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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.
Home / Stories
Wednesday Oct 25, 2006
EveryBODY has a Story: Rappin’ Venom
I’ve been reading comics since I was a kid, and Spiderman has always been my favorite. This tattoo is the symbol for an anti-hero, named Venom that came out in the 90’s.
Venom has always been one of my favorites. He’s not good, but he’s not totally bad either. I drew up this tattoo myself and took it in to an artist. The artist modified the legs slightly so they would not wrap all the way around my arm.
I like drawing, and me and a friend of mine drew up a comic book once, but that was a while ago. Now, rather than drawing, my main artistic outlet is music. I’m a rapper with a group called The NightWalkers. Come check us out at www.myspace.com/thenightwalkers. One of our songs is actually about Venom.
I plan on getting the actual image of Venom on my leg, and a Spiderman on my back. I still read Spiderman; it’s a really great comic.:
| Thursday Oct 19, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Wherever Love Is, I Want To Be.
EveryBODY has a Story: Wherever Love Is, I Want To Be.
I got this tattoo almost exactly a year ago. I remember when it was because I broke up with my partner the day after I got it…
The text of this tattoo is from a book called, “The Passion” by Jeanette Winterson. She wrote several other books including “Sexing the Cherry”.
When I read this quote, I knew that I wanted it as a tattoo. I was pretty sure about the placement from the beginning, but the font wasn’t what I imagined at first.
During my first consultation with Dan, from Atlas Tattoo, I asked him to tattoo the quote in an old-fashioned handwriting typescript. He talked me out of this, saying that it would be much harder to read, and that the text would have to be a lot bigger. If it were bigger, it would change the shape of the quote on my arm.
He suggested that that I go with a standard typewriter font, Courier.
As for the relationship, I knew that things had not been going well and I suspected my partner of being attracted to someone else. We had an argument the next day, and my suspicions were justified. I initiated a breakup that day.
I don’t know if the tattoo gave me the impetus to ask my partner about our relationship or not, it’s hard to say. What I do know, is that love has always been the most important force in the world for me.
Love is something about which I have spent a long time musing and thinking. Why else would we be here, other than love? I get a lot of comments on this tattoo. The sentiment really fits me, because love is my guiding force.
Tuesday Oct 17, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Lil’ Joker
"This tattoo was done with the single needle style work that was perfected in San Quentin, and developed into distinct tattoo style. My dad did this tattoo for me and his name is Joker. My dad learned to tattoo while in prison, and he was in and out during most of my childhood.
I really love my dad though, and when I told him I wanted a Joker tattoo, he was real proud of me. It was kinda like he marked me as his son.
Since then, my nickname has been Little Joker. I actually got the tattoo when I was fourteen years old. I’m all grown up now, but at the time the tattoo was really intense. I asked for it for a while before he would let be get it, though.
I was on a table with my dad working on my back; it was cool until I got to this nerve in the center of my back. That hurt like hell. I just wanted to lay perfectly still until it was done.
I really love this tattoo now. My dad actually just filled in letters fairly recently, and I have a new one that I’m going to have done by another artist. I’m not a gang member or anything; this tattoo is just about my dad and me.:
Monday Oct 16, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Peace at the End of the Journey
EveryBODY has a Story: Peace at the End of the Journey
I got this tattoo done by Don Nolan, who is a real famous tattoo artist. He works at Acme Tattoo in St. Paul. He has a lot of work that’s been in magazines.
I got my tattoo done in 1980, when I was around thirty or thirty-one years old. I got Don Nolan to do it when he was going around to attoo conventions.
At the time, I was getting a divorce. It really broke me up. You think something is going to last forever, then it falls apart like that. It was a bad time. Everybody mellows over the course of their life, though, and I’m no exception. I was a lot rougher back then. I was a boxer for eighteen years, and pretty scrappy.
During the time of the divorce, I needed something to clear my head, something that would bring me some peace. I spent a lot of time reading the bible. In the book of Revelations, there is a story where God tells a woman angel to bring the seed of Jesus to Mary. The serpent devil will try to swallow you up and destroy the seed, God said, but if you succeed, I will give you the wings of eagles. You will live out the rest of your life in peace.
I found this story comforting. The face of the woman is so peaceful; it made me feel peaceful. I spent seventeen years single, but I am now remarried, and have a family. I haven’t read this passage in a while, but I still remember the way it makes me feel at ease. Wings of eagles…"
Friday Oct 13, 2006
EveryBODY has a story: Circle of Love
I am a ordained minister and last year in San Francisco had the honor of performing the commitment ceremony for my heart sister and her partner.
The three of us got matching tattoos to commemorate the occasion.
The circular coil symbolizes the infinite nature of love, but you'll notice that the circles are not perfectly round. That's because love is never perfect. Even the best relationship has its its rough spots. These "imperfections" don't make love--or the relationship-- any less special or any less precious. We wanted the tattoo to symbolize that.
My heart sister and her partner got their tattoos underneath their wrists, while I got mine on the top of my wrist, to symbolize that while there are differences in our relationships from one another, we are all family."
EveryBODY has a Story: Band of Life
"This band was a birthday present to myself on my thirtieth birthday. I had just graduated from medical school. I had been submerged in medical school life for four years, and after I finished I wanted to be as far from that world as possible. At that point, I guess I started doing everything you weren’t supposed to do after medical school. I started working in a bar, dropped all my medical connections, and generally stayed as far as I could from all things doctor.
Right at the same time, I had just met my future husband, but we were just dating. I didn’t even tell him about my tattoo appointment because I wanted it to be entirely my decision.
The tattoo took three hours. It was actually a really fun experience. The artist was really nice, and we chatted the whole time. I took ibuprofen before I went in, and the pain was in no way overwhelming.
This tattoo represents the circle of life. When I requested the drawing, I asked for a band made of entwining vines. I wanted a representation of instinct, trust, faith and nature over an achievement-based, sterile, science universe.
When I came to get the tattoo, the artist had included these jewels into the drawing. They were not part of what I had originally asked for, but I liked them a lot. There are five of them, which is also a strange number. I try to imagine what they mean. Did they predict my children? My dreams? My marriage? My feelings of success outside the medical world? I’m still not sure, but I am certainly happy with the choices I’ve made."
Tuesday Oct 10, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Mom and Dad
"When I got this tattoo, I was actually working in a tattoo studio as a receptionist. I had only one other tattoo at the time, and whenever the artists in the shop were bored, they would say “Come on, let me give you a tattoo!” But no. Not just for nothing. I didn’t want a tattoo without any meaning, so I took my time.
My first tattoo was based on my own aesthetics but the Mom and Dad tattoos are traditional American-style tattoos. During the time I worked at the shop, I really gained an appreciation for that style and I decided to get a tattoo that reflected that.
I decided to base my tattoo on classic flash, but modify it to make it my own. I’m now a graphic artist for a company called Spartacus Leathers http://spartacusleathers.com/ and I’ve always had an art background. It happened to be close to Father’s Day, and I decided to make the tattoo say ‘Dad’, like the classic ‘Mom’ tattoo. I chose this placement both because it’s striking, and because I wanted to cover up a small scar on my wrist.
When I came home to show my father, he was really surprised. He thought it must be a fake tattoo, he couldn’t believe I really did it!
I called my mom later to tell her, and let her know I’d get one for her, too. The mom tattoo came soon after. I think they both ended up really liking them."
Every BODY Has a Story: Belly Out
"When I was twenty-five, I had a lot of trouble controlling my inward looking nature. It was uncomfortable to not be able to leave my own thoughts, and the competitive education and jobs I had only served to make this phenomena worse.
I decided that I needed a physical sign on my body to force me to remember to look out- to put energy into the world instead of keeping it inside. I wanted to send goodness to others, not stay in my own head.
I have always felt my belly is the core of my body, and this seemed like a natural place to tattoo this message.
I chose a compass and sun shaped symbol because the sun shines out, and the compass helps to direct.
After I got the drawing, the artist asked me where I wanted the design. When I told him I wanted it on my belly, he asked if I was planning to have children. At the time, I wasn’t… But now, two children later, I can’t think of a tattoo I would want to wear on my pregnant belly more.
The image was very hard to place evenly because of the shape of the body, and the artist had to try three times. It was worth it. Though I may not have accomplished all my goals, I always have a beautiful reminder."
Friday Oct 06, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: The Tiger
"I started this tattoo last Tuesday. It’s going to be a full sleeve when it’s finished, and I’m sticking to a Japanese theme throughout the piece.
My boyfriend, Gene Hannan @ www.happygoluckyart.com has been a tattoo artist for ten years. This is the first tattoo he has ever done for me. Next week is our year anniversary, and the tattoo is celebrating that.
I really like tigers a lot, but I have let him design the tattoo. Tigers represent strength in Japanese culture. This one is unusual in that it has a third eye. My friends say that the tiger reminds them of me when I’m angry …
In tradition Japanese tattoo art, the images are generally more cartoonish. I wanted this one to be a little more realistic than that.
We are going to add wind bars as well (the black and gray swirls and filler in Japanese tattooing). Also, he is going to do a lot more flowers. I said to him “Baby! Give me flowers!”
These are flowers that will last forever. Who else can give you that??"
Every BODY Has a Story: Subgenius has a Deadeye
This tattoo was the second tattoo that I got. My first was a small tribal sun god I got in Flagstaff while I was working at the Grand Canyon. This tattoo, though, was inked at one of the oldest tattoo shops in San Francisco.
This tattoo is a three-legged gargoyle in the shape of a seven-inch spindle insert. The kind of spindle needed when the hole of a music record is too big to put on the deck shaft.
This tattoo represents my loyalty to Subgenius (see subgenius.com) or “Bob” and is the church of Slack. The central belief of thee church is the pursuit of Slack, which generally stands for the sense of freedom, independence, and original thinking that comes when you achieve your personal goals.
Subgenius is an organization for “mutants, blasphemers, disbelievers, rebels, outcasts, hackers, freethinkers” and generally people who consider themselves out of the mainstream of society.
For me, original thinking in making music is the highlight of what this tattoo means to me. Also the relation that music equals freedom, and my personal goal and central passion is to create good music. My current project is Deadeye. Check it out @ myspace.com/deadeye.
Thursday Oct 05, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Prophetic Crows
"People seem to have very hot or cool reactions to this tattoo. Either they say “why do you have a tattoo of something that eats dead animals on your arm,” or they say, “Cool, I love crows”.
At first, I got seven crows on my upper shoulder. The number seven wasn’t significant to me other than the aesthetic value. The image is actually from a postcard I had from middle school that I loved. It was a whole murder of crows, shot from underneath as they were taking off. There is actually one pigeon in the picture too. Which is pretty funny. The tattoo artist told me there was a different kind of bird, but I didn’t find out until later it was a pigeon…
The banner is lyrics from an Iron and Wine song. Iron and Wine is by neo-folk singer, Sam Beam. The songs are powerful, and though melancholy, the lyrics are amazing. This particular song reminds me of a friend of mine from high school. The work was done by Adam at Painless Tattoo.
I was a couple years older than my friend and I used to drive him home from school in the afternoons. He was a real quiet guy, but when we were in the car, he talked and talked. When I went to college, he was still in high school. He used to walk home because he didn’t like his mom picking him up. The way home was over two sets of train tracks. They were commuter trains.
One evening I was working on a theatre production, and they had just sent me out to usher people. There wasn’t really anyone to usher, so I was kind of standing around playing with this lighter I have. It always works, and I keep it full of fluid.
I kept checking my watch to see what time the performance was going to start. It was at 7:15 that my lighter stopped working. At 7:30, I looked outside and a huge group of crows all took off at the same time.
He was struck by a commuter train on the second set of tracks at 7:30 that night. He didn’t see it coming. He died instantly. My parents were informed right away, and I found out he died right at the time when the crows all flew away. The Iron and Wine song reminds me of all the things he didn’t get to do."
Every BODY Has a Story: Theda Bera
"This image is from a photo of Theda Bera, the silent film star. She was known as Hollywood’s first sex symbol. I’ve actually loved this rare photo of her since I was a little girl.
My dad had a record shop, and this was one of the photographs in the shop. From a young age, I remember thinking about how attracted I was to the dark beauty– it’s a style that has always been intriguing to me.
Theda Bera is best known for her lead in one of the first film versions of Cleopatra. She had the reputation of a vamp, and this was played up by Hollywood in films that suggested she was a vampire. This was my first tattoo and I wanted the image as a tattoo for years before I turned eighteen.
When my dad sold the record shop, the picture disappeared somewhere. I thought it would be easy to find, but I tried everywhere. All the research I did turned up nothing. Soon after, I was walking down the street and amazingly, the exact photo was on a poster for a local band! I used the flier to get the drawing.
People ask me a lot if it’s a picture of me, and it’s kind of weird. I do feel this odd connection with Theda Bera, I’m not exactly sure why. When I got the tattoo, my parents were very nervous about the whole idea. It took three and a half hours to finish, and the work was done by Mathew Madison at Tigerlily Tattoo. When I got home and showed my parents, they ended up loving it. They had waited up for me to get home in order to see the tattoo of Theda."
Tuesday Oct 03, 2006
EveryBODY has a Story: Leaves Fall to the Water
I started this tattoo in August of 04’ and finished it in November of 05’. When I originally had the idea, I wasn’t sure if it could be transcribed into a tattoo format. I went to my artist and said that I wanted something that looked like a watercolor piece; autumn leaves falling into the water. “Is that a stupid idea?’ I asked him. “No!” he answered. He told me that he had always wanted to do a tattoo like that.
For me it is a tattoo about the fall, which is my favorite time of year as well as when I was born. It’s my mom’s favorite time of year as well. The artist, Adam and I discussed how to make this image work. The water in the background is done in the style of Japanese symbolic clouds, all in gray shade.
Adam drew the design freehand with a pen onto my skin in order to have the sense of three-dimensions that the tattoo needed. The first session was four hours and he outlined out all the leaves and made bloodlines for the water. A bloodline is when the artist uses ink that is so watered down it only leaves light mark that doesn’t last. We filled in the water in a later session.
I let Adam have fun with the color. He knew I wanted it to look like fall and a watercolor feel. He decided on the final look. I love this tattoo. My mother was initially really apprehensive about the tattoo, but now that she’s seen it see loves it too.
Every BODY Has a story: I'm a Vegan
"Here's the story of my tattoo: my tattoo says "vegan" and that's what I am. I really believe in veganism; it's my commitment to the animals and to the planet.
Moreover, I want everyone to know this is not just some phase I am going through. I intend to live the rest of my life without eating food that comes from animals.
It's a permanent choice, just like the tattoo is permanent. I know I'm not the first to have an ink like this, but I think it's important to have a visible reminder of my allegiance to the tribe. I have a vision of an army of vegans; all with our choice boldly emblazoned on our bodies, proclaiming that we live cruelty free."
Friday Sep 29, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Hellboy
"This is my favorite and most recent tattoo. I love how the black and white contrast ended up looking. This cartoon is from a series that I LOVE called Hellboy, by Mike Mignola. At one time, he worked for Dark Horse comics.
Mike’s style in general, is high contrast, which made it good for this tattoo. Also, I loved this particular part of the cartoon. I guess Mike’s editors asked him to do a short piece on Hellboy’s childhood. Mr. Mignola thought it wouldn’t make more than a page or two, but it ended up being a lot longer. It’s a Hilarious section.
Hellboy is being introduced to pancakes for the first time, and though he is wary, he tries them. He discovers he likes them, which leads to hell being completely screwed up.
The tattoos that I have on my upper body are all pretty serious. I wanted the ones on my lower body to be funny. I got this last July (06’), but I had planned on having comic books on my legs for a while. I have always loved comic books and I plan to do another one. My name is Jen, and I have a comic called ‘Killing Time’ that will come out on lulu.com this December or January. "
Every BODY Has a Story: Orcas
"I entered a raffle at some event at my job and I won a trip to Cordova, Alaska.
I couldn't believe I won a trip to a place no one has even heard of!
But I had a great time, and one day I towards the end of the trip I was looking around this little tiny gift shop and I saw this greeting card and I instantly thought "hey, THAT is my next tattoo."
And so it was.
It reminds me I am lucky sometimes, and that a trip to Cordova Alaska is better than no trip at all."
Tuesday Sep 26, 2006
Every BODY Has A Story - Kyle
"I got this tattoo in April, I drew it up and it is quite different from my normal artwork which I liked the idea of. It is a strange abstract shape or city, the 2 boxes in the middle are up and down which represent life's highs and lows. The arrows also indicate change and movement. I really liked the idea of having a messed up isometric city on my ribs."
