot of people tell me that I’m wasting my youth not partying, like I’m limiting my choices. F—k that. I have no regrets about my life."
Tuesday Apr 18, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Goodbye Cruel World
"I got this tattoo really recently, just this last October. It’s my first tattoo. My wife has a number of tattoos, but I hadn’t known exactly what I was going to get before then. I didn’t want an image that was steeped in too much meaning.
This image is from a sign I got at this weird little shop in San Antonio, called Elbie’s. Elbie’s is a sort of magic/joke/kitsch store. I think it may be a front for organized crime or something because nobody is ever in there and they have tons of employees on computers all day.
I think it’s probably the best place in Texas. All the things on the shelves are from the sixties and before, most in their original wrapping.
This tattoo is based on the sign I bought there with a similar design. I found out later that there are a ton of these items with the same theme, a kind of satirical look at the old whiner. This image reminds me of all those old semi-dirty bathroom joke books I had when I was a kid, or Mad Magazine, it’s not all that funny, but engaging in any case.
Since my wife was diagnosed with kidney disease, I have decided to do a lot of things for the hell of it. This tattoo was given to me by my good friend and mostly, I just wanted a tattoo from him rather than a specific image. My wife and I share a dark sense of humor, and we both thought this was hilarious.
Now that I have a tattoo though, I have a ton of other ideas of new ones… Anyone out there have old copies of Mad?"
Tuesday Apr 18, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Fly Bird, Fly
"I got both of these birds tattooed at the same time about ten years ago. It was before I met my husband or opened my vegan shop, Food Fight. At that point, I worked in a video store.
There was a guy that came in regularly to the store and he became a friend of mine. He was a tattoo artist. I would give him deals on the movies, and he told me he would give me a tattoo for a reduced rate. I had never had a tattoo before, and he charged me forty dollars for these birds.
All through my childhood, I loved birds, especially the sparrows. Sometimes it seems like no one even notices them, but they are so sweet and present.
When I was deciding what to get as a tattoo, I thought about the movie, Dogfight. In the film, the character of River Phoenix has a tattoo of a bird on his hand and when he moves his thumb, it makes the bird look as if it’s flying.
Movies often make strong impressions on me, and I liked that idea with the bird. I liked the image, too. I was and am more interested in images than the meanings behind them. I asked my friend to draw me an old style bird, a swallow. Since then, I have had other swallows tattooed on my arms. It remains a beautiful image to me."
Monday Apr 17, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Geisha Girl
"When my life is feeling kind of screwed up, I don’t go to a shrink or anything. I go to Adam at Painless Tattoo.
Adam is the guy who’s been doing my tattoos for years now. After the first couple, we really started to become friends. After a few more, the guy knew me as well as anyone knows me!
I come in, tell Adam what’s been going on, and we work out a design. He does a lot of his own ideas, but he riffs on what I tell him about my life. I don’t always have the cash I need to get the designs I want, and sometimes he trades me stuff for tats too. Last tattoo I got I traded a cell phone for part of it.
I started this tattoo in November. It’s taking me a while to finish, but I just got some shading done a couple of weeks ago. When I was trying to figure out this design I came in and talked to Adam about what had been going on in my life. It wasn’t pretty. I was totally pissed at the girl I was seeing at the time and actually, we broke up shortly after.
Adam and I were talking about different designs, and I wanted something Japanese. We figured on the Geisha girl. The arrows are definitely some therapy for me, but the image is nothing but beautiful."
Monday Apr 17, 2006
EveryBODY has a Story: A Salute to the Marines
"I joined the Marine reserves about a year and a couple of months ago. I decided to join for a lot of reasons. For one thing, they give you money for college and after I got out of high school, I wasn’t exactly sure what I wanted to do. I was definitely not sure if I wanted to get into a lot of debt paying for school myself.
The reserves are a six-year commitment. The first year it’s almost full time while you are in training, and the rest of the time it’s a week out of every month. For me, more than the opportunities for education and other benefits, I wanted to join to test myself. In a way it was for the hell of it, but in another way I wanted a big enough challenge to tackle head-on.