Friday Sep 22, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Walla Walla
When I was twenty-one, I was intrigued by the idea of getting a tattoo, but very aware of cultural taboos associated. I’m Jewish, and it was forbidden for Jews to get tattoos historically, though this is changing with some people.
My parents felt hesitation at the idea of my tattoo, but really most of the hesitation was from me.
I thought about it for quite a while before I decided I wanted a tattoo. Once I decided I wanted one, I chose something very quickly that was part of something I loved during that part of my life. I’ve done that with other tattoos since then as well. They are almost like souvenirs of my history.
Many Waters is the Native American name for Walla Walla. Walla Walla is the town where I went to college. For the first two years, I didn’t feel as if it was my place, but by the last two years, I really loved the town. I am a photographer, and during my senior year, I did a photo show about subjective views of Walla Walla. I wanted to capture spaces that most students never saw in Walla Walla.
This is what I chose for my first tattoo. I wanted an unusual placement, one that I could show or cover up. I know I wanted it on my ribcage, but the placement ended up being dictated by my mole. I like how it looks like a bit of punctuation before the words. My partner took a photo of this tattoo, and I used it for the title page of my photo show.
Thursday Sep 21, 2006
Every BODY Has a story: My Soul Will Find You
"On 9/11 my best friend was in LA and I was in Philly. It looked like the end of the world, and I asked what would happen if one of us died and the other one didn't. She said simply "I will come and find you."
That single statement reassured me more than anything else that day, and in many days to come.
When I decided to move from Philadelphia and away from my friend, I wanted a tattoo to honor our friendship. "I will come and find you" seemed like the obvious choice.
But the place where I wanted the tattoo already had some ink of a fierce looking rabbit that was a mascot from the women's empowerment march and I thought "I will come and find you" right by such a fierce looking rabbit would look like some kind of weird revenge tattoo.
So I asked for script "my soul will find you..." which is flanked by "Vi" on one side and "Wes" on the other, which are the names of my niece and nephew, who I was also leaving behind in Philly."
Wednesday Sep 20, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Japanese Back piece
"I got this tattoo while I was living in Flagstaff, Arizona. I saw one of the artists at Burly Fish (See www.burlyfishtattoo.com) draw out this geisha for another client who ended up not getting the tattoo. This happens from time to time, but usually, if the artist has done a really great drawing, it won’t sit around for long. Someone will want it.
As soon as I saw the geisha girl, I decided I wanted this full back piece. I started it about five years ago, and it took about thirty-five hours. However, the thirty-five hours was over a period of about five years.
I started working at the shop, as a piercer. Both my back tattoo and my desire to learn to draw and tattoo were put on hold because I was so busy doing work as a piercer. I got my degree in graphic design, and have always loved making all kinds of images. In my graphic design work though, I used finished elements to create a whole piece, rather than starting with a sheet of blank paper. I needed to work a lot on how to sketch. My drawing has steadily improved since that time.
Though the geisha was already drawn when I decided I wanted it, all the surrounding elements I chose before or during the process. Japanese tattoo art is very symbolic, and I used images that were both beautiful, and meaningful.
In this piece, the geisha girl is turning into a dragon. Often, the dragon represents enlightenment. For me, the geisha girl turning into a dragon represents change and re-birth. In Japanese, the word for ‘luck’ sounds very similar to the word for ‘bat’. So it’s kind of a Japanese pun, but bats are considered very lucky. The dragon girl is surrounded by ‘lucky bats’. The cherry blossom represents the shortness of life. There is a bloom, then it’s gone. It is important to savor the moment you have. "
Tuesday Sep 19, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: The Great Lakes
"This tattoo is of the five Great Lakes of the United States. I got it in February of 05’ in San Francisco.
A woman named Annie Danger gave me the tattoo as part of a sort of benefit. She and her roommates were being kicked out of their apartment because the landlord was selling it to developers.
It’s pretty hard to find a place in San Francisco and they were in somewhat of a jam. Annie was a tattoo artist, and was raising money that way.
I had wanted a tattoo since college, and I knew I wanted the Great Lakes. When Annie offered her services, it just seemed like the right time. I’m originally from Detroit, Michigan.
Detroit is an interesting city in that there is only a river separating us from Canada, and it’s the only US city North of Canada. I like the topography of the lakes as well. Michigan forms a big peninsula. This is pretty unusual for a state too, I think. A friend of mine in college from Kansas had a tattoo that was a red and orange heart with stalks of wheat sprouting from it. She told me the tattoo expressed Kansas for her. I really liked that idea. This is different, but exactly what I wanted."
Every BODY Has a Story: Tree of Life
"This is actually my least favorite tattoo to show; though I like it personally. It has gone through a few incarnations. It began as a serpent on my toe after I started Tae Kwon Do.
I got it done at Ghoul tattoo because it was cheap. This was about fifteen years ago and the whole experience was pretty messy. We were there for hours while the guy was sterilizing the equipment. During this time we went and had a few beers, came back, had a few more.
When he finally finished, it was midnight. I gave him my credit card, and he informed me that felons can’t use cards. Great…
I really did not like the way the serpent looked so later, I got it turned into a tree at a different studio I liked much better. This was done all in black, which showed up blue on my skin. The problem with this was that when I went hiking and took off my sock people thought it was giant veins or something. So I went back (to the same place), and had them add the henna colored details.
I am a trainer at Gold’s Gym and Missfits. The thing about the tree of life on my foot is that even if the image has been hard for other people to see the way I do, it is wonderfully helpful for me with yoga.
The way the trunk moves down into my feet is a constant reminder about balance and rootedness."
Monday Sep 18, 2006
Every BODY has a story: Our Lady of Lourdes
"I have a lot of scars on one of my arms from my self-destructive youth, and had wanted for years to get a cover-up, but no one would touch it.
Last year, a friend I love very much got sick and we made plans to go to Lourdes, France in hopes of getting a miracle cure. Lourdes is a famous area for healing because of an appearance of the Virgin Mary about one hundred and forty years ago.
My friend got too sick to make the trip, and one day when we were sitting around, she said "you should get Our Lady of Lourdes on your arm." I told her that no one wanted to touch it, but she said, "you’ll find someone" and the next day I found out about this woman named Jackie at No Ka Oi in Philly. I went in, showed her, and she said--without hesitation-- "oh yeah, I can do that."
She designed it almost overnight and we did it all in one sitting. Then my friend got better and we made our trip to Lourdes. We joked that we should get a discount at hotels, etc for my tattoo.
We didn't get the discount, but I feel like the tattoo and the trip were miracles in themselves!'
Every BODY Has a Story: Dreams
"I got this tattoo about two years ago when my youngest son was one and my older son was five. My husband and I are from the East Coast, and we were surprised by the styles on the West Coast – Everyone has a tattoo!
We had talked about the idea of getting a tattoo ourselves a few times, but nothing serious. Then for Christmas, under the tree, my husband gave me a gift certificate for a tattoo. I actually didn’t go in to get it though, until the following March…
My husband ended up getting a tattoo at the same time. He’s a novelist, and it’s his dream to work at writing fulltime. He got a tattoo that says “Once upon a time” around his ankle. I got the paint palette because my dream is to be a full time painter. My husband wrote a children’s book that I would love to illustrate some day.
I am about five months now pregnant with our third now, and it is sweet to wear our dreams on our skin."
Thursday Sep 14, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: HOPE
"I started this piece last summer, and only finished it a couple of months ago. I got all the work done by the same tattoo artist. We actually worked together in another shop before he started working in the shop he’s in now.
As we discussed this tattoo, I knew I wanted roses, and I knew I wanted the word ‘hope’.
Roses are something I’ve always loved. I don’t grow them now, but my family used too. I have other tattoos that have roses as well, so it has become a sort of theme.
As for the word ‘hope’, hope may seem like a small thing when things are going all right, but when you have difficulties your life, it’s really the only thing that can sustain you sometimes.
Like everyone, I have had my share of hard times, friends moving away, and hard break-ups. Tattoos are often very empowering when they have strong meaning for the person who got them. The word, ‘hope’ for me, is to remind myself of an optimistic outlook, and recognize the power of that tiny word."
Wednesday Sep 13, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Glowing Memories
"About three years ago, this buddy of mine told me there was this guy who was doing his apprenticeship and he needed some clients. He had a good-sized portfolio, but I still felt a little like a guinea pig…
Though the spirit of the tattoo is very meaningful to me, I didn’t tell him much when it came to design. I just said I wanted a tribal design on the back of my neck.
He did the tattoo in his living room, and drew out the picture then and there. I decided I wanted the edges to done in a kind of ink that glows in black light. At that time it was not considered totally safe, so I only had a little of it done. Now that you can get safer black light ink, I’m going to get more of it filled in.
The tribal theme stems from my heritage. I am Spanish, Sicilian and Apache. My family is very close, particularly my father and I. He showed me many Apache traditions as I grew up. For example, when I first killed a deer, my father told me to taste the animal’s blood, and eat a bit of its heart. This was to show respect for the animal. The heart is where the Apaches believe a being’s strength is kept. By having a piece of the heart, my father showed me how to respect the strength of the deer and to honor it."
Every BODY Has A Story - Travis Lee Button
"My friends and I recently attended the local Garlic Festival in Little Falls, NY. It was held in an are of the city called Canal Place which consist of several galleries and the Mohawk Valley Center for the Arts building. I picked up a business card in one of the galleries I stopped
in for a tattoo artist named Denise De La Cerda. She is new to the area and I had not heard of her but I immediately got a good feeling from the business card. My best friends birthday was approaching and I knew he was itching to get some more ink, so I gave her a call and scheduled an appointment for us to get inked on his birthday. We arrived and the shop was really nice and very clean, Denise is a great conversationalist and an all around awesome person and turns out she is a really really
good artist. I had her do this Tudor Rose design for me, Ive been holding on to it in my tattoo wishlist for a while. Needless to say I have already scheduled an appointment to discuss a more complex piece with her that I plan to have done in December. Again she is new to the area so I am trying to give her a hand and spread the word.
Tuesday Sep 12, 2006
Every BODY has a Story: Transformation
"This tattoo is a very powerful symbol called a rune. Runes are ancient symbols people used in magic ceremonies. Many people think that they are Irish in origin, but actually, they have Anglo-Saxon ancestry.
This rune, is the rune of transformation. I got it very recently, and it is something I want for myself. I really need the strength of transformation in order to get rid of an unhappy situation in which I have found myself.
I am still dealing with this situation, but the rune is a constant reminded to me of change, and growth, new beginnings, and old endings.
When I went in to have it done, I was going to have it done on my shoulder, but as soon as I was in the shop I realized that I Had to have it on my neck in this place. It is also a powerful place on the body, but the only place that felt right for my rune."
Monday Sep 11, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Classic Pan-Culture
"This tattoo is based on some traditional sailor tattoo art. Originally, I was going to get it done in the style of a puzzle, with some of the pieces missing.
Once the artist started to draw it out however, it was clear that would have been to busy with the puzzle pieces for the image I was imagining.
Sailors actually brought the art of tattooing to the United States from Asia, and I wanted a classic tattoo that would incorporate both styles.
When I talked to my artist, we discussed additions to the classic ‘Sailor Jerry” tattoo in order to add elements of Asian tattoo culture.
We decided on the snake and dagger being surrounded by cherry blossoms, and the clouds over the top are done in the Japanese ‘wind cloud’ style.
My grandfather was in the navy station in Asia, and he had some navy tattoos, I’m not sure if this influenced my choice, but I remember his tattoos well"
Friday Sep 08, 2006
Every BODY Has A Story: The Three Monkeys
"I got this tattoo about four years ago for my thirty-third birthday. It was actually a present from all my friends. My partner at the time organized it, but so many other people contributed too, including my good friend, Paul Anson from Discourage Records.
It was a time in my life where I had finally gotten clean from drugs, and this tattoo is a sort of talisman to that effect.
These monkeys are the “see no evil, hear no evil, say no evil” monkeys. I had had the idea for a while, but for my birthday I got to get the tattoo with Paul Zenk from Infinity tattoo.
Before he did the drawing, we went out together and I told him what I wanted. I saw him start the sketch while we were together and it still looks great.
Along the side of each monkey, the image corresponds to the action. Next to the “Speak no evil” monkey, there are comic book, *&%$#@-type swear words. Next to the “Hear no evil”, there are warped musical notes, and next to the “See no evil”, there are tons of staring eyeballs.
This tattoo is my totem. It speaks for itself, and gives me the feeling of balance."
Tuesday Sep 05, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Liechtenstein’s Gun
I was always into art, but not necessarily so great at making it, though I like doing collage work and things like that.
I grew up in a little hellhole, meth town called Lebanon, Oregon. It’s not an easy place to get out of, and definitely not the place to discover a lot of art.
I did manage to leave, and though I’m into a bunch of different artists, the one on my tattoo is just one of them. This image is from a Liechtenstein print.
The way I got this tattoo is sort of unusual. I was at a bar at a heavy metal show, and a little buzzed, I noticed that they had raffle tickets. The raffle tickets entitled the buyers to a free drink. I figured what the hell and bought one.
After I tried to get a drink with it, they informed me that the Other raffle line was for the free drink tickets that were about the same price as a drink anyway…
Whatever. I bought the free drink and the other one and hung out at the show. After a while, they called the raffle numbers. When they called my number, I had no idea what the raffle was for. Turns out that I won, and the prize was a free tattoo.
I had a week to come up with the image I wanted, I ended up with this. The eye of the gun is covering and cigarette burn from my Sid Vicious days… Now I’m playing with some people in a project called Sex Apache. Check us out."
Thursday Aug 31, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Ophidiophobia
"Once when I was a kid, I was doing some work for my grandmother. I was about ten years old, and taking the shingles off of her roof. I worked on the roof for a while, and then suddenly–¬¬¬ I slipped and fell off!
The roof sloped down to a little hill. I rolled down the hill, fell in a pond, and unbelievably, into a nest of snakes.
I don’t know what kind of snakes they were. Probably not poisonous because I didn’t get sick or bitten or anything, but it was crazy. I had snakes in my hair, in my shirt, in my pants…
I was an ordinary ten-year-old kid, and this scared the hell out of me. I was screaming and freaking out. It still creeps me out to think about it.
Ever since then, I have had a big fear of snakes.
The artist who does my tattoos, Scott from Twenty-First Century Tattoo, is a friend of mine. A while ago we went to this bar and were just hanging out when he brought a little Live snake out of his pocket. It scared the crap out of me!
Some time after that, I told him I wanted a snake tattoo. I guess I wanted to somehow take control over the fear that I had.
I’m still afraid of snakes, but I really like my tattoo…"
Every BODY Has a Story: Mother
"This is my fist tattoo and I got it around November of 1996 in my living room. There was this guy from Seattle who would come down and do tattoos, and he was a good artist.
When I got this one, I hadn’t seen my mom is about two years. We were both just busy, I guess. I was a senior in college at that time.
I didn’t intentionally show it to her until the next March. She wasn’t very happy; in fact, she sort of freaked out. She kept talking about the permanence…
I told her that I could have gotten a flaming skull, and I think she kinda chilled out after that. Her exact quote was “It’s your arm”. True enough.
My sister told me I was an idiot and that I’d regret it, but I never have. I still really like it.
In fact, I’m going to go get a tattoo next week. I’m not sure what I’m getting yet, but it’s the first time I’ve had any extra money laying around for a long time."
Wednesday Aug 30, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Green Tara
"This tattoo is an image of the goddess, Green Tara. Tara was the mother of Buddha, and there are several different versions of her including White Tara, Red Tara and Gold Tara.
I was raised Catholic, and am now not a religious person, but a spiritual one. Buddhism is more of an interest for me than a dominating religion. My name is actually Tara, and my parents named me that because of the link with the word Earth, or Terra, in Latin.
I was introduced to the Buddhist name Tara by my stepmother, who was also interested in spiritual matters.
She had a number of books on Buddhism, and I naturally followed the stories containing my name. I was very intrigued by Tara because of her compassion and her motherly qualities.
I got this tattoo in ’99 when I was about twenty-six. I got it at a shop called Electric Rose, in Seattle, Washington. At the time, I knew that I wanted to be a mother some day, but it is something that has become increasingly important to me as I get older.
Now, I have two stepchildren and a baby on the way. I am three months along. I look forward to having Tara continue to guide me with her beauty, her compassion, and her beautifully maternal nature."
Every BODY Has a Story: Swan Song
"My best friend and I met in the second grade. He was an Asian kid, and we had a funny, kind of competitive relationship that lasted until the day that he died.
We were competitive with everything. Whether it was basketball, sports, or life, we were always trying to one up each other.