I got this tattoo a month after I joined. I realized that I was committed to what I was doing, and proud to do it. This tattoo is the Marines symbol with the flag of Japan. The flag and the rifle in the ground are in honor of my grandfather and my great-grandfather.
You see, I am not the first member of the Marines in my family. My great-grand father served in WW1, and died on the battlefield. The traditional Marine’s funeral is the rifle stuck on the ground, with the helmet on top. That part of the tattoo is for him. The red sun is for my grandfather who served in WW2 in Japan.
Since starting in the reserves, I have had a difficult time working other jobs. When I sit answering a phone all day, it kills me when I think I could be jumping out of an airplane, or riding through the desert or something.
If you asked me what I thought about that stuff when I was doing it, I would probably be bitching and moaning. You just gotta love to hate the Marines, you know? I’m going to Cuba in a couple of weeks and I was going to start school after I came back to become an emergency medical tech. But I just got a bunch of sunscreen and volunteered to go to Iraq. I’m waiting on school and getting in line to serve my country."
Monday Apr 17, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Japanese Demon
"I grew up in Portland, Oregon and did my tattoo apprenticeship there at Alternative Tattoo. One day a friend of mine called saying he had gotten a job at Avalon studio in San Diego. I decided to come along.
This was about eight years ago. Avalon did good work. While a lot of the people working there specialized in Old School tats, sparrows, cherries, pin-up girls and the like, one of the guys, Bill Canales, did almost exclusively Japanese style body art.
I loved this guy’s style. It was a little like Philip Leu, from Switzerland. Japanese, but with a twist. I’m not exactly sure how to explain the twist, maybe more modern, or urban. It’s a really striking style.
These tattoos are much more about art on the body rather than discrete images on that happen to be on the skin. As I became interested in this style, I realized it was most popular with tattoo artists, rather than clients. The clients were generally much more interested in Old School.
It seemed like the San Diego tattoo scene was a lot more vibrant than in Portland, but I guess it depends on where you are in the city. It seemed like a lot more people had full sleeves though, in San Diego as compared with Portland. Maybe tattoo culture is taking a little longer to sink in here.
Though I liked working at the shop, I missed Oregon. I don’t even mind the rain anymore! After I worked there for about two years, I decided to move back and open Pussycat Tattoo, my own shop outside of Portland.
Before I left San Diego, I wanted a souvenir of Bill’s work. Though he had lots of different subjects to choose from (like Koi, dragons, etc), I particularly liked his demons. This remains my favorite tattoo."
Thursday Apr 13, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Lights in the Night
"I got this tattoo when I was sixteen. I really wanted a tattoo, but I wasn’t sure exactly what I wanted to get. I knew that I wanted it over my hip, though.
My parents didn’t like my boyfriend at the time. His dad was really kind of a bad guy. He was in and out of jail, and drunk all the time. I guess he hit my boyfriend too, things like that. When I asked my boyfriend where I could get a tattoo, he said he would ask his dad. Even though I didn’t like him that much, I could always sort of do what I wanted around him. He was pretty checked out.
The dad had this friend who was a tattooist from out of state. She had her license in California, but not in our state. She needed the business I guess, because she couldn’t work here until she got the license.
My boyfriend’s dad said for fifty bucks, she would tattoo me at her house. I gave him the fifty bucks, and went over there. I choose the design out of a bunch of flash she brought with her from California. Unfortunately, I had a terrible cold. I was going to have the whole thing done at the same time, but I started feeling sick. I’ll never forget getting it though- it tickled like crazy!
The woman stopped for the night, and I was going to have her finish it up later, but I never got the chance.
I kept the tattoo hidden from my parents until I was eighteen. When my mom saw it, she liked it! She was annoyed that I hadn’t showed it to her before. My dad however, was somewhat pissed…
Now, I have decided to modify it. I am twenty, and I was married for a short time and then separated. My husband and I are in the process of reconciling, and I want this tattoo to reflect that.
I am going to fill in the stars and moon, and add a banner that says “New Beginnings”. I think sometimes you have to complete the old, before starting over again."