We always stayed close through the years. About ten years ago, when he was twenty-six, he had finally gotten it all together. He moved out of his parent’s house, got a killer job and had his first girlfriend.
That night, he died in his sleep. I guess he had some sort of heart problem that no one knew about. It was a huge surprise for everyone.
This tattoo is the first tattoo that I ever got. It is the Led Zeppelin picture from the album, Swan Song. I went in to get a tattoo for him, but I wasn’t sure what to get. I saw this picture up on the wall, and realized that it was perfect.
The picture looked a whole lot like me at the time. I had long hair, and was a nude dancer, so I was naked a lot. I figured that with this tattoo, when I died, I could go up there and be competitive with him again some day. I know we’ll meet up.
A few months after that happened, my dad passed away. I thought about getting another angel, but I figured the one I had would work for both of them."
Tuesday Aug 29, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Native Dreams
"I got the Dream Catcher part of this tattoo about seven years ago. I’m of Native American descent, and both my parents are Sioux from the Lakota tribe of Pine Ridge. The Lakota tribe comes from the Western half of the Dakota’s. When I was a kid, jobs were sometimes hard to find, and we moved all over the country. I lived in twenty-two states. Luckiest kid in the world, traveled the whole country and my dad paid for it…
My mom was a homemaker, then she went to school to design missiles and satellites. She had top secret clearance from the government. There’s probably Still some satellites hanging around up there in the sky there my mom mighta had something to do with…
The Dream Catcher is a tattoo that honors my family. The men in my family have always been incredibly close. Male bonding, you know? My own dream came true when I had my son. The war bead in the dream catcher represents him.
Though I got the tattoo for my son, I got it at a time when my dad wasn’t living close by. I was really missing him a lot, and thinking about how much I loved my boy.
With the flag tattoo, I sat down with my wife and told her I wanted the flag draped with no wind, across my arm and around the Dream Catcher. She actually drew it up for me, and then I took it to Jason Bradbury at Atomic Art. See http://www.atomic.ws/. Jason is a great artist, and he cleaned the picture up and did the tattoo.
I got this American flag right after 9-11. For me, we’re all Americans but being a Native American gives me a unique outlook on being American. Everyone else is a transplant; I’m a Native. Both of these tattoos have to do with my heritage and my love for this country. Although I gotta say, I love my country, but I don’t trust my government…
Every BODY Hs a Story: Outsiders
"The Outsiders is a bike club that my friends and I are in. We have around a couple hundred members and my brother was one of them.
He joined a long time ago. Even before me. The Outsiders are just like another family, everyone takes care of each other, and what needs to get done gets done. I have also been president of this club during my membership.
My brother, Robin, had this same tattoo. He developed bone marrow cancer and died. I knew I wanted to get one like it, but in our club you need to get permission from all the members before you get a tattoo of the name of the club.
They all gave me permission, but I waited two years before getting it. This is a tight bond, in memory of my brother, and also a sign of the connection between myself and the other guys in The Outsiders. If you mess with one of us, you mess with all of us, but we are there for each other. Whatever needs to be taken care of, gets taken care of.
I got this done at Family Traditions Tattoo Studio."
Monday Aug 28, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Family Band
"When I was growing up, I was greatly influenced by my grandmother who was a member of the Native American tribe, Nez Perce.
Native American symbolism ruled in our family, and it was a point of honor to respect these symbols and give them their correct due.
I got this tattoo about six years ago. I had gotten married to the most wonderful woman in the world, and I decided to give a token of my skin to those of my family who held that reservoir of strength for me.
The top of this tattoo is a symbol of the sun, the moon and a star. In my culture, this celestial embrace is the symbol for family, something I have never taken lightly.
The band all the way around my arm represents the eternal nature of this connection. On the inside of the band is a Native American version of a dragon. This represents strength. Because no matter how wonderful and strong your family is, you still need the strength of your own will to carry you through your life.
I got this tattoo at Vertigo Tattoo. It has certainly stood me in good stand. Not only am I still married, but also I have a baby now. That will continue the legacy from which I came."
Friday Aug 25, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Road Runner Gets Caught
My wife and I are dog groomers at a pet store called Animal Crossing. She has been a groomer for longer than we have been married, but I started to go into business with her when we got married. This was about seven years ago.
She has had that tattoo on her leg of the Road Runner for a long time. I’ve spent quite a lot of time thinking about that tattoo… She says she got it because she was always fast, I say it’s because she was so good at getting away!
We actually met about eighteen years ago, and were always very attracted to each other. Unfortunately, one or both of us were always married every time we came across each. This seemed to happen over and over for years and years.
The first time we saw each other single, well, that was it. We lived together for about a year, and have been happily married since then.
I got this Wile E. Coyote tattoo last week. I had wanted a tattoo there for a long time, though I wasn’t sure of what to get. My dad was a great big fan of Wile E. Coyote, and always took us to see those cartoons. In a way, I’m kinda keeping my dad around with this tattoo.
Of course, the tattoo has a double meaning too. Wile E. Coyote was Always chasing the RoadRunner just like me. The thing is, in our story; the RoadRunner got caught…."
Thursday Aug 24, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Aries
"I met my best friend when I was in third grade and she was in second. We have been best friends ever since then.
We have also been roommates for quite a long time now and gone through a lot of living together. She has been a surrogate mother for two different families, and I lived with her during that time. She does not see the children, but the parents sent her pictures of them.
When I first decided that I wanted to get this tattoo, we wanted to get one together. She ended up becoming pregnant soon after that, and the doctors said that it was best to wait for at least two months after giving birth (to TWINS), before she got her tattoo.
I had wanted to get this Aries tattoo for at least a year. I love being an Aries. Aries people are bull-headed and stubborn. They are set in their ways, just like me.
The actual symbol for the Aries id a ram’s head, but I didn’t think it was exactly what I wanted. I want something more feminine. I had Wade, from Raven tattoo draw out this floral pattern to encircle the word Aries. It was a great thing to wait for my friend to get this tattoo with me. Everyone always compliments me on it, and I am really proud of it."
Wednesday Aug 23, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Cars and Girls
I got these tattoos about eight or nine years ago. First the one on my right calf, then the second one on my left. I had known a lot of people with tattoos, and I thought about what I wanted for a while. I must have been about twenty-nine or thirty when I got these.
I ran across this book of art by Robert Williams, who is very famous in the tattoo world. There was one thing I knew I always wanted– a woman with a car… Robert Williams’ art has that in spades.
I took the book to a friend, Paul, at Infinity Tattoo, and told him to find an image with a girl and a car that he liked. On my right calf, the tattoo is a little simpler, the image was a black and white one, and Jesse colored it in. He drew the tattoo out from the picture.
It took about five hours to get the work done on each side. I guess I wasn’t very surprised about my pain tolerance, but the people at the shop were. Five hours is a long time to go on a tattoo…
After I got the first one, I knew that I wanted another pretty quick. When I got the second one, Jesse filled in the background more than in the first. I got my girl, and I got my car. "
Tuesday Aug 22, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Parental Photo
This is a portrait of my parents, taken on their wedding day in 1980. I got this tattoo about six or seven years ago after my grandmother gave me the picture. I had never seen a picture of them together before.
You see, my dad died from cancer when I was five. For a lot of reasons I don’t want to go into, by the time I was sixteen, I wasn’t living with my mother. She refused to go to the doctor, and ended up dying of pneumonia when I was just sixteen.
When I got this tattoo, I was living in a house with a guy that did tattoos. When he cared and was working hard, he did wonderful tattoos, but if he wasn’t in the mood, he did a horrible job. I’m actually getting one of the ones he did before covered up today. In the house, we called him ‘the basement dweller’.
As soon as my grandmother gave me this photo, I knew I wanted to get it as a tattoo. I told the guy in the basement (put the fear of God in him, really) that he had Better do this one well. My parents look so peaceful in the picture. I think the basement dweller did a good job.
People ask me about it all the time. I look a lot like my mother, and sometimes people think that it’s a picture of me.
Every BODY Has a Story: the sacred heart of mother
During my college years, I didn't get along with my mom very well. I think a lot of it started brewing around the time that my mom turned 50 and decided to finish her own schooling and become a teacher. I was very proud of her for this, but it put us into a situation where we were sharing classes at community college. It was kind of a novelty for the first week or so, but you can imagine how cool it became to be a guy in your early 20's sitting next to your mom in math class. "Did you get your homework done" takes on a whole new meaning when your mom has been assigned the same thing. Compound this situation with the fact that independence and getting out of the house was at the forefront of my mind... it was basically the perfect storm. That year we both said a lot of things that we didn't mean, or maybe things that we did mean at the time but later regretted.
I ended up leaving to go to a university in the fall and finally got to live in the same town as my long distance girlfriend (who is now my wife). So the independence problem was being resolved, but probably not so much the relationship with mom. I majored in art and graphic design, with a lot of focus on serigraphy (screen printing). When studying art history in light of screen printing, you learn a lot about pop artists like Warhol who worked with appropriated images and collage.
So I had this idea for a particular assignment that would combine a couple images. The first being a classic image of Christ from the side of a prayer candle. I owned one of these candles, which itself was a point of "discussion"
with my mom. Being raised baptist, she didn't see any need for such an object in the house. I assured her that I didn't plan on praying to it and I only enjoyed it for its cheesy aesthetic value and she pretty much let it be.
The second image was mom's senior portrait. The photo always stuck in my head as very iconic, as if it belonged in a stained glass window... or on the side of a candle. I don't know exactly what my motivation was to do it. I think partly there was this sarcastic attitude of "look at my mom, the saint".
When you screen print, especially once you get the hang of it, there's a lot of time to think. Once the initial design is done, you have to print each color individually. This one was 9 colors, and it took about an hour for each one.
Half way through the whole process I start realizing the weight of what I'm doing. I'm putting my mom's face on the body of Christ. What am I thinking?
What does this mean? Is this blasphemous? Is God trying to tell me something?
This photo of mom brings a lot to my mind. She would of been a few years younger than I was at the time. She didn't yet know what her life would bring.
The pain of three miscarriages, wondering if she could even have children for seven years before having me. Then spending most of her pregnancy with me laying in bed, praying that God would allow me to live and that I would know and love Him someday. Seeing her this young reminds me of my childhood, when she was my best friend in the world. When if there was ever an example in my life of Christ-like love, this was it. And more than that, I knew that this love never changed. In spite of every fight, backhanded comment, and flippant attitude, this love would endure in spite of it all. I don't know if I could describe the love that Christ Himself has for me any differently.
"The Sacred Heart of Mother" won an honorable mention that year at a student show. I told my wife this whole story of what the image means to me and how I never want to forget it. She said, "You've always wanted tattoos, I can't think of a better idea than this for your first one." I told her that sounded pretty crazy. A year later I had it done on mother's day.
-streeter
Monday Aug 21, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Casa Sanchez
"There’s this Mexican restaurant in the Mission district in San Francisco called Casa Sanchez. It wasn’t an official announcement or anything, but the word was spread that anyone who got the restaurant logo tattoo would get themselves free food for life.
The problem was that the whole thing blew up- everyone was getting the Casa Sanchez logo. I mean, at Least forty people…
I was probably one of the last people to get the tattoo. It was sort of a weird situation. A friend of a friend knew someone from this German television station who had heard about this deal, and wanted to document it for a show.
I got a call saying I could get a tattoo for free, but it had to be the exact logo. I figured free food for life, it was kinda an investment, who could turn it down?
The German TV station filmed me eating a burrito, getting the tattoo, than going back and eating ANOTHER burrito… It was pretty crazy.
They promised they’d send me footage from the show, but I never got it. If anyone who knows the show in Germany is watching, send an email to INKED!
But, at least I know where my next burrito is coming from…"
Friday Aug 18, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Heather’s Hotdogs
"Hotdogs have got to be the most hilarious American icon in the world, seriously- hotdogs??
When I was living in San Francisco, I had a bunch of friends who all started coming up with the most ridiculous tattoo ideas we could. It started with a friend who got a tattoo of Barbie, holding Ken’s severed head. As if that wasn’t enough, soon we got someone with Rainbow Bright and a mace, and Strawberry Shortcake with a dagger.
This totally cracked us up. For my birthday, my boyfriend bought me two matching cheeseburger tattoos on my shoulders. This was at Everlasting Tattoo in San Francisco.
A bunch of my friends then turned to odd logos. One got 7-Up, on one wrist, and 7-11 on the other. Other logo ideas followed suit…
I got the hotdog tattoos about two years ago from a guy named Mod at Tigerlilly Tattoo. He didn’t know me as well as my old artist, but thought it was a cool idea. He drew them out for me, and one of the interesting things is that it fits the shape of my arm so well. They really look good! The mustard squirting out of each end was Mod’s idea…"
Thursday Aug 17, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Living Poetry
There’s a book called The Prophet, that was written in the early nineteen hundreds by a Lebanese-American man named Khalil Gibran. It became very popular in the sixties and seventies as people became open to the idea of spiritualism. My grandmother actually gave the book to my mother as a present, and often, my mother read The Prophet to me as a child. When I was older, she passed the book on to me.
I have always loved the book, and it has been a sort of reference guide for me on life. The section of the book that my mother read to me was the chapter on children. The book is a sort of prose poem and this section begins,
“Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts.
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls…
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.”
This tattoo is based on the image in that chapter. In the original, The main figure of the archer is male, but I had Autumn Marshall from Icon Tattoo redraw it for me as a female character. I am a doula by profession, which is a woman who aids in births and afterbirth care.
I leave a copy of this book for every new parent with whom I work."
Lori's Tattoo
From Lori, an INKEDblog reader:
"I think the sexiest place a woman can get tattooed is down her side. So, when I decided that I wanted to do a side piece I went to our tattoo artist, Zac Meyer at The Psychodelic Butterfly in Little Rock, and told him what I wanted.
I wanted a grouping of water lillies that started out sketched and by the end was full detail, full colour. He came up with a design that I absolutely loved and was totally one of a kind. After we did the 'original' upper flowers, I decided that I wanted the tattoo to continue down my side and down onto my lower hip. Which is the point we're at now. When it's finished it will start out sketched, go to full colour on the two middle lillies and then back to sketched. Hopefull I'll be able to finish it in a few weeks!"
Tuesday Aug 15, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Rubber Bug
"About five years ago, I was living in San Francisco working for Levi’s. My housemate was friends with this guy, Jesse, who came to stay with us for a while. He and I became friends, and he was a tattoo artist.
Jesse brought all his stuff with him, and was immaculate about sterilization etc. I brought him over a lot of clients, and it turned out that everyday we would have two or three people coming to get tattoos at our house. We would all go out and party at night when they were done. It was fun.
Because I brought him a lot of business, Jesse told me he would do a tattoo for me for free. At the time, I had met this girl in New York and she was coming to stay with me. She wasn’t my girlfriend, more of a fling, but what a great fling!
We went to Chinatown and she bought this weird rubber bug for some reason. After she went home, I told Jesse that I wanted the bug tattooed on my leg…
Some time after that, I visited her in New York. Of course, I didn’t tell her about the tattoo, that would have been creepy. She had a boyfriend by that time, and I wore long pants."
Monday Aug 14, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Clouds
"On my arm, I have a series of cloud tattoos. I got the first three clouds five years ago when I was twenty-seven. In most Japanese tattoo work, the clouds make up the background of the piece, and I found myself interested in using them graphically as a center.
I was born and grew up in Japan, and was always sketching. I am an artist at Temple Tattoo, now. I started on these cloud images when I was about sixteen. Both of my parents were career artists as well.
They met at an art school in Tokyo called Tamabi. My father worked on advertising campaigns where he did illustrations of ‘60’s and ‘70’s movie stars holding pipes (among other projects), as well as selling many abstract pen and ink studies. My mother was an oil painter.
After Tokyo, we moved to a tiny village in the countryside of Japan. I have no idea why my parents made that move. My parents were really kind of hipsters at the time. My mom was the first woman who had smoked cigarettes in that village. It was not great growing up there.
They still live there, but I moved to the US fourteen years ago. For me, the clouds suggest a sort of neutrally and flexibility. They could be anything; they could go anywhere. Like me. I also have cloud tattoos on my legs, and I plan to Never have any other sort of tattoo other than clouds."
Every BODY Has a Story: The Harpies
I got this tattoo two weeks ago and it healed really fast. I got it from Tim at Optic Nerve Tattoo where I work.
The tattoo is of three Harpies, which are Greek mythological part bird/part woman monsters. They are supposed to be really disgusting and mean. I got the idea with a friend of mine one night when we were sitting around getting drunk.
I wanted a new tattoo, and needed some ideas. I have never been really into Greek mythology, but my friend Rhea is. She asked me what I thought about a Harpy tattoo, and I told her I didn’t know what that was.
She started to draw it out for me, and made the birds have chicken feet. We thought it was so funny, we started looking up images of Harpies on the Internet. We found tons of cool ones.
We decided to get these tattoos as matching tattoos, but on opposite sides of our legs so if we stand together, the Harpies are touching…
We gave the image to Tim, who went all out and drew us this crazy sleeve tattoo. We decided that we couldn’t afford it though, and started to work on this image.
He took our printed picture, cleaned it up, and made the lines really distinct. What can I say- best friends forever!"
Friday Aug 11, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Dominguez the Aztec
I got this tattoo about four days ago, but it’s been a long time in coming. I am twenty years old, but I feel so much older. It has been a hard life.
This tattoo says my name, Dominguez, in a custom script that a friend of mine came up with. I met him in art class a long time ago and he is an aspiring tattoo artist and has been sketching forever.
The actual script is based on Aztec writing and the imagery is based on the Aztec Wall of the Dead. The Wall of the Dead is an Aztec story that after a battle, the Aztecs would pile the bodies of their victims into a wall as a warning to their enemies and an appeasement to the gods of war.
I’m supposedly of Aztec descent but I grew up in a small and racist town. Life was never easy for my brother and I. He and I came to a great separation of beliefs at a certain point. He decided to go into the military and be a traditional American. Me, I opted for extremism and individuality though it has not been easy.
This tattoo for me is about protecting my family. I do not want anyone to ever mess with us again, and I will use the spirits of my ancestry to show this warning."
Thursday Aug 10, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: More than a Muscle Man
"Around 1989, I went into the army after some trouble at home, and was stationed in Germany for a while. After I got out, I started teaching myself to tattoo for about two years. This tattoo, of the muscled man with the small head, is one that I did myself. It was one of my first ones ever. I was about twenty at the time.
For me, it represents all the false valuations people place on the external. They want a better car, better muscles, bigger boobs, nicer teeth and it’s all really bullsh-t. Do you want to end up with all that and still be thinking small little thoughts? No.
After about two years, a German tattoo artist named Kevin Heath took me under his wing, and I did my apprenticeship with him. I started a tattoo studio there, then moved back to the states and started another studio, Tattoo Revolution, in Las Vegas.
I tattooed Jesse’s sleeve, from INKED and also taught Big E (from Ultimate Fighting Championship), to tattoo. Now I work at Raven Tattoo."
Wednesday Aug 09, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Earth Goddess
"I am a healer by profession, and during the first year of my Naturopathic program in 1998, I realized that I wanted to make a life long commitment to this pursuit that I realized would be the foundation for the rest of my life.
On All Hallows Eve, when the veil between the worlds is the thinnest, I shaved all my hair off. It was a huge statement for me. I had always had long hair, and for me, the symbol represented an end of personal vanity and selfhood and an offering to the earth showing my dedication to the healing arts.
Though I enjoyed having no hair, of course, it returned. I began to think about a more lasting symbol for my body. I know myself, and even at that time I knew that in the future (which is the case now), that I would be wearing suits to work, and engaged in the business of healing, not exclusively the art.
I began to think about this back piece, and it is the only tattoo that I have. I worked on the image with Vyvyn Lazonga, from Seattle, Washington for about a year.
We faxed images back and forth until we found one that fit me perfectly. The actually work took us three years to complete.:
Monday Aug 07, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Fisher Price Record Player
"I got this, and most of my pieces at Lovecraft Tattoo in New Haven, CT. I'm sure that a bright orange record player seems a little nutty. Which is funny because I was trying something new. Up to that point, all my tattoos were family or belief oriented. However, with this one, I went with a different approach. It's my Hot Rod Circuit tattoo. For years, I was weary of getting a band tattoo. I was afraid that if my tastes ever changed I would be stuck with something i hated. However, I realized that Hot Rod, no matter what, would always mean something to me. So I went for it. I decided on a record player because it was simple. I wanted to avoid music notes or something of that ilk. The model for it was an old Fisher Price record player. They are very late 70's, which, for whatever reason, always seemed to fit right in with Hot Rod's sound. I chose bright orange for another simple reason. Aside from being fond of it, Hot Rod since I've been seeing them has used Orange guitar heads and Casey Prestwood occasionally plays a bright orange Fender. I thought it was a nice subtle detail, and in the end the hot orange still looks awesome. Now, for the part that makes it a Hot Rod Circuit tattoo. The words "Cool With Me" is across the bottom of the player. My favorite Hot Rod album is "If Its Cool With You, Its Cool With Me". "Cool With Me" on its own had a nice ring to it. Again, it was a subtle detail. Its not a billboard, and i didnt want it to be. It's more for me than anything else. But overall, its a great piece and I get lots of compliments about it:
Thursday Aug 03, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Skyline
"I grew up in Chicago until the fifth grade. After that, I moved to Portland, Oregon. Though I lived in Portland, I still had all the rest of my family and many friends in Chicago.
We visited Chicago every summer, and I maintained my deep roots there. I have one friend in particular whom I have been close with since I was in kindergarten.
I am a painter and artist, and the last time I was there, my friend and I decided to get a tattoo together. I sketched this image out and we both got the tattoo.
The tattoo is of the Chicago skyline. It means a lot to have my other home on my arm to look at any time I want.
I just turned eighteen, and this is me and my friend’s first tattoo. I have already decided on a second one though- the Portland skyline. I’m working on my drawing already!"
Every BODY Has a Story: Family Dragon
"My grandfather is an unusual man. I love him very much, but he is sometimes hard to figure out…
One of my earliest childhood memories is a story that he told me. In the story, he told me that once, he was underneath one of those huge Chinese dragons that you see in parades. He told me that his cigarette smoking was the thing that made the smoke come out of the dragon’s mouth, and he was the head of the dragon.
I never forgot it. Every time that I saw him or any reference to a Chinese dragon I always thought of my grandfather, blowing smoke through the dragon’s nose…
Later I asked him about this story and he doesn’t remember telling me. He says it never happened. I will probably never know, but when I was nineteen or twenty I started thinking about a Chinese dragon tattoo.
I finished it about a year ago and I’m twenty-seven now, so I took quite a long time to make my decision. I went to an artist named Pedro at Optic Nerve Tattoo. I am an artist as well, and though I generally sketch, I am also interested in watercolors.
Pedro suggested a watercolor style for my dragon, and if you notice, there are few real outlines, and a lot of gray shading.
I showed my grandfather and he thought it looked pretty good!
Wednesday Aug 02, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Van Halen Memorial
"This tattoo is based on the logo for Van Halen and it’s a memorial for my late husband, Mike Huffman. We were married for a number of years, and we were both total rockers. He was kind of a metal head.
Before I knew him, he had a drug problem, but wasn’t a drug user during our marriage. Unexpectedly, during a very tragic period in his life, he tried drugs again and fatally overdosed.
I thought of a number of memorial expressions to celebrate Mike’s life. Before his service, I searched through pictures to find one that best showed his vivacious spirit. In the one that I found, he was wearing a Van Halen tee shirt.
As tattoos had been part of what we did together, I knew from the beginning that I wanted to get a tattoo. At first, I wanted to get it in a very visible place, but Matt Reed, my tattoo artist, talked me into putting it somewhere a little more private. Since it is such a personal subject, I am very glad I followed his advice.
In the tattoo that Matt drew out, instead of the V H, for Van Halen, it is M H, for Mike Huffman. I like that most people think it is simply a Van Halen tattoo unless I choose to share the story with them.
My friends and I also put a memorial bench for him in Rockaway Beach, which was a place that he liked to spend time."
Every BODY Has a Story: V8
I’ve had a lot of different interests in my life, but until the last few years hadn’t decided exactly what I wanted to focus on. After I met my wife, everything seemed to click into place.
I decided that I wanted to be a mechanic, and started going to school to get my degree. Before that, school was never something I enjoyed very much and though getting this degree wasn’t exactly a piece of cake, I really like the work that I’m doing.
When I got this tattoo, I was in Seaside for a vintage car show that I go to with my family every year. I decided to get this tattoo at a tattoo studio in Seaside. It was more about my career in auto mechanics than a reflection of the car show.
I finished my degree this past June, and now I’m working on BMW’s at Pacific Motor Sports. It’s like the best biggest box of Legos, ever!
Monday Jul 31, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Coqui Frog
"I have traveled a lot in my life; it’s one of my passions. During the year, I work my butt off as a bartender and a taxicab driver. During the rest of the time, I am in film school to become a producer of gender based indie films. My name is Carissa Camarena, and my last film was A Dykes Drag Documentary.
I save my money all year and travel for two weeks in the summer. I have gone many places, but when I first went to Puerto Rico, I realized that I had discovered my spiritual home. I am not Puerto Rican but moved a lot as a kid and this is my place.
In Puerto Rico, there is a frog that you can hear all over the island. It is a symbol for the native Indians there. It’s called the Coqui frog.
One of the first times I visited, I met a native Indian who was a surfer and a tattoo artist. I talked to him about the Coqui frog, and he showed me this symbol which is the hieroglyph for this frog in the native language.
He did the tattoo in his kitchen. I chose my belly because my love of Puerto Rico is a gut feeling."
Friday Jul 28, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: The Goddess
I have a habit of keeping the images I want to have tattooed on me in my wallet for a year before I get them. The image on the back of my neck is a goddess image. I got it for my grandmother.
I was raised for most of my life by my grandmother, and she is a wonderful person. We are of Mexican descent, and my grandmother got herself educated while her dad worked in a coal mine, which was not an easy thing in those days.
A friend of mine, actually an ex-girlfriend, drew this out for me and I love the image. For me, the goddess has all the qualities that I love about my grandmother.
Though she is a devout Catholic, she is all-inclusive with her love, she doesn’t mind a bit that I am gay and have tattoos. She is full of an ancient sort of knowledge that I am celebrating with this tattoo.
Wednesday Jul 26, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Black Rose
"There was a time in my life where I was partying a whole lot. Maybe too much. In some ways it was fun, but I had had a bunch of terrible things happened to me in a very short period of time.
My husband died unexpectedly just a few months after my sister-in-law was murdered. After that, I nursed my mother-in-law though cancer but she died a couple of months after that. The upshot was that I ended up with a house, a bunch of money, and a lot of friends who liked to party but nothing else of value.
One night I was out with a dear friend who had similarly difficult situations in his life. His wife had left him and he had a devastating motorcycle accident. We stayed up all night long talking about what tattoo we wanted to get to make a statement about our life. We decided we wanted something old school, and we decided on a rose. The rose however, would have to be black.
We stayed up until the next morning and went to get the tattoos done. Life is much better now, but I will always have this reminder of a time when I was playing and laughing outside, but crying on the inside."
Every BODY Has a Story: Star-gazer
This is a cover up of a tattoo I got when I was nineteen. The original tattoo was on the top part,, the part that is colored. I got it done in Flagstaff, Arizona with my best friend at the time, Rachel.
Rachel and I had known each other since we were in seventh grade. We were incredibly close. We had moved to the Grand Canyon together, and it was a real boding experience.
The original tattoo is a sun/moon. I feel it is somewhat emblematic of our relationship. We were sort of hippies at that point, and we thought everything about the sun and the moon was cool. When we went to the tattoo place, Rachel (who is a great artist), freehand drew the tattoo on my neck.
During the years, we have really lost touch. She became a Mormon (actually, she always was, but not strictly). She married a Mormon guy who was not a very nice person. Rachel had always been a very impressionable girl, and her husband was not a good influence on her. She kept trying to leave him because he was abusive, but then she would come back and have another baby.
Though I really care about her,, I ended up feeling as if I could not help her and thus lost touch quite a while ago.
I started this tattoo last year, and then I got pregnant with my beautiful little daughter who was just born a few weeks ago. I want to get it colored in and finished, but I don’t want to do it until I finish breastfeeding.
In a funny way, re-doing this tattoo is negating my relationship with Rachel, but although having your friend draw a tattoo is an amazing gesture of friendship, the tattoo itself was uneven and asymmetrical. Inn a way this was somewhat prophetic about our relationship.
Though I am sad to let this relationship go, I am also very happy to have this beautiful tattoo, and new memories to go with it."
Tuesday Jul 25, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Jane’s Cardboard Box
I was living in Seattle with some friends, living in their attic. And I wanted the attic to look more like a room. This wasn’t going to be a problem because I love to go dumpster diving. But before I get to that, I want to say one thing: I once tried to pick up a raccoon because I thought it was a cat.
I went out and got rolls of carpet from the carpet outlet dumpsters, and scraps of plywood from construction sites, and cardboard boxes from someplace. I put the plywood and carpet down on the floor and made walls out of the cardboard. I turned one of the cardboard walls into a wall of scabs. We actually called it The Scab Wall. Basically, I collected scabs from my friends. Whenever one of my friends had a scab, they would give it to me, or I would take it from them, and put it on the wall. The Scab Wall. And there weren’t just scabs on The Scab Wall. There was also a tooth. And fingernails. And earwax. And when my friend’s tattoo scabbed over (it was a tattoo that spelled POOP), she gave me the scabs and I put them on the wall. So not only did I have a tooth and fingernails and earwax on The Scab Wall, I also had POOP, only it was spelled out. In scabs on The Scab Wall, of course.
Sometimes, my friends would make a contribution. One friend actually nailed a bran muffin (stolen from Starbuck’s) to one of the walls. It actually hung on the wall for like six or seven months, where it hardened. And some friends created paintings on the other walls of cardboard. It looked like a cabinet, or a cubbyhole, I don’t know. But at least it was a real room. And my housemates liked to visit it. I guess they liked it. They are the ones who nicknamed me Nature’s Bandit. Because I had created this little room, you see, from dumpster diving. I guess I’m kind of like a raccoon. I like to scavenge for things."
Monday Jul 24, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Tats from South Africa
"My dad is originally from South Africa. Eighteen years ago, after he got out of the army, he backpacked around the UK. After that, he decided to come to the states. First, he went to Florida, and then he packed all around the US and ended up in California.
My parents met in a bar in California. He father was saying something about my mother in Afrikaner which is a language that is a derived from Dutch. My mom speaks Dutch, and so she answered him. I guess they hit it off…
They have since separated, but my dad still lives in California. I had not met my entire other South African family since I was a tiny baby.
I just got back from visiting them this week. It was so unbelievable- I met all these people who I didn’t know, but that looked like me, and I knew Were like me. It was an amazing feeling.
It was my birthday while I was there (I just turned sixteen). The money in South Africa is called rands, and there are about seven rands in one dollar. My father gave me two thousand rands as a birthday present.
I spent most of it on clothes and things, but then I decided to think about a tattoo. I know I wouldn’t have another chance, because they are very strict about age in the states. In South Africa, it is easy to get a well done tattoo.
I chose the cherries because I have always loved cherries, but I thought the placement was more unique for cherries than a hip or the lower back. I am very happy with the way it turned out."
Every BODY Has a Story: Legalese
"Around 1997, before I had my kids, I got in some legal trouble. My brother had been washing illegal checks, and though I wasn’t involved, had asked me to go and cash one of them at a bank. I did, and got charged for second-degree commercial burglary. I ended up in the LA county jail for eighty-four days.
It was a really weird place. I had imagined that jail would have bars everywhere (like you think of in movies). Instead, it was all glass, and we were all enclosed in various rooms that the guards could see into, and lock off according to the time of day and what was going on.
People were very sensitive in jail. Things that wouldn’t even be an issue outside, became a huge deal. For example, if you had money on an account, you could get treats and better shampoo, things you didn’t get in jail. If anyone had too many extras, it could become a problem. I learned to mind my own business.
While I was there, I had a close friend who did tattoos. Doing tattoos in jail is not an easy business. First, we had to sharpen a paperclip (there are no needles), wind a piece of thread from our clothes, and rub the thread in powdered graphite. My friend gave this tattoo to me.
I am going to cover it up sometime, however. Though the experience of the tattoo was not a bad one, it would be hard to explain this to my kids if they asked. I just returned from Hawaii, and I’m thinking of getting a Hawaiian flower over this.
Friday Jul 21, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Sacred Heart
In 1994, I planned to take a trip with my father to Paris. I had the privilege of growing up with two parents who supported the arts, took me to museums, and were strong supporters of culture. I very much looked forward to this trip.
Unfortunately, my father became very ill. It was a terrible time for both of us. He is a tough guy though, and nothing stops him from doing the things that are important to him. In 2000, we decided to re-try our trip to Paris. It was my thirtieth birthday, and I was just about to open my first tattoo shop called Temple Tattoo, in Portland, Oregon. It was a celebration of many things.