Thursday Apr 13, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: My Cherries
"I got these cherry tattoos in 2003. I knew that I wanted something on my chest with that placement. A lot of people that I knew at the time were getting Old School blue bird tattoos with a similar placement, and I knew I didn’t want to do that.
At the time, I had been getting a lot of tattoos. I was having some work done about every month. Right before I was about to go in to get the cherry tattoos, I was having lunch with some friends.
One of my friends said that since the tattoo was on my chest, I needed some sort of sexy detail to go along with the cherries.
We thought about it for a while, and batted some different options around. We came up with one that I still think is great- a small piece of ribbon tying each of the two sets of cherries together at the top. This gives the cherries a uniqueness that they would not have without it.
I got the tattoo done at Tiger Lilly by Matt Reed. I go to him for most of my work. He works slowly and carefully with real attention to detail. The tattoos hurt in that spot, and the second hurt a lot more than the first. Compared to an arm tattoo, it was pretty painful.
I got them both done in one session, however. I think it took about three hours to complete."
Tuesday Apr 11, 2006
"Seen At The Clubs" - Photos by Mark The Cobrasnake
More from Mark here.
Tuesday Apr 11, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Triangle
"I have a lot of tattoos but I can’t really think of a story for most of them. They’re really beautiful, and I’ve had a lot of them photographed at conventions and other places, but mostly because my husband is a tattoo artist.
I think he’s the one who usually has all the stories. He’s a great talker, and I feel shy a lot. When I think about it though, the tattoo that has the most story for me is this little triangle. People don’t usually notice it because it’s next to the gorgeous flower, but it’s there, right on the edge.
I got that tattoo when I was fourteen. My best friend and I had talked about giving each other tattoos for a long time, and how we would do it.
We were with four other girls, staying up all night. There was probably some partying involved, but we all decided to give each other tattoos. At that time, there weren’t very many people who had them. No one else in my family had ever had a tattoo. I guess we were pretty wild.
I was a huge Pink Floyd fan; I had albums of theirs that people probably wouldn’t even remember now. When we decided what we wanted to get, I chose a triangle partly because of that album cover, and partly because the triangle is the symbol for the fire sign. Another girl got the symbol for Taurus, and another got a spiral. Everyone chose something different. All of us though, got six dots to represent the six of us there that night.
I had the six dots covered up by another tattoo, but I still have the triangle. My best friend really went her own way in life, I have lost touch with her, and though I don’t know those women anymore, I certainly won’t ever forget the story."
Tuesday Apr 11, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Flowering Vine
"I got my tattoo from this guy, Greg, who taught me how to tattoo. Actually, he didn’t teach me a whole lot, but I learned the basics from him.
Many people get tattoos on their wrists from the people who first teach them how to tattoo and I think it’s for a combination of reasons. First, the wrist is a very visible spot. When you decide to be a professional tattoo artist, you generally want to have your craft visible and prominent. The wrist is also a painful spot to be tattooed. I think the pain of tattooing is important, because you are committing to this image on your skin. A wrist tattoo is part of that commitment.
At that time, we were working out of Greg’s house in Las Vegas. Greg was a talented artist. The problem was that he made the whole process look easy without giving much direction. He could have been a great tattoo artist, but something happened to his focus. Within two years of working together, Greg had completely lost interest in tattooing.
It might have been that his wife wasn’t very into his profession, and it might have been that he was simply bored, but when he started to lose interest, it went fast.
He gave me this tattoo within a couple of months of when I started and though I am also a painter, I have continued to be a tattoo artist since that point.
Now I work at Atomic Art Studio. All of the people who work there are also artists of different mediums as well as artists of ink. Sometimes we do very intense tattoos for people, and the pain of permanent inscription far outweighs the physical pain.
One of the most intense times was when I tattooed an entire family during the weekend of another family member’s funeral. The whole family got the same tattoo that the guy who died had had. That was an emotional session."
Tuesday Apr 11, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: The End of the Line
"This is the first tattoo I ever got and I got it when I was nineteen. I didn’t want to get something little, I wanted a large image if I was going to tattoo something. I wasn’t going halfway.