My father was still very ill at this point, and losing his eyesight, but he had a great time and we went all over Paris. At one point, we were in Montparnasse, and my father saw a tattoo shop. I checked it out; it was called Tin Tin Tatouage. See http://www.tin-tin-tattoos.com/.
My father declined to be tattooed, as did my mother before. I think they both didn’t take tattooing seriously as an art form until I had really proved myself. As for the content of the tattoo, I was brought up in a gentle style of Catholicism. My mother is from Japan, and she is Catholic, but Japanese Catholic. In this tradition, Catholicism is less rigid and leaves room for the local religion of shinshuism.
This tattoo is a sacred heart, an iconic symbol of Catholicism. I thought of it though, because the tattoo shop was down the street from Sacred Coeur Cathedral. So, it was a nod to my heritage as well as a reminder of my trip.
As for the number, that is an entirely different story. Anytime people chose to recognize a number (such as thirteen or any other number) as special, they will begin to see it more and it will be in their atmosphere more often just because of their notice.
For me, forty-seven is a number that has followed me around my life. Numerologists say it is the bridge. Four means death is many cultures, and seven means luck. Together, these numbers mean change through adversity.
I originally considered getting my ex-partner’s name in the middle of the heart as a romantic gesture, but I talked to her on the phone right before I got the tattoo (though I had already drawn it out) and out of the blue she asked if I had gotten her name tattooed on myself yet. Her attitude kind of settled it, and I decided on forty-seven instead…"
Thursday Jul 20, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: The Tiger
I started this tattoo last Tuesday. It’s going to be a full sleeve when it’s finished, and I’m sticking to a Japanese theme throughout the piece.
My boyfriend, Gene Hannan @ www.happygoluckyart.com has been a tattoo artist for ten years. This is the first tattoo he has ever done for me. Next week is our year anniversary, and the tattoo is celebrating that.
I really like tigers a lot, but I have let him design the tattoo. Tigers represent strength in Japanese culture. This one is unusual in that it has a third eye. My friends say that the tiger reminds them of me when I’m angry …
In tradition Japanese tattoo art, the images are generally more cartoonish. I wanted this one to be a little more realistic than that.
We are going to add wind bars as well (the black and gray swirls and filler in Japanese tattooing). Also, he is going to do a lot more flowers. I said to him “Baby! Give me flowers!”
These are flowers that will last forever. Who else can give you that??"
Every BODY Has a Story: The Formula for Life
There is a short answer and a long answer about the meaning of my tattoo. The short answer is that the two fish are at the top of the surface- that is, this is a tattoo of two fish; plain and simple. The other explanation is a bit more complex.
Most of my life, I had the strong belief that life came from the sun. The sun was the thing that life started from with chlorophyll, and photosynthesis. The whole idea of evolution and life was based, for me, on the sun as a first step.
A couple of years ago, I read something about these vents deep in the ocean floor. They are geothermal vents, and let off heat and gases. There is a whole ecosystem based on these vents and many animals living within this other circle of life.
I love thinking about this. If the sun went out tomorrow, there would still be life on our planet. Within this tattoo are the symbols for all of the planets, water (which is the true formula for life), and the double helix."
Wednesday Jul 19, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Break Dancin’
I have had a lifetime interest in tattoos. My parents met because they were both in punk bands, and I remember when I was little, many of my parent’s friends had full tattooed sleeves. I always liked the tattoos a lot.
After I finished high school, I traveled for a while in Europe, but as soon as I was back in the US and over eighteen, I got my first professional tattoo. Tattoos were never a rebellious thing for me; I just like the way they look on the skin. The first tattoo was on my back and it’s a reference to the comic ‘Jonny and the Homicidal Maniacs’. My tattoo is a Z with a question mark, and is an insomnia joke from the comic. I’ve had bad insomnia since I was a young teen. I actually forget that I have this tattoo, now, because it’s on my back.
The tattoo in this picture was originally an image from an old liquid crystal display watch. The imagery is similar to early game graphics. My parents were not into video games when I was a kid, so I just started getting into gaming culture in the last few years. I really like the old graphics a lot.
This design of break-dancers was appropriated by my favorite band, Mindless Self Indulgence, from NYC. I’ve been into this band since I was about thirteen, and the tattoo is really about liking the band more than anything else.
You can find this image on their tee shirts, CD covers and other places. I got this tattoo a couple of weeks before I went to New York to see one of their concerts. I live on the West Coast, but have been to see them at least eleven times.
I took my mom to see them once, and she thought they put on a good show and were ‘amusing’… My dad hasn’t said much about them. My dad still plays out from time to time with the Miss U’s, but I haven’t had many opportunities to see him because I just turned twenty-one!:
Every Body Has a Story : Thai Mermaid
"I first stumbled across Jimmys shop in Bangkok in March 2004 by chance when I was looking to have some ink done while I was on holiday. I had once heard of this famous tattoo artist having a shop just off Sukhumvit Road from another tattoo artist in Bangkok, but it wasnt until I met Jimmy and got to know him and see some of his work that I put the two together.
One of my personal favorites that Jimmy has done is the one of a Thai Mermaid, a mythical Thai-style design on the inside of my right arm. I had all these oriental-style tattoos alreadykoi, tiger, dragon, and two Japanese Geisha, but what was missing was a Thai-style tattoo. I wanted something special that would be uniquely Jimmy Wong. And thats exactly what I got. The outline took nearly five hours to do and it took just as long to color it in. We still need to add some background highlights, which will also incorporate some more Thai designs like lotus and water. Since then, Jimmy has done a few more Thai-style designs including the outline of a major chest piece of mythical characters from the Thai epic poem Ramayana all of which are a testament to his tattooing expertise.
Once, when I was at Bangkoks Don Muang airport in the departure lounge waiting for my flight back to Seoul, a fellow traveler sporting some ink took notice of the tattoos on my armone of them a most recent addition from Jimmy.
Thats some really cool ink, he said. Get them done in Bangkok? Yes, I told him.
Looks like something Jimmy Wong would do, he said.
I smiled."
Tuesday Jul 18, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Stormy Love
"I don’t know if it’s true, but it is said that the artist Thomas Woodruff used animal hearts as studies for his Cardiomegaly series of paintings, which is where this image comes from. I guess he kept the animal hearts in a refrigerator. Woodruff’s painting was featured on the cover of TattooTime, and I thought it to be a very powerful representation of the Three of Swords tarot card. The three daggers going through the heart. The card came up when a friend was doing a tarot reading, and I remember my friend describing it as Stormy Love. But I also like the placement of the tattoo in the fold of my arm. I like the way it draws on the tension of strings.
I have had a passion and love for tattoos for a long time. So much that I decided to direct my therapy practice around them: www.myinkedshrink.org. I think the main thing I wanted to accomplish was to offer a non-traditional counseling site that de-stigmatized some aspects of the therapy profession. Most people of my generation don’t want to go see someone who are their parents’ age or some professional who is all dressed up. I want people to know, especially my clients, that I am another human being just like them. I imagine the typical client to be someone leaving their therapist’s office in chin-duck position—walking out and trying not to let anybody see that they’ve been there. So I had my therapy site designed to look more like a tattoo shop than some place where you might feel degraded. Tattoos are a massive imprint on a person’s life. I think it’s a good starting point in getting to know someone.
But my therapy practice is more goal-oriented, as opposed to dealing with past issues, though I think those are important as well. I’m just more concerned about the question: Where do we go from here? It’s a shift in counseling perspective, a philosophy that acknowledges that tattooing and therapy can be transformational, a form of healing.
This tattoo was done by Timothy Hoyer at Alive Gallery in Richmond, Virginia.
Every BODY Has a Story: The Buck Stops Here
I got this tattoo three years ago, when I was about twenty-eight or twenty-nine. I got it from this guy named Lyon who was a friend of a friend but ended up becoming a good friend of mine after the tattoo.
Lyon came over to my house and he did the tattoo in the living room. I told him what I wanted in the tattoo, and he did it freehand.
This tattoo means a lot of different things to me. The way I see it, you’re born alone, and you die alone. Everybody and everything in between is just interacting with a person’s essential aloneness. When two people have a conversation, when you rehash later, the two people rarely have the same take on what was said. We live in our heads.
I grew up with my stepmother and never had a family or many connections. When I hear about other people losing their mothers or fathers and that great sense of loneliness that they feel, I guess it came to me quicker than other people. In a way, it makes it easier. Everything I have or have done or have learned, I have accomplished on my own.
A lot of those things were in pursuit of the dollar. A friend of mine was always asking me what I was doing and where I was going at all times of the day and night. He didn’t understand the drive to try and get by anyway possible. I work by buying and selling things. Anything. I’ve worked at markets, with individuals and every other way to make living.
Some of those ways landed me in jail in the past. In the tattoo, you can see the prison bars. The other thing is the web, which represents feeling trapped. One thing that I really liked that Lyon did on the tattoo (I didn’t ask him too, he just did it), was to put in a keyhole underneath the bars. I swear this has helped me many times."
Monday Jul 17, 2006
EveryBODY has a Story: Dorothy and the Poppies
“Suicidal Tendencies was scarified on my arm, and I was tired of looking at it. On my calendar, whatever month it was, was a picture from The Wizard of Oz—Dorothy standing in a field of poppies. So I brought that into a tattoo shop and began the cover-up process, a 180 degree turn from the punk rock inspired scars.
Ironically, the tattoo artist who did the job had his own story to tell. Once, he found his grandmother passed out in a field of poppies. And his mother owned a prized dress that was worn in a movie by Judy Garland, the actress who played Dorothy.”
Every BODY Has a Story: The Love of Souls
“This tattoo is an interpretation of The Love of Souls, a painting by Jean Delville, who was a Belgian symbolist painter. Most of his work is pretty dark and this is probably his most romantic piece. A lot of people confuse the image with the work of William Blake.
Turning it into a tattoo took some work. At first, I wanted to put it on my calve. We went so far as to stencil the image and imprint the purple rain on my skin, but the bodies wrapped too far around and it didn’t look very good. So we started over, decided to change body parts, and gave it a try on my thigh where it grew. This was my first really big tattoo.
I like how the bodies come out at the top and melt together. There’s also a lot of cool movement because of the thigh muscles, the way it moves the blue sky and the fire of the sunlight. To me it is a timeless image.”
Friday Jul 14, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Heart and Crossbones
"My sister and I are identical twins and wanted to get identical tattoos. So we walked into this tattoo shop one day for a consultation but couldn’t think of what image we would like to put on our bodies. That’s when my sister pulled her favorite barrette from her hair (the barrette she wears all the time) and we decide to go with it: The heart and crossbones. Identical twins are said to be mirror images of each other, and for the most part, we are very much alike. But what is interesting is that being a mirror image is also like being the opposite. So we decided to get the tattoos on our wrist so that when we were facing each other it would look like we were looking into a mirror at our tattoos. So this tattoo is on my left wrist, my sister’s is on her right. We also have mirror image nose rings.
Obviously, we share a lot in common. We both work at a Bishop’s hair salon, only at different locations. We both have orange cats. But there are things that are different. I bite my nails, my sister doesn’t (otherwise, our hands look very similar). I like to read a lot, not so for my sister. And I like thunder...and my sister doesn’t. I guess she’s more carefree than me. I think where we differ the most is with our favorite color. My favorite color is red, my sister’s is blue. So when we got the matching tattoo, we had the colors inverted. Mine is blue with a red outline, hers is red with a blue outline. That way when I look at the mirror image of myself—my sister—I see that my tattoo is red, my favorite color."
Thursday Jul 13, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: The Whale
"I wanted a tattoo since my Navy days. One particular mission I was involved in had its own mission design that had a whale with wings who was spouting water. I always regretted not having that tattoo. A few years after the tatto, I still wanted a tattoo and was interested in a sea creature, like a whale, dolphin, whatever. It was at this time my grand parents disclosed a "dark" family secret. They told us that two of our great grandmothers were Cherokees. Grandpa and Grandma wanted to let the family know before they passed on.
This sparked an interest in Native American art, culture, myth, religion, life. I have lived most of my life in the Pacific Northwest and feel closer to the Native tribes of Salish, Spokane, Nez Perce, Haida than I do to the Cherokees who live in a part of the country I've only been to once. At some point I decided on a native art design and I liked the Haida motif the best.
The whale is symbolic of wisdom and is seen as a protector of the people. This seemed to fit with my chosen profession of Public Defender. I spent a couple of years looking for the design I had pictured in my head.
One day on vacation in the San Juans, I went into the Whale Museum and saw this coffee cup with a Haida whale design by Joe Wilson. That was it, exactly what I'd been looking for. I bought it, took it to Atlas where Jamie Billig adapted it and put it on my left shoulder two years ago.
I haven't yet regretted having a tattoo. I can prove that my coffee cup is really mine. I am considering a Haida raven for my right shoulder. I'm just looking for the right design"
Every BODY Has a Story: Melting Butterfly
"I spent many hours yesterday getting this tattoo done, and some of today. A lot of the time yesterday was spent making the picture, though.
I am getting this tattoo from Josh at Raven tattoo. He is drawing the picture, and some of it, he is free-handing directly onto my skin.
My husband and I are both getting tattoos this week. My husband’s tattoo is going to be a series of guitars (he is a guitarist in a band). Playing music is his passion.
For me, my tattoo is flowers and butterflies, but not necessarily lifelike flowers and butterflies- more exotic and unique. I especially wanted a curled and bent leaf in the tattoo because it makes it all the more mine.
I love nature and arts of all forms. Specifically, I make glass beads No one showed me how to do it, I just watched someone once, and got a book. You can buy the beads at my friend’s shop- ShearPower in Kennewick, Washington.
Josh started making this image look like it was melting, and I really liked that. It fit with my glass work. He asked me what my favorite type of flower is, and I made him laugh because I could not think of a specific flower name. I like it when they look wild and not like any other flower.
I also wanted an image that would fit the contour of my arm and flatter the shape of it, rather than putting the picture square on a piece of skin. I am planning to fill in this picture with color, but I am waiting a few weeks until it is not so painful."
Wednesday Jul 12, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Water Lilies
"I don’t actually remember getting these tattoos, though I know that I got them about four years ago after the crash. It was a really bad time in my life. My wife left me, and two months later I was riding to work on my motorcycle and got into an accident.
A woman made a wide unexpected turn, and I t-boned right into the side of her car. I was sober, wearing full leathers, and a full-face helmet at the time. I still can’t figure out exactly how I landed, but I was thrown forty-five feet. I didn’t break a single bone, but I had brain injuries.
The next year or so, I had to see doctors two or three times a day. My frontal lobe was swollen, and my cognitive thinking mechanisms were impaired. What this ended up meaning was that I could not remember what happened a half-hour after it happened. It was a bad time not to have a girlfriend…
I have a dog named Ace, and he kept tricking me that he was hungry and so I kept feeding him. He ended up getting pretty fat. All this combined with an unbelievable headache that lasted for a year… Not fun.
I got this tattoo from Mathew Nightshift at Tiger Lilly tattoo. I have a lot of tattoos, but these are some if the most pretty and serene images at I have.
When my mom saw these tattoos, she decided that she wanted one too. She had never gotten a tattoo before, and I got it for her forty-ninth birthday present. I was real proud of how she did.
I still ride my cycle, and it’s taken a while, but the headaches etc. are much better. If I ever crash again though, I gotta break my record of forty-five feet- I’m going to fly at least fifty…"
Every BODY Has a Story: Stag's Head
"I moved to Portland, Oregon from Vermont when I was about twenty, and within the first week I got my first ear piercing and my first tattoo: A stag’s head on my right arm and shoulder. I was raised in a religious family. My grandparents were hardcore Catholics and my parents were Unitarians. By age nine, I knew I wasn’t down with Christianity (though if they put couches in churches instead of wooden pews I might consider going again).
I had a growing interest in Paganism. And so with the first tattoo, I wanted an animal totem, a wolf or something like that. I decided against getting the wolf because I’m not a predator, but I still wanted something masculine. And I wanted the symbol to reflect different cultures and philosophies. At the top and bottom of the Stag’s Head are the Greek symbols of the sun and the earth. And the antlers that come down around the sides symbolize Order & Chaos—one antler is shaded, the other is not.
The tattoo that hangs below the Stag’s Head is a cross between Native American feathers and Irish knot work. I am Irish, after all. The tattoo was done by my friend Chase while I was in college. He later died in a motorcycle accident."
Tuesday Jul 11, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Unicorn
"I haven’t been shy in a long time, but when I was about six or seven I remember having a crush on this little girl at school. Somehow, my dad and I got into a conversation about what you say to girls to get them to come over.
He said that if I really wanted her to come over, to tell her that I had a unicorn in my backyard. There isn’t a woman in the world that could resist that.
My dad had a few tattoos, but all hand done, and none of them unicorns. Though I was too shy at the time to tell my six-year-old crush about my imaginary pet, the thought stayed with me. I got this tattoo about two years ago from Cheyenne at Oddball tattoo. When I told him I wanted a male unicorn, he started drawing up images.
Each image we looked at didn’t seem quite big enough, though. When we finally got to this one, it was a matter of finding out where to fit it onto my body.
The sides are a seriously painful place to get tattooed. Usually, I can go for three-hour sessions before I get the feeling I’d like to punch the artist, but with this one, I could do two, maybe two and a half max.
The whole thing three sessions, and worked like a charm. My dad was right: there isn’t a girl in the world who can resist a unicorn…"
Every BODY Has a Story: Diamond
"I was in Spain with a friend of mine, playing music and helping to run this hostel a few blocks from La Rambla. We were both into tattoos at the time, and had this idea for a tattoo that we wanted.
Every tattoo studio we went into was totally lame though. Blaring Nine-Inch Nails, and no sense of humor for our tattoo idea.
The tattoo we had in mind was based on an old sailor Jerry tat from Hawaii. The original, is a monkey that says Aloha. Since we were in Spain, we wanted the monkey to say ‘Hola”, and the ‘O’, as in the original, was created with part of the monkey’s anatomy…
Finally, we found this Argentinean guy, named Kikay, who worked at a studio called Rose Tattoo. He was a great guy. After we told him our idea, he went home, thought about it, and couldn’t sleep all night because he was laughing so hard.
He tattooed me and my friend and we hung out together a lot going to discotheques, drinking absinthe and staying up all night. Kikay had tattoos on both of his palms, and naturally, we spent a lot of time talking about tattooing.
I had always wanted a tattoo on my palm, but wasn’t exactly sure which image to get. All of a sudden, I was called back to the US for a family emergency. We had five days until our plane left, and Kikay told me that he was going to give me a palm tattoo as a going away present.
I’m in a band called Diamond Tuck, and Diamond is one of my nicknames. I gotta diamond so I’d be rich the rest of my life- not rich with money, maybe, but a rich life.
Kikay told me that when you do palm tattoos, you have to do them in dots, then double them over so the line blends together. By the time he was getting done, the car was waiting for me outside. We had so much sh-t to carry, all on my newly inked palm. Not just our packs and guitars, but a sword I got for my kid and a suitcase full of unopened adult toys we had found after some shop had closed.
Getting through customs was tough. The sword ended up being the hardest thing to bring in, but they let me put it into the guitar case. So it goes…"
Monday Jul 10, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Declaration of Intention
This tattoo says: Without hope, I have nothing. Without upholding the convictions of my heart, I would be nothing.”
This phrase was originally part of a letter I wrote to a woman with whom I had a year long correspondence. She lived in Prague, and I lived in the US.
We had spent several letters discussing a problem that she was having, and she wrote me back to thank me, and asked, “How is it that you are the way you are?”
The words of this tattoo were my response. I am a poet, musician, and writer by trade and as soon as I had written that phrase, I knew that I wanted it as a tattoo. It took three years, however, to actually decided to do it.
Though I know that I want this as the declaration for my life, I had concerns about my ability to follow my own mantra. I sat with the idea for those three years, thinking about the meaning implied, placement, and intention.
My housemate at the time was a Latin major. He was the one who translated it for me, and he did it in an extremely thoughtful manner. He explained to me the significance of each word in Latin phraseology, and the way he translated it became a poem in its own right.
I decided on the placement because I liked the way it was centered, and it referenced the chakra of my gut feelings.
At this point, I am in several bands (Like Fireflies We Float, is one of them), and I am finishing a book of twenty poems that will have photographs to accompany them.
There was no deciding act that made me realize that I was ready for this tattoo, but it feels right to me."
Friday Jul 07, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Aries
"When I was born, my parents had my astrological chart done for me. So in a sense, I suppose they planted the seed for my future interest in the subject. Until I was about nineteen, however, it had been nothing but a vague interest. At that point, I got an amazing book on astrology that really changed my understanding of it.
Most people realize that Astrology readings are generally vague, and can be fit to work for nearly anyone. When you look up the specifics of the alignment of the planets at your birth, however, and entirely different story emerges. The picture becomes something that is highly individualistic.
Some time after I read this book; I went to see an astrologist to do my chart. I highly recommend it. I don’t wish to speak about the specifics of that experience, but just that she talked to me as if she had known me all of her life and I left feeling like I was a changed person.
This tattoo is a representation of the Aries symbol. I drew about seventy percent of the image, and the artist did the rest. I had been in art school (Academy of Art, in San Francisco), but left after about a year. I found that they were more interested in teaching people how to make money in the industry rather than supporting one’s individual voice. It was very discouraging, and at the time, I felt as if I was finished with the art world.
When I got this, I had originally thought of starting here, and putting the rest of my chart on other parts of my body. The artist drew two sketches- one, a hieroglyphic-looking Aries sign, and two, a realistic-looking pair of ram’s horns (the ram is the animal symbol of Aries). I mixed the two designs together, creating this image.
Every BODY Has a Story: Love Story
This tattoo has a banner in Latin that says: Love has nothing to do with order. This phrase was actually from a letter written to the pope by an Irish priest named Columbanus, regarding the absurdity of a Roman doctrine decreeing the manner in which one ought to love god.
I got it last November from Jacob at Oddball Tattoo. I highly recommend them there. The concept I came up with originally was a little different from how it ended up looking. I guess, in a way, it’s the tattoo of the hopeless romantic, but I wanted a snake in a circle around the heart with the dagg. My plan was to get a new dagger through the heart each time my heart was broken...
I told the artist about my idea several weeks before our appointment. He didn’t call me and the day before I gave him a call. He asked me if I minded they he made a few alterations to my design idea. He explained how he thought it would look cool to have the winding snake weave through and around the heart.
When I saw the drawings, I really liked it a lot. It gives the piece a sort of three-dimensional quality it wouldn’t have had otherwise. Though I have never seen an image like this before, the bold colors and the heart and infinity snake give it a very classic look.
I guess the meaning of this tattoo is that I want to remember to learn from my experiences, and remember that love is a never-ending source of chaos. Sometimes it hurts, and sometimes it’s the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen.
Thursday Jul 06, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Temperance
My husband and I met at my birthday party on October 28th, last year. We had friends in common, but had never actually met each other.
That night, we stayed up until seven in the morning. We were both intrigued by each other, but going though some intense conflicts in our lives. We didn’t actually see each other again for another month. That night, my husband-to-be came over, and we talked all night long. He actually never ended up leaving again.
We are both writers, and we sensed in each other a sort of missing link we had been longing for in other relationships: the empathy of the writers’ unbalanced balance. My husband has a particularly ironic book out now (to the point of either hysteria or repulsion according to your personal constitution), The Greatest Show on Earth. He’s got another on the way. Check out www.danielscottbuck.com.
Four days after our fateful second meeting, under the influence of much alcohol and true love, we decided to get married. Not Legally married, but a sort of commitment ceremony, written and preformed by ourselves with a set of vows penciled onto Powerball lottery tickets we found in the bar.
This however, did not seem enough. We decided to get married ‘fer reals’. Thus it was that having had known each other for a maximum of three weeks, we solidified our commitment to each other in a legal ceremony.
Not long after that (like the next morning, unsurprisingly), we started thinking about Temperance. As the both driven but often irrational beings that we are, we developed a strategy to maintain our balance.
What? A tattoo, of course.
In tarot, the temperance card is not at all like the temperance of prohibition… It is the card of alchemy and the arts. The idea is not to Stop doing anything, but to mix each thing in the correct amount that would result in artistic creation.
It has taken us (in typical form), about five months to get around to getting this tattoo. We got them together tonight, and it was the most meaningful tattoo I have ever experienced.
This is also my husband’s first tattoo. We got them done by Sage at www.sage-ink.com. We highly recommend him and he travels to do work.
Wednesday Jul 05, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Black Arm Sleeves
"A couple of years ago my husband started working on a black arm sleeve. He started it around the same time we opened our tattoo shop, Forbidden Body Art Tattoo.
I really liked the way the sleeve looked, though it was a seriously labor intensive process. Last year we decided to get matching black sleeves. I started mine about six months ago, and my husband has been doing the work for me.
We work on it for about two hours at a time, but it’s taken a pretty long time. I am covering up a lot of other tattoos that I have underneath, but that isn’t the point of this tattoo. For my husband and I, this tattoo is a symbol of our commitment to each other. It’s a difficult and long process to be in a marriage, but we intend to keep it solid forever.
This particular kind of tattoo is very, very stable. Even when we are old these tattoos won’t have the smudged lines that tattooed names (for example) end up having.
I am happy to take my time about getting this tattoo because I know I will always have it."
Every BODY Has a Story: Irish Crest
"When I was a kid, my dad had a tattoo that said ‘Fighting Irish’. I didn’t know what I wanted, but from that time on I knew that I wanted a tattoo. Both my parents are Irish, but not entirely, none of my grandparents were directly from Ireland.
Nevertheless, being Irish is something we celebrated. Mostly on St. Patrick’s day with parades and barbecues, and pints…
My aunt by marriage got really into genealogy. She researched her family to a long way back, and then started on our family. She traced our family from Ellis Island, to New York, to Oklahoma, to California, to Oregon.
We all got pretty interested in it after she started the research. One thing that she found was our family crest. This is what I had tattooed over the Irish flag. After I got it, my dad asked me if I was sure the crest was really the one for our family and I got a little nervous.
I went to Seaside, and talked to this ancient guy that does genealogy and crests. I didn’t tell him about my tattoo, just asked about the crest for my name. He started to describe it right away. I guess my aunt got it right!
Today, I want to somehow incorporate the American flag into the Irish one. Though I’m a lot Irish, what I really learned from my aunt’s research was that I’m 100% American."
Thursday Jun 29, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Change and Movement
"During the summer between my freshman and sophomore years in high school, my parents sent me to bible camp. I wasn’t very excited to go, but I did. My parents didn’t Force me to go or anything but they are very religious Baptists, and a lot of my life up until then had been spent engaged in religious activities and practices.
When I got there, I met a boy named Simon. He and I spent most of the time skipping classes at the camp and having long philosophical conversations about many things but particularly about religion.
I had had serious questions before, but it was at that point that I decided my faith was different than the faith of my parents, and that I was unconvinced my the idea of a dominant single deity.
After that week in summer camp, Simon began to write to each other. The letters were not your standard pen pal letters. Each was really a crafted item, beautifully composed and executed. We continued to correspond for several years without ever seeing one and other again.
After I finished with high school, I decided that I wanted to go to Vermont. Simon suggested that I come to where he lived (Danbury, Connecticut), instead. I did…
When we saw each other, it was weird, but really amazing. For three weeks, the relationship was spectacular. We both felt as if we might explode with the positive energy that we created together.
After three weeks, it stopped. It wasn’t either one of us who decided, it was a completely mutual thing. The relationship just changed. Though our friendship changed as well, we remained friends and I continued living in Danbury.
Right before I left Danbury, I was visiting friends in a dorm at Johnson State, it was late at night, and everyone was completely passed out.
There was one little lamp on, and suddenly I had the idea for this image. I needed a ruler! Paper! A pencil, right then! The image took a lot of math to figure out. I knew how wide I wanted the lines, and I knew how wide on my arm I wanted the completed image to be. The image is composed of five lines of equal length that start in different places.
I am a graphic designer because of that, I think my work is based in aesthetics more than direct meaning. However, this image is about travel and movement for me. Everything in life is always changing and moving, and that is good."
Wednesday Jun 28, 2006
EveryBODY Has a Story: “truth beauty hope & love”
I’ve moved a lot of times in my life. It seems like most of the times I have moved as an adult; I have ended up getting a tattoo right before I leave. Like my other tattoos, this one was not extensively planned, but I think the ritual is important. Body art has become a ritual for me before I leave a place.
These four sentiments– truth, beauty, hope and love are all things that I have always believed in. I think that everyone’s experiences influence how they feel about things, however. If Austin wasn’t where I decided that these four elements would be my guiding force, it’s possible that something about my experiences in Austin solidified these notions for me as a way of life.
About a month before I got the tattoo, I was really drunk at a party. I ended up talking (a lot) to a guy at the party about how important truth, beauty, hope and love were to me. It all came together– truth Is beauty, which gives us hope… And so on. Maybe in a way there was some drunk-talk involved, but the sentiments are still things I care very deeply about.
I got this tattoo from Pete Gilcrease at Steadfast Tattoo in Austin. www.steadfasttattoo.com. I wanted a guiding principal, though it has occurred to me that these principals are not very hard for me to remember. I purposely oriented the text so that I could read it, but I think it’s important that other people can read it as well. I particularly like blocky, bold tattoo images, which is why I decided on letting the text be the color of my skin against the black background.
When someone asks me what is sacred to me in my life, I have the answer for them right away.
Every BODY Has a Story: Straight No Chaser
"When I was a young teen, I was really into punk music. I learned all that I could about it, and followed the histories and connections between bands. Part of my interest was fueled by my love of reading.
I used reading as a primary form of music research. One of the books that I read to learn about punk, was by Henry Rollins. The book had a section about jazz, Thelonious Monk and his contribution to Musicology and the foundations of punk.
I was first intrigued by the name Thelonious Monk. I didn't know anything about Jazz before that, and I decided to find out. I went and got a couple of albums and found them incredibly powerful. That was the beginning of my love of jazz. From Monk, I found John Coltrain, Miles Davis and a lot of the other jazz greats. I discovered something new with each album.
This tattoo is a portrait style tattoo, and it wraps around my arm.
Pictured in the tattoo are Miles Davis, Theonius Monk and John Coltrain. The banner reads "Straight No Chaser". I brought in a few different photos before I decided on this one. My friend and tattoo artist, Dominic, vetoed the first couple I brought in.
Many people (including me) who bring a photo for a portrait bring a small pic with a lot going on in the image. Bad move. If you want a photo I learned, bring a large pic, with few things in the photo so that it is possible to pick up on the smallest details. This is the secret to a successful portrait.
People always used to ask me if I was an alcoholic or something because of the "Straight no Chaser" line, but to me, this means something very different, indeed. Getting it straight, means getting something the way it comes out from the source, (like classic jazz rather than easy listening). No sweetening required."
Tuesday Jun 27, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Dandelion
"I knew that I wanted a flower before I got this tattoo though I didn’t know until later that it would be a dandelion. I guess I was in love at the time, and when you’re in love, all sort of things start popping out at you and you see the beauty everywhere.
I was twenty-two when I got this, and when I was figuring out which kind of flower to get, I knew that I didn’t want something cartoonish or maudlin. My first idea was to get something that was a little violent, I thought maybe I could get a flower that if you looked closely was actually cutting into my skin. A friend convinced me against that course of action, however…
When I went in knowing that I wanted a dandelion, I knew that I wanted the image to look like a Real dandelion (rather than flash). I went to Jason at Atomic tattoo and he drew this up for me.
Later I learned about all the medicinal properties of the dandelion. My naturopath recommends it for a number of ills, and I like this aspect of the tattoo as well.
It’s funny when people ask me about what it means. I get this question more often from people without tattoos. At some point, I started telling people that a dandelion saved my life… That doesn’t leave much room for more questions!
I am in love again, and I would really like another tattoo. It seems that I am drawn towards tattoos when I am in love. This time I would like a series of shapes and colors on my arm. This is the image love shows to me now."
Every BODY Has a Story: Punk Rock Jesus
I’m originally from London, England and I came to the US around ’82. I was living in the iconic punk rock crash house in London when I met this girl. She was from the US, and came to visit me about four times in London. The last time she came, she told me that she didn’t have enough money to keep coming back. I told her I didn’t have the money to go, but she ended up getting me a ticket to leave the next day. The plan was to stay two weeks, and I’m still here.
She and I were married for around five years, and after that, I was in a punk band in NYC called Nausea. During that time I met this skinhead girl, and fell in love. Her name was Andrea Elston, and she was from London as well.
She was in art school at the time, and was a talented artist. I had been getting all my tattoo work done at Elio and Shoties tattoo studios, but I was tired of paying for all my work. So… I got Andrea a tattoo gun for her birthday. I have five smaller pieces that she did on my legs and belly, but this is actually one of the first tattoos she ever did.