I started thinking about getting a tat when I was seventeen and my dad was sick. My dad had cancer, and though I never told him about the tattoo, in the time before he died, I started to imagine the design I wanted. When I think about this image, I think, this is the tattoo of a sad, sensitive, artistic kid…
Now I think it’s excessively busy. When I think about tattooing now, I think it’s important to have clean lines, and easily identifiable material just for the benefit of not having to explain what the tattoo is all the time.
A friend of mine from that time used to draw skateboard graphics and he wasn’t using one of the images. I liked it a lot, and he modified the image for me into this tattoo. There’s a lot going on here, but you can see a sad face and other faces interwoven in a psychedelic style across the tattoo.
After I got the image, it took me a long time to find the right place to have it inked on. I had to wait until I was eighteen to get the tattoo, but I waited an additional year until I found the right artist.
On the East Coast at that time some of the straightedge sXe kids, had morphed into Krishnas. A kid I had known for a long time fell into that category and I knew a lot of the Krishna kids that way. They were all getting crazy Krishna tattoos at that time, and they really knew the places to go to get good work done.
I found my artist, Lance Talon, at Boulder Ink in Boulder, CO. Two days after I got the tattoo, I left town with a friend to ride freight trains. "
Monday Apr 10, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: The Castle
"I have a few tattoos that I like to think of as having a fantasy theme. This is probably the one that started it all. At some point, I would like to have the water from the waterfall go down my leg, or perhaps to color it in.
I love this image; it’s like a fairy tale castle on the edge of a cliff. You just know it won’t fall over and everything will end up perfectly. This is where I would like to live if I were a fairy princess.
Probably most people would like to be able to push the dark and scary parts of their life away and have the beautiful, sweet and perfect parts close to them, but that’s rarely the case.
I guess I have not had the easiest life. I was abused as a child and so were my children. I was abandoned eight months pregnant; I’ve almost died several times. I have had terrible health problems; my husband has had numerous strokes that have affected him neurological as well as other ways. But the thing is, life is just like that for some people. Most people, probably.
I like to remember the sweet parts, the magical parts, and fill in the rest with my imagination if I have too."
Monday Apr 10, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Single Needle Peacock
"I got this peacock a few years ago, and for me it symbolizes the beauty I would like to see on the outside of the world, not just on the inside of people.
But other than the tattoo’s personal meaning for me, there’s quite a story to its composition…
I got this tattoo from Lyon, and it’s a single needle tattoo. This style was first used in a way in San Quentin prison. I know, because Lyon was there.
A pretty long time ago now, Lyon was dating the daughter of a police officer. Some people he knew shot a gun into a house. Why? We’ll probably never know, but suffice it to say, no one was injured and he wasn’t involved.
No one in the situation including the shooters were ever arrested, but the father of the girl Lyon was seeing was furious. He used all his influence to get him booked, and sent down the river (so to speak).
He got twelve years for a crime that he didn’t even do. After a couple of months, another inmate told him that if he wanted to escape, it would take a full year. For an entire year, everything you did had to be about escape. If you lift weights, it’s because you’re keeping strong for the break out. If you’re walking through the yard, make maps in your head and listen to all the conversations around you. Nothing is unimportant.
After eighteen months, he escaped in a complex plan involving forged ID’s disguises, and multiple car switches. Lyon was free for about eight years before he was picked up and sent to San Quentin.
While in the pen, Lyon discovered single line tattooing. He was there for about two more years and then released.
Recently Lyon has been working on a video about single line tattooing. This style is not know for its beauty, but it can be staggeringly beautiful when done correctly.
My peacock is certainly more than just a pretty picture…"
Friday Apr 07, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Two Dragons
"I guess I’ve been obsessed with dragons since I was a little kid. Dragons, Martial Arts and tattoos, though not necessarily in that order. I actually remember the first time I realized I wanted a dragon tattoo. I was about four, I was living in Michigan, and I was watching TV.
Kung Fu theatre was my very favorite show and it was on. I remember exactly what it looked like– it was one of those weekly specials. The grass in the show was some kind of astro-turf. The Ninjas would appear in these lame puffs of smoke, and the astro-turf would flip back and forth so you could tell it was fake.