Since then, she went on to win the Giger award for her biomechanical tattoo work. She apprenticed at the places I went to before her, and went on to Mcdougals.
As for the image, I’ve always been interested in how people respond to Christian iconography. Especially in the punk and activist community, it becomes a sort of controversial tattoo. When I’ve worked with church groups and things though, it’s all turned around and people think that they know something about me by these tattoos.
The image of Jesus is one that I wanted to be as realistic as possible. I found a picture called “Nuclear Crucifixion” that I liked. For me, Jesus was a real person, an activist really. From there, I let Andrea do all the drawing."
Monday Jun 26, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: The Virgin of Evolution
"All the tattoos on this arm tell a story, and they are all part of the same story. Or perhaps instead of a story, my tattoos represent a question.
I grew up going to church, but a non-denominational church. It was very free form and liberal. I became more spiritually driven as I got older, but at a certain point, both my parents and I stopped attending church.
Why? We all decided independently that church was fomented of status-filled relationships. What became more evident to me, was that My religion was composed of my relationship with god.
One of the tattoos that I have on the other side of this arm is a chaos symbol with a cross at the top. I deeply believe that all religions are founded on the basis of love, but that the organization of this love creates division and discord.
One of the elements of discord within religious sects is the argument between science and god. This tattoo is my take on discussion: the creator made us and placed us on this earth, but he did so with the plan of evolution.
For me, science answers some of the big questions in life, religion answers others. If you ask the question in the right manner, the answers do not have to becontradictory."
Every BODY Has a Story: The Raven
"When I was eighteen, I spent the summer with a shaman named Red Eagle, of the Chipaway tribe on the West Coast. I met him through my parents (one of whom is also Native American).
During the time we spent together, we did a lot of spiritual work. Together we did sweat lodges, which are physically uncomfortable experiences. He taught me about focusing inward and setting aside discomfort while still remaining in the moment.
I also went on a spirit journey during that time. We smoked a Native smoking mixture composed of tobacco, sage, catnip and other elements and took peyote.
I don’t remember much of the specifics of my journey except for the memory of flight. Not only was I above watching everything on the ground, I was also able to see myself from the sky and observe, soaring above.
After the completion of my spirit journey, I was given the Native name, Xebachea. My spirit animal is the Raven.
After that summer, I started a tattoo studio called Raven Ink tattoo. In Native America stories, the raven is the animal who finishes things left undone. For example, the Raven is the one responsible for bringing fire and for making man’s fingers (by cutting the webbing apart with a shell).
That is how I see my work. I finish people who feel unfinished. The odd thing about this raven tattoo is that it is not finish. The artist who did it, Nate Hudson, passed away before it was done.
I don’t think I will ever myself feel finished because there is always so much to be done."
Friday Jun 23, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Tee-Shirt Band
"While I was in high school, my two best friends and I decided to get matching tattoos. We had No idea what we wanted, but we just kept this in the back of our heads for a few years.
The three of us hung out all the time during high school, and we threw a bunch of different tattoo ideas around, but none of them stuck. One summer right after high school, one of my friends saw this pattern on his older brother’s tee shirt. We all really liked it. We decided to get the tattoos done on a very spur of the moment basis.
We went to the house of another friend of a friend who was a tattoo artist in Coos Bay, but he didn’t have his own shop. We checked out his portfolio though, and liked it a lot.
We gave him the shirt, and he drew out the image. We all got them done that night. It was really cool later. We hung out showing them off to people and partying. I won’t forget it.
Since that time, one of my friends passed away from a suspected drug overdose. I thought about adding something to the image to note this, but I want it to happen just as spontaneously as the time we did it together."
Thursday Jun 22, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Celestial Dragon
"I got this tattoo from one of my mentors in the tattoo world, James Smith. I had it done around 2004 when I was twenty-three years old.
I don’t know how this all happened, but James actually did his tattoo apprenticing in Japan. He wasn’t Japanese or anything, but that’s where he learned his stuff.
I had never really been exposed to Japanese art before. It is an ancient form of tattooing, and most people agree, one of the most beautiful styles of tattooing that has ever existed.
While we were working in the shop, he told me a story about dragons. A dragon in Japan begins as a Koi Fish, and after a thousand years, if it swims up the rainbow waterfall it will become a water dragon.
After some point, the water dragon is transformed into a land animal, a tiger, he said, though with the characteristics of an ox as well. The tiger becomes an eagle with regenerative qualities like a phoenix. At that point, it becomes a wind dragon and then a celestial dragon with no need for wings.
I was intrigued by this story, and decided I wanted a dragon tattoo from him. He drew the tattoo right on my skin with magic marker, and went from there. This is my favorite and largest tattoo.
I had already gotten quite a few tattoos at that point, and in a way I regret not leaving more space for large traditional pieces such as this."
Every BODY Has a Story: Spray Paint Angel and Devil
My name’s Jake Coffee, and I’ve always liked to draw. Though I’ve never done tattooing in a shop before, I’m apprenticing now to get my license. In order to get my license, I have to do fifty tattoos, past some kind of test and I think, do CPR or something. It takes a lot of money to get the license, and I’m not there yet.
Now, I’m a professional graffiti artist and I work the counter at a tattoo studio. I’m part of a graffiti art crew called Style Krew, based in California. We don’t tag or nothing, we do big art installations. I’ve done graffiti art all over the whole country.
I had some work up on the site artcrimes.com under the name Mask360. Now I’m working at 21st Century Tattoo in Portland, Oregon doing custom drawings. I’m the only person in the city doing custom graffiti work.
My hands are a statement about my profession. Lots of people have the devil/angel thing going on with tattoos; it’s almost a standard tattoo motif. My angel and devil are spray cans, however. The devil has an ‘S’, for Style, and my angel has a ‘K’, for Krew. :"
Wednesday Jun 21, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Star Belly
On my twentieth birthday the world felt both vastly complex and intimately elemental. Despite the convincing layers and sturdy scaffolds, I was sure that under everything, at the heart of the universe was a totally wild and free spirit. Not a naked woman galloping bareback on the beach (though she’s out there too), but a freeflowing magical energy: generative and divinely creative.
My tattoo is symbolic. It connects me to my own devotion to this way of understanding the world, not rational, not mechanistic, but eidetic: flowing like a river from mountain spring to ocean. My star belly is a reminder of belly work, belly dance, belly love, the arts of expression and making.
Pregnant with my first baby, I watched my skin stretch elasticly as the star grew and grew. It seemed fitting that this symbol should be dynamic, change with time and morph through the conception of new life. Not to get too heady, for a star-bellied sneetch can get trapped in her own paradigm.
My second daughter now a year old smooshed out these purple pixels again, and new folds and creases mark my years of motherhood. My love for my family is humungous and my curiosity for new ideas wide open. The star still sums much of this up for me and will continue to wear and change with age and exposure, marking a specific point in time and a timeless imperfect love of life."
Every BODY Has a Story: True Love
This is my first and only tattoo. I got it a few years ago with a friend of mine. Nat is my husband, and my friend got the name of her husband tattooed on her at the same time.
We didn’t know about the curse of the name tattoo at that point. We had heard, of course, of all those people who got their partner’s name and then broken up, but we thought the gesture was somewhat ridiculous and sweet. The breakup question never occurred to us.
We got these tattoos as a father’s day present for our kids’ dads. In retrospect however, I think that I felt like I needed to do something like get a tattoo. I suppose it could have been anything, but I needed a way to make an independent decision. At the time though, I didn’t know how to do it for myself. Thus, I did it for someone else.
When I got the tattoo, my older son was about four and my twins were one and a half. My marriage was going fairly well, but I felt overwhelmed a lot. After I stopped nursing the twins, I was like a sort of second adolescence. I wanted to have time to myself, and the patterns I had made with my husband didn’t feel like they fit anymore.
Coincidentally, my friend who got the tattoo at the same time was going through a similar situation. We both ended up breaking up with our husbands, and there was a point where I felt a little silly for getting this tattoo.
My husband and I maintained our respect for each other though, during our period of separation. Just recently, we moved back in together. I am optimistic about the future of our relationship, and though it is never easy to work, live, have small children and a smooth relationship, I feel like I am progressing in a positive direction.
Tuesday Jun 20, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: My Wife
This tattoo is a portrait of my wife. I got it last week on what would have been her 28th birthday. She died on February 3rd of ‘05 from a rare form of Lymphoma.
We have two children together and everyday is different without her there. She was diagnosed with cancer five years before she died, and it was a long fight.
There are only about 75 other people in the US with this kind of cancer, and they don’t know very much about it. She had over 600 blood transfusions and a successful bone morrow transplant. Our daughter was the marrow donor, and my wife never left our daughter’s side while she was in the hospital ‘saving mommy’.
They treated my daughter like a princess at the hospital, and the transplant was a success but she died later, nevertheless.
We had a son during the time that she was fighting the cancer and he is a healthy five-year-old now. At the memorial service, more than 400 people were present during the ceremony. She was the sort of person that people con not help but love.
What I remember and miss most about her was her genuine warmth. Moreover, she was so compassionate! She reached everyone in our community and outside, did volunteer work even when she was so sick. She was the best woman and the best wife a man could ever hope to have."
Every BODY Has a Story: Marilyn Monroe
"When I was about seventeen or eighteen, I’m not sure which, but it was right after high school, I saw a poster of Marilyn Monroe at a store. It wasn’t like I hadn’t seen pictures of her before that point, but at that moment, I had the strongest feeling. It was so weird, I felt as if I knew Marilyn in another life.
It was at that point that I started collecting all things Marilyn. I hae thousands of items in my collection including a gold-plated 24K There are many connections for me with Marilyn Monroe and my family. My father says we are related to the Kennedy’s, and that was a strange coincidence, but I think it is my mother that reminds me of her most of all.
I didn’t grow up with my dad, just my mom. She and my sisters are amazingly close. She is my life. She sparkles with the same kind of radiance that I see in Marilyn. My mother is a racecar driver, she’s beautiful, she powerful, I really feel like she is the one who gave me my world.
That’s what I see in Marilyn Monroe– the beauty and the intensity. I really really wish I could have met her, and I also wish that she didn’t die the way she did.
I have two other tattoos besides this one. I have a sister tattoo that my sister and I got together and a best friend tattoo I got with my dear friend. This one is all mine though. I just got this tattoo on May 12th (which is my birthday). This is the Only thing I wanted for my birthday– just a little bit of that beauty for myself to wear."
Monday Jun 19, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Wings
Oh, this tattoo! I love it now, but the weirdest thing happened at first…
I work in a tat shop, and I decided I wanted a new back piece. The thing about working in a shop is that when you say that, there you are!
I guess I didn’t have any real reason for wanting the wings, it was pretty random. I just kind of hit on them as an idea and I threw it out to my boss, Nathan at Vertigo.
He looked at me and said he’d do it, but one condition: they had to be proportionate. He wouldn’t do them unless they were big enough for me to actually fly away…
He drew these out and I love them. They aren’t totally finished yet, but pretty close. The top part Nathan drew out to look like the sort of cartilage you see in the top of wings.
The funniest thing though… Maybe I’m making excuses for the guy or something, but you know, people don’t See a lot of unfinished tattoos!
I was at the gas station, after Nathan had just done the outline, and I went inside to pay. I was wearing a tank top, and the guy pumping my gas stared at me and his jaw dropped!
He Stopped pumping my gas and followed me into the store. I turned around to see what he wanted and he said, “That’s the Ugliest tattoo I have Ever seen!”
I really didn’t know what to say! It was only just started- he didn’t know that my wings had only just started to grow!"
Friday Jun 16, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Cherry Blossom
I have a lot of tattoos, but this little cherry blossom is really different for me. When I was a kid, there was a cherry tree outside of my house, and each year in the spring I remember clearly the beautiful, but short-lived blossoms.
For some reason, I don’t know why, there were just a ton of caterpillars that lived in this tree. I used to hunt for caterpillars all the time, but in this tree they were always there during the blooming, you didn’t even have to look. I would watch them turn into butterflies, and it never ceased to amaze me.
Later, I read a lot about how cherry blossoms signify the fragility of a moment. Because of their momentary beauty, they are a reminder that each moment is lost after it is lived, but that there is beauty in each moment.
I had thought about getting a cherry blossom tattoo before, but the funny thing about this whole story was that my girlfriend did it. She is Not a tattoo artist, which made the whole thing pretty funny. She walked into the room, all bold and ready to do it, but when I turned the gun on she goes “This thing Shakes when you hold it”.
But it wasn’t the gun… It was her hands! It made me laugh, but she did the outline, and she’s going to do the shading later. If I think about what it means to have her do this tattoo for me, it’s sort of a weird thing. On one hand, like the cherry blossoms, relationship are always shifting and changing and they can never stay exactly in the same place. One the other, having her give me this tattoo reminds me of the beauty of this moment together."
Thursday Jun 15, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Suicide Guns
Suicide guns are becoming what swallow tattoos are now in classic, contemporary tattooing. They’re an imaginary kind of gun where if you pull the trigger, the gun shoots at you.
The artist I went to, made up this drawing himself, but I have seen other renditions of this same idea in tattooing.
I got these tattoos about four years ago when I was twenty-nine. At the time, I was hanging out with a bunch of people and partying way too hard. Drinking, financial crap, traveling, snowboard trips; one of the guys we hung out with actually ended up in jail.
At some point, I realized that this lifestyle was a slow suicide. Excessive drugs and the fast life were bound to catch up with me the same way they were slowly but surely catching up to all my friends.
I decided to put these tattoos on my hands because I wanted to be able to look at them when I picked up a bottle.
It worked. It took a lot of effort, and I really needed to seclude myself from a lot of people, but my life has totally changed around. I own two businesses now, and everything is looking a lot more balanced and stable."
Every BODY Has a Story: Day of the Dead Virgin
This tattoo isn’t finished, but I started it about a year ago. My friend Saad used to own a head shop called Looking Glass Gifts, and I actually bought it from him a year or so back. He now owns a tattoo studio called Pussycat Tattoo.
I’m a glass blower by trade, and I make smokeable art pieces for the shop. Saad and I started trading glass for tattoo work. This one time, I brought him this $250, hand-blown, double perk (filtered), water pipe. It was beautiful– all different colors, you name it. Saad brought it on a fishing trip to show some friends and actually broke it within an hour. Poor guy, he did hours of tattooing and the thing got broken right away…
Anyway, this image is the Virgin Mary, done in a Day of the Dead style. I learned about Day of the Dead art a really long time ago, though I always associated it with tattoos. I’ve never been in Mexico for the Day of the Dead, but hope to in the future.
When I was in seventh grade, a bunch of my friends and I got really into tattoos. We ended up dropping out of school and working in the lumber industry for a time. In seventh grade, someone showed us how to make a tattoo gun and we did a ton of them on each other. My mom was pissed. Some of them aren’t bad, though…
One of the things we were really intrigued by was tattoo flash. Out of all the flash we looked at, the Day of the Dead images struck me the most. I knew that I wanted something like that, though it has taken me until now to make a more cohesive design.
The tattoos I had before were more individual images, rather than a unified theme. With this tattoo, I’m working towards that standard instead of piecework tattoos.
I grew up Christian, but not Catholic, and I think that the Virgin Mary has a different meaning for me that for some people. For me, the Virgin Mary represents hope for the future and a positive outlook on life. The Day of the Dead is a holiday that represents celebrating and honoring family members that have passed away. The combination of the two images means respect for the past and hope for the future.
I found the picture on the ground, on an old band flyer. I called Saad, and described the picture. I went to bring it in, but he has a large reference library of images. When I arrived, he had drawn out almost the identical image based on my description. Amazing."
EveryBODY has a Story: Lucky Clover and 11
My parents aren’t superstitious people. Not at all. They might wonder why I’m so superstitious but they probably know it started in the second grade…
I play varsity baseball and hope to play college ball next year. I started playing baseball when I was in second grade. My first coach was this Irish guy, and he was crazy superstitious. He never let the bats cross, he was wild for clovers, and whatever you did when you started hitting the ball, you would have to do ever time you hit. Forever.
I still do it! The coach noticed then that I take three swings in the bat box before I hit, and he told me to keep at it. I still do it.
That’s why I have the clover on my back. I think that in a way, the coach was teaching us about personal style, but whatever it was it worked for me. I took it to heart.
The 11 is my friend’s retired number. He was one of my best friends and I played baseball with him almost my whole life. He was an amazing athlete. He also played football as a star quarterback and basketball, too.
A few months ago, he died in a car accident. He had an old Blazer, and it rolled somehow. We go to Molalla High School, and they retired all of his numbers– in all three sports.