I loved every second.
All of the Ninja guys in the show had full sleeves of dragon tattoos and it was at this moment that I decided to become a dragon covered Ninja when I grew up. It kind of happened too! I have black belts in a few different disciplines, and plenty of dragon tattoos.
The more I learned about dragons, the more I liked them. In Chinese and Japanese culture, there is a dragon for everything. Tiny dragons, dragons bigger than the sky, cruel dragons, protective dragons; you name it, there’s a dragon for it.
The dragons on my arms are opposites and balanced for symmetry. I have an I-Ching ring on each arm. One side represents the Yin, or force and masculinity, and the other side represents Yang, or cool and feminine. On the Yin side, I have a fire dragon surrounded with water for balance and on the Yang side, I have a cool blue dragon surrounded by fire for balance.
For me, dragons represent strength, but also tranquility."
Friday Apr 07, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Shadow Dragon
"The dragon on my arm is done in a kind of tribal style by this tat artist named Jesse, at Captain Jack’s. It’s kind of a funny story though, the reason I got it.
Me and my old lady were gonna go camping at Madras and it was a long trip. We packed everything into the car and took off. As we were driving down the highway, I was in the passenger seat, watching the clouds go by.
They were all normal clouds, just clouds, you know? Until this weird one. The cloud was shaped just like a dragon. Not the whole body, but the head was exactly like a dragon, with a hole for the eye and everything.
The cloud was moving along in the same direction as the car, and as I watched it disappear, I knew I wanted a dragon tattoo.
There was something about that dragon in the sky- it was like a guardian dragon, protecting me, looking over my shoulder.
When I got back into town, I went to get the tat the very next day. I let Jesse figure out the design for the most part, but I told him that I didn’t want a classical dragon, or a Chinese dragon. I wanted a shadow dragon watching over me.
Thursday Apr 06, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: True Grit
"I got this tattoo as a sort of memorial for Hunter S. Thompson. There’s a line from ‘Fear and Loathing in Los Vegas’ that goes:
“But our trip was different. It was to be a classic affirmation of everything right and true in the national character. A gross physical salute to the fantastic possibilities of life in this country. But only for those with true grit."
I first read Fear and Loathing when I was about thirteen years old and it blew my mind. I became very interested in Hunter S. Thompson after that, reading his other books and learning more about him.
I found out a couple of years later that we share a birthday (July 18th). There’s something about Thompson that I think is genuine and authentic. Though he made up a bunch of stuff and embellished a lot of the rest, his writing style makes reading his stories feel more real than they would if he had written in a classically journalistic style.
Before he died, I felt like he was one of the last still standing of the old limit-pushing breed of writers. Karouac’s dead, Kesey’s dead, Leary’s dead, it was just Thompson for quite a while.
I decided a long time ago that when he died, I would get a tattoo for him. I knew I wanted it on my knuckles, and I pretty much knew that I wanted True Grit though I played with a few other ideas from time to time. But True Grit, that was what Thompson had in spades. He refused to do anything any way other than his way and he did not take bull sh-t from anyone. "
Thursday Apr 06, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Sea Turtle
"Sea Turtles are something I have loved since I was a little girl. I always think about their beauty and grace. When I was four or five, I visited my sister on Hunington Beach, in California. We both always loved animals, but particularly sea animals and her interest influenced me. My sister was studying to be a Marine Biologist, and until a year or so ago when I changed majors, I was going to do that too.
Later, when I was twelve, my grandfather was a missionary in Guatemala. Coincidentally, he was working with the government there to curtail the poaching of Sea Turtles. He released hundreds of baby turtles on the beaches. It was dangerous work! He was shot at and threatened, but he must have seen the beauty that my sister and I did, because nothing stopped him from this work.
A few years later, my father and I were in a terrible car crash. While we were crashing, my father turned the wheel of the car to protect me, and he almost died in the process. I’m not sure if that was the defining moment when I decided to get a tattoo, but I knew I wanted something to commemorate the qualities I love in my father.
The week after I turned eighteen, I got this tattoo. At first, it was black and white, and I had it filled in with color since. After I got the tattoo, I told my father it was for him. He is as wise and gentle, and loving as a Sea Turtle. Which is saying something!"
Wednesday Apr 05, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Austin
I met Austin about ten years ago. He sold cars, and I worked in the same neighborhood. I could hear him and his sales buddies all the time. You wouldn’t believe the things they said! They were awful! Since we both worked near Coffee People, and that was the only place we got coffee at that time, I was stuck with him.
One day, he walked up to my table and I was prepared for some corny line. Instead, he said “I don’t know you well enough to ask you for your phone number, but I’ll give you mine and you can call me if you like.”
He told me later that a lot of the talk I had heard before was his third-grader way of getting my attention. When he gave me his number so sweetly, I was smitten. This was ten years ago. We had a little girl three years ago, and we are about to get married.
About the time we had our daughter, it was Austin’s birthday. Now Austin has everything. He’s the kind of guy, if he wants it, he gets it.
I was stumped over a present. I decided to get the tattoo and surprise him with it. He was so touched, he almost started crying! He is getting a tattoo of my name today to further symbolize our commitment to each other"
Wednesday Apr 05, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: A Pirate’s Life for me…
"Even when I was a little kid, I thought pirates were cool. I can remember the first time I saw Peter Pan. All the other kids wanted to be Peter Pan and be able to fly and stuff. Not me. I wanted to be Captain Hook.
I started this tattoo last August, and I keep adding to it every time I’m in town. This time, I’m here for about five weeks, but sometimes I’m here as long as a couple of months. The rest of the time? On the ocean.
I work in Alaska on a fishing boat with one hundred and thirty guys, eight months out of the year. I do quality control, which is basically making sure you don’t get a sailor finger along with your fish. The fisherman catch fish, and my job is basically to catch fisherman. Once, I saw a guy warming his feet in a pot of cooking crabs. But not twice.
We work sixteen-hour shifts, and sleep eight. I guess it keeps me out of trouble. I have a contract for the next couple of years, then I guess I’ll try and figure out what else to do then. The main problem with Alaska is that it’s cold, and I hate Sea Lions.
The cool thing about getting into town is that I have a bunch of cash. I had wanted to get a tattoo since I was eighteen, but always weird things, like a wedge of cheese, things like that. I wanted to wait ‘till I was sure I wanted the tat. This happily coincided with me being off duty with some money. Arrggg!"
Wednesday Apr 05, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: The Lady of the Lake
"I got this tattoo almost a year ago from Adam at Painless Steel tattoo. I am of Scottish decent, and very interested in old Celtic stories and myths. Before Christianity cooped the King Arthur tales, they were the stories of another culture.
In the story of the Lady of the Lake, the woman in the water gives this sword, Excalibur, to King Arthur’s father, who later puts it into the famous stone.
Water represents a portal into another more spirit-based world, and this is the image I have chosen to represent this element. I have smaller images of the other elements on my sides and back. I am making my tattoos both symmetrically balanced, but also balanced in terms of the four elements.
I choose this image for its history, but mostly for its balance. Before this, I had mostly masculine images and I knew I wanted (and needed) a goddess image. More then the King Arthur story, I am interested in how the woman holding the sword is a balance of masculinity and femininity."
Tuesday Apr 04, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Baby Steps
"I don’t know why, but ever since my first son was born, I had the idea for this tattoo. When he came home from the hospital, his little footprints were on the birth certificate. There was something so beautiful and fragile about them that I wanted to keep forever.
It was fourteen years ago that I had that idea, but I only got the footprint tattoos a couple of months ago.
So much has happened since my son was born. Since he is fourteen, he is a little too cool to ogle my tattoo much, but I have had two other children in the meantime.
I had another son, who is now six, and a little girl who is three. The six-year-old is pretty interested in the tattoo, but the three-year-old is fascinated. She always wants me to show her the one that was hers.
Each footprint is uniquely different, though it looks like a set of baby steps. For the sake of authenticity, Wade, the artist at Raven Tattoo, worked directly from the original prints.
I wear this tattoo on my back because I like to think about how I will carry them. Now, and forever."
Tuesday Apr 04, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Tasha the Pit Bull
"Tasha was the first Pit Bull I raised all on my own. I got this tattoo about eleven years ago for her, and I got it after I swore I would never get a tattoo.
My brother had taken me to this tattoo studio called Actual Fine Art and I swore up and down that tattoos were not for me. At the same time though, I was looking at the flash on the walls…
The artist had a ton of Pit Bulls. It was really strange. Though I hadn’t thought of getting a tattoo of my dog, I started thinking about it. Tasha was really old at the time, and I wanted something to immortalize her.
I asked the artist, Lyon, about doing one for Tasha, and he asked me to bring in a picture. Before that day, I never realized that you could get custom work done. I thought it was just the stuff on the walls. I spent the next few months thinking about it, and finding the picture of her that I wanted.
The whole time I was growing up, I was surrounded by Pit Bulls. In fact, my parents raised them. I just love these dogs, they aren’t mean like people think unless they’re trained that way, and ours were sweet. Tasha was the sweetest. She actually ended up living until she was 16 and a half (which is really old for a dog).
When I finally picked the picture I wanted, I went back to the shop. But the shop was gone! Strangely, the tattoo shop had burned during the time I had been looking for the picture. I wanted to find the same artist, but it he was hard to find. I looked, and asked people, and called around for about three years before I found him.
Though I had sworn no tattoos, my Tasha tattoo inspired me. Before I was out of the chair, in my mind I had already designed two more tattoos that I wanted to get next time!"
Monday Apr 03, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Pink Skull
"Lucky and I have been friends since high school. We went to a small school, and we had always hung out with the same crowd. Lucky always sketched the whole time I knew him. In junior high and high school, he was always cartooning just to keep his hand moving across the page.
Lucky did a tattoo for me after high school that reflected some of the things I was interested at the time. He moved away from our small town after that though, and headed to the city.
I ended up in the same city and thought about a career in massage or one of the healing arts. When I saw Lucky however, I knew I wanted to apprentice as a tattoo artist. He jokes and says that he felt sorry for me all alone in the big city, but we have a good time in the shop.
He’s really into iconic tattoo imagery like hearts, skulls, spider webs and things like that, but he likes to change or modify the images in some way to change their feeling.
We were sitting around one day designing a tattoo for my leg, and I heard him snickering in the other room. I could tell he was up to no good…
He had been sketching a skull for my leg piece, and he was doing the drawing in pink pencil.
“What??” I asked.
He laughed again, and asked me what I thought about him tattooing a skull on my arm in pink ink. I must have look dubious, because he said if I would do it, he would let me give him the same in red.
So there you have it: a pink skull. You may see skull tats everyday, but not like this!
"
Monday Apr 03, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: My Brother’s Vine
"I got this tattoo of a vine on my leg a really long time ago, you can see that’s it now surrounded with other images as well. All of these tattoos were done by brother.
My brother, Nate Hudson, decided to become a tatttoo artist when he was just sixteen years old. We were both home schooled for most of our life by our mother, and we both got an education that was focused more than most, in the arts.
My mother herself was somewhat of an artist, drawing and painting whenever she had the time. My brother though, he was never without his pencil. He started taking art classes at a local college when he was sixteen to sharpen his skills, and sent away for a single needle tattoo machine.
After practicing for a while without ink on his own skin, he asked me if I wanted one. I had always loved his sketches. I was nineteen at the time. When I chose the vine, it was partially because it was a reflection of my love and identification with nature, but it was also a simple affection for my brother’s use of line. He ended up selling a lot of flash starting a young age. His designs were crisp, and the quality was fresh and unique
He did that whole vine tattoo with a single needle machine. My brother, Nate has done every other tattoo that I have. I feel I can see the progression of his craft in the images on my skin. He worked at the shop I work at now, though I do body piercing rather than tattoos.
He died a year ago, of heart failure. I am glad at least to still be able to wear Nate’s art forever."
© Electric Artists Inc. All rights reserved.