The 11 was his baseball number, and since it was retired, I decided to wear it in memory of him. I got it under the clover so that the clover would protect me from bad things happening. I got it on my eighteenth birthday, because as soon as he died, I knew that that’s what I wanted.
Wednesday Jun 14, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Jesus and Mary
A lot of people have “Love and Hate” or “Angel and Devil”, or even their ‘Bad’ side and their ‘Good’ side. This tattoo is a little different.
I got this tattoo a couple of years ago from a guy named Brian at Addictions in Salem. He was on INKED in the beginning, but couldn’t stop messing with the celebrities.
Before I chose this tattoo, I had been very impressed with the work of Robert Hernandez, a Spanish tattoo artist, and I actually found these images on his site.
I got the two sides done right after each other. We printed the images off of the computer, blew them up, and used them. I love the style of these images. I like Dali and Giger (though I am not into biomechanical especially), but I am interested in the craggy, sloping detail of Hernandez’s portraiture.
Why the Mary and Jesus? I guess these tattoos aren’t religious in a traditional sense. I didn’t grow up with a profound sense of religion in my family. My parents not regular churchgoers, though my grandparents were Methodist.
I don’t really believe in organized religion, though I am struck by how so many people seem to be in a desperate struggle (costing lives) over a god that could possibly be the same one.
My wife says that my tattoo is more about the bond I have with my mother. Perhaps that’s true. She and I have always had a close bond. I hope to have a child of my own sometime soon, and I think that the love between parents and children is the closest to spiritual that we are likely to find in this lifetime. This seems like the best parallel I can find in my life for spirituality."
Every BODY Has a Story: Celtic Sheriff
I studied photography at the Brooks Institute and graduated in ’97. Currently I work at Studio Urban Soul, but at that time, my roommate, Adam Booth, was a photographer and an aspiring tattoo artist at Wildside in Santa Barbara.
We went different directions- he rode BMX bikes, and I was into skate boarding, but we hung out together a lot. He’s now a photographer for BMX Plus.
As his roommate, I was skin for his apprenticeship. The smaller tattoo on my back says my name, Dave, and it is a cross between a sheriff’s badge, and one of those old 60’s pins that says LSD. My brother thought it was really funny, and he ended up getting one too. We tried to convince our other brother, but we haven’t managed to (as of yet).
I got the Celtic tattoo on my spine from Peter Bogdanov. I had found the image ten years earlier, and had saved it until I found the perfect time to get it done. The image is three Celtic dogs, and there are three brothers in my family.
Originally, I planned to get the image from shoulder to shoulder, but Peter convinced me to put the image lengthwise. A good artist will do that.
Reminding myself of my family and my brothers is a form of solidity for me. The knots in the image all fold back into each other, and everything is connected in the end."
Every BODY Has a Story: MOM Heart
This is probably one of the most popular tattoos in the world. It’s certainly one of the most classic. Though I mean the positive sentiment about my mother without question, there is also kind of a funny element about the ‘mom’ tattoo.
Classically, it’s funny because you can imagine that for some moms, a tattoo honoring them is really the last thing in which they are interested in receiving as homage. In my case however, the idea originally came from a drawing I did (pictured). I’ve had a real interest in drawing aliens for a while now. I draw all sort of other things as well, of course, because I’m a tattoo artist at Urban Soul Tattoo: www.theurbansoul.com. But aliens are a personal favorite.
I drew a lot of the aliens for myself, not just for work. I’m not sure exactly what it is that makes drawing them so fun. Perhaps because they could really look like Anything. There’s no way to go wrong.
This picture on the wall of the alien with the mom tattoo inspired My mom tattoo. There is something sweet about thinking that there are other beings who also do strange and silly things (like people).
My wife and I are very close with both sets of our parents. We wish they lived nearer, but we see them when we can. If we had tons of money, we wouldn’t spend it on a bunch of junk. We would take all four of our parents on a vacation where they didn’t have to do anything. Somewhere not too warm, and somewhere without slot machines. Mom’s too crazy about them!"
Tuesday Jun 13, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: The Nautilus Shell
"I became a vegetarian when I was a young teenager, then a vegan a couple of years later. I guess I could describe myself as an iron environmentalist at that point. When I was about seventeen, I read a book by Daniel Quinn called the Story of B. It has to do with humans finding their place in the natural order, and our future if we do not find a balance.
In a sense, I was discovering spirituality for the first time. Though I wouldn’t call it by that name, there is a certain aspect of the spiritual involved with saving the earth. I grew up agnostic, and never attended church. I guess there was a moment when my parents asked me if I wanted to go (in the same way you might ask to join little league) but I was not at all interested.
The Story of B had a profound effect on the way I considered the various problems of life. The tattooed image is from the cover of that book. I got the tattoo right when I turned eighteen and the more that I read about the Nautilus shell the more intrigued I became.
The Nautilus has something called divine proportion, or the golden mean. This is a number that was studied by the Greek sculptor Phidias, and is also known by the number Phi. Throughout this time in my life, I was trying to figure out the divine proportion for humans in the world, but I have come to realize that I have to find the divine proportions for me, in My world.
Now, I think it is as important to smile at a person walking down the street, or relish a happy moment as it is to be conscious of the byproducts of our existence. It’s not that I don’t think it is important to protect the planet, it’s just that I am learning a way to do it more joyfully and with grace."
Every BODY Has a Story: Gemini
Originally, I got this tattoo a month after my 21st birthday. It was a sort of birthday present to myself. When I first got this tattoo, I just got the Gemini sign, and today, I am adding the butterflies into the image.
I had seen people around with their signs on the back of their necks, and I decided almost as soon as I got my first tattoo (at eighteen) that I wanted to get the Gemini one, after.
Gemini is the sign for a dueling personality. It is supposed to be the twins, but one of the twins is earthbound, and the other is heaven bound. Gemini people are full of inner conflict. This suits me, exactly.
Not only do I feel both ways about most things; I feel both ways Strongly! That’s why I chose to make the top of the Gemini straight, instead of how it is usually portrayed (curved). I don’t bend easily.
Today, I’m getting butterflies around the Gemini sign. It’s been about five years since I got the Gemini tattoo, and I have thought about getting something around it since then. As soon as I got the original neck piece, I realized how stark the image was on my neck. It felt too masculine to me. It has taken me a long time to find an image I wanted to combine with it, however.
Butterflies and birds are the animal symbols for the Gemini sign. The reason is that they are half way between earth and heaven, and they flutter on each moment. After I thought of the butterflies, I was set on my image. The butterflies were drawn out by Todd at Icon Tattoo
I asked him to draw butterflies that were more lifelike than cartoonish, and he based the drawing on photos that I brought into the studio.
So do I feel more balanced than I did when I first got the Gemini sign? Guess it depends on the day!"
Every BODY Has a Story: Dragon
When I was fourteen, my mother got the tattoo of a musical note on her ankle. Her sister got a treble clef tattoo. Neither one of them was a musician, but they both adored music, particularly Rush… They still listen to podcasts whenever they have the chance.
I guess I had Seen people with tattoos before, but I had never seen someone get a new one. T was amazing seeing my mother’s skin before the tattoo, than after when the ink was so fresh.
At that moment, I knew I wanted one too. I asked my mother how long I had to wait before I could get one, and she told me it was illegal before I was eighteen. So, I started planning…
When I was eighteen, I was into fantasy stuff, dragons, wizards, fairies… My mother was interested in fantasy as well, but not as much as me. She later got a fairy tattoo. My mom got this tattoo as a present for my eighteenth birthday. It was done by a woman name Mary Jane at Dermagraphics.
I knew that I wanted a dragon, and I went and looked through the flash and Mary Jane’s portfolio. She had done a similar dragon but in different colors. That was the one I decided on.
Though I like the work on this tattoo, when I think about my two other tattoos, this is the one I might try to change at some point. Now it seems like I was pretty young when I got it and it doesn’t fit my body in the way that my other tattoos do. It sticks out as a discreet image, more than blending into my skin. It was a wonderful birthday present, though!
Monday Jun 12, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Winged skulls
"After my mother died, I became interesting in the meanings of cemetery carvings. Actually, I became interested in the meanings behind almost Everything. Especially tattoos. Sometimes, when people are going to get a tattoo, I help them out with their choice of symbols. Many people don’t know that the images that they are wearing are meaningful in a very iconic manner.
This is the second tattoo of cemetery art that I have gotten, and for me, it represents a step forward in my grief. My mother’s death really threw me for a loop, it took a while to develop my equilibrium again.
Traditionally, a skull with a heart in its mouth means a victory over death. The wings mean that a soul has gone to heaven. Though you can’t see this in the picture, there are links around the back of the tattoo. Broken links mean the death of a head of a family, so for me, the solid links mean our family is still whole.
In general, this tattoo means victory over death. It does not mean that my mother didn’t die, but that the things that she has taught me are still with me. She would not like to leave me broken. Since I still have what she gave me, our link is eternal."
Every BODY Has a Story: Robot in the Forest
I have a fond interest in robots. I’m not sure when it started, but at some point I started drawing them and they are still something that I really enjoy working out. It’s maybe a little unusual for me because I really like to think about myself as a having a place in the system of life.
In a certain way, I just find robots charming. Particularly the tall and gangly ones, like the one in The Jetson’s or C-3PO. I really like thinking about an object with a human shape but without human consciousness. They’re fun to think up… The Iron Giant in another giant I like a lot. In fact, this tattoo was based on some of the imagery from that film.
I have an internal struggle between the organic and the technical, in a sense. I realize that humans are animals like any other sort of animal, but we are also so steeped in the culture of technology that is has become our culture, as well.
This tattoo is an attempt to mix the two cultures for myself. I went to have it done by Corey Kruger in Goodfaith, Massachusetts. I started it in the fall of 2004. I had an initial consolation with him, and scheduled the appointment three months later. I knew that I wanted the entire sleeve to be a single image.
I’m pretty sure that he didn’t spend the whole three months working on the image. In fact, he probably drew it out right before I came in, but it was exactly what I wanted.
It isn’t finished yet, though I have had forty-five hours of work on it. It is a big commitment to get a tattoo this large, but I think if you don’t examine what it is about you that is different from a robot, there might not be that much different."
Friday Jun 09, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Butterfly Memorial
"I got this tattoo a week ago, and I am coming in today to add my son’s name and the date of his death. My son died of suicide at the age of thirty-nine and the pain is so strong sometimes I feel as if I am just dead inside.
I have had six children, and he was my middle child. I knew that he struggled with depression, and he asked the state at one point for resources to help him with these problems, but to no avail.
I still talk to him every day. I ask him what I could have done differently, but it is a question that never gets an answer.
I have never had, or considered getting a tattoo before, but I am happy I got this one. The pain of the tattoo seems to fit with my own pain in a sense. One of the things that has really helped me is an online community called Broken Heart, Living Hope. As I don’t think that anyone other than another mother in my position could understand what this feels like, hearing their stories helps heal my heart.
I learned on this site that the butterfly represents the loss of a child. I have added hearts onto the wings of my butterfly.
When my son died, he had a girlfriend who was pregnant. The baby is now six months old, and looks just like my son. It is an unbelievable thing to have this baby to love. I spend all the time I can with him. "
Every BODY Has a Story: Protective Demons
"After I had been an apprentice for about a year under the direction of Carl Hanes, at International Tattoo Garden in San Francisco, I decided to do these tattoos on myself. These are the first and last, self-done tattoos. Man, did it suck doing them…
This was about ten years ago, and I had met Carl Hanes because we were both street workers for the city. He was tattooing during the time we worked together, and soon after, he started working at the shop.
I knew that I wanted to be a tattoo artist from when I was a kid. I had a couple of getto tats done by friends with India ink, and even then, I knew that I could have done a better job than they did.
I have an art background, and before I started tattooing, I worked as a professional illustrator and published many of my images in various magazines and publications. Carl accepted me as an apprentice, and I have really enjoyed the work ever since. If you want to see my portfolio, check out www.happygoluckyart.com
The mask tattoos were inspired from Japanese Noh theatre masks. I guess Noh theatre could be described as the Japanese version of ancient Greek theatre, sort of operatic and dramatic.
I started work on them, and it was really different from doing a tattoo on someone else. The pain was not the same. I found myself bearing down harder than I normally do. Since I did them ten years ago, I also worked a lot slower then. The masks took four hours each. The pain of the tattoo wasn’t that bad, but I got the worst neck cramps. Just about killed me. I did the work alternating each side in two-hour sessions.
One thing that appealed to me about these masks is that in eastern mythology, demons are not considered evil necessarily. Often they are protectors of something good, warriors defending a peaceful entity or place. Interestingly, they are most always jealous women. I’m not sure what that means about me, but I believe being protected by a jealous woman is a probably a lot of protection…:
Wednesday Jun 07, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Ganesha
"I got this tattoo on March 22nd from Sage, at Sage-Ink. We met through a spiritual community to which we both belong, though I do not entirely commit myself to being one of the ‘Radical Faeries’ (a part of the group).
This tattoo is of the god Ganesha, who is one of the Hindi deities. According to the story, Ganesha is the son of Pavardi and Shiva. Shiva left the family, and Ganesha installed himself as the guardian of the family threshold. Shiva returned many years later and demanded entrance to his house. Shiva did not recognize his son, and his son did not recognize Shiva. Shiva killed his son in order to get into the house. After he realized what he had done, he killed a female elephant in sacrifice, and replaced his son’s head with that of the female elephant.
In the broadest of terms, Ganesha represents overcoming obstacles. This deity has been very meaningful for me in the last period of time. One reason I am interested in Ganesha, is that he is often portrayed as partially feminine and partially masculine. In my life, I am seeking a balance with respect to gender.
For a long time, I lived exclusively with men, and then I lived exclusively with women. I feel as if I am finally finding a balance in my living situation with a mix of people who concentrated less on the specificities of gender and have more interest in their personhood.
Another issue that this tattoo addresses is that I have had a very hard time in my life with commitment. Commitment to friends, work, relationships… I see getting a tattoo as a very concrete way of making a commitment. This is an image that I will have forever. I chose white because I like that organic feel of black and white and brown images on the skin. I also feel as if it gives the image subtly, however permanent the image may be. I am overcoming my obstacles."
Every BODY Has a Story: Dead Sheep
"This is my silly tattoo that I love… Originally, I had this idea that I would get a tattoo based on a Native-American folk tale called The Spider Woman. I am Anthropology major, and the tale was a creation myth type story.
I was showing the image from the book (which was a children’s book) to a friend of mine, and we both happened to be really drunk.
We started cracking up looking at the images, and she pointed out that the image I wanted was a sort of tribal style. Nix on that…
We got to the end of the book, and there were a lot of sheep in this field. I don’t know why this was so funny, but my friend goes- “Look, that one’s DEAD!”
That settled it. I decided to get the dead sheep tattoo. The tattoo looks Exactly like the image from the book (which was sort of ambiguous to begin with).
The funniest thing for me is what Other people think my tattoo might be. I’ve heard ice cream, carrots, you name it. But mostly, a chicken wing. That really makes me laugh. The best part is that when I tell them it’s a dead sheep, they have to check it out for a couple of minutes before they can see it. Legs? Eyes? Body? See it??"
Tuesday Jun 06, 2006
INKEDblog Readers Share their Stories: Mickey
"I got this very famous tattoo when I was 18. That was ten years ago. It was a moment in my life when a girl decides to be on her own and feels old enough to make life changing decisions. This was mine.
As a young girl, and also as a teenager, I collected everything "Mickey". And for me this tattoo was my everyday reminder of that collection. It is on my lower back and was free handed by Oz, an artist here in Vegas.
Now comes the story of the scar.
A year ago I was in a bad car accident. (I did not own this scar pervious to the tattoo) This tattoo now has another meaning for me. The 8 inch scar goes thru Mickey and what lies under are 12 screws, 2 plates and 2 long rods. Mickey holds the secret of a very long and painful back surgery. What was once a happy memory of being 18 has now turned into a painful looking scar. I am thankful the surgeon did a wonderful job re-attaching Mickey. I just cannot stand to look at it anymore. I suppose my story is a part question.. I do not want Mickey removed but I want him morphed into something else. With the scar and tissue beneath I know it will not be soon but I do want it covered. Is it possible to cover this 8 inch tattoo/scar? My thoughts are a large heart with wings like the one off of a certian rock bands' album (Papa Roach). I have heard that if you want to cover a tattoo it would have to be something dark. Is the heart a possibility? Will it be too painful with the scared tissue?"
Do you have a tattoo with an interesting story? Tell us at getinked@inkedblog.com
Every BODY Has a Story: Primo
I was born in Dallas, Texas, but spent most of the growing up part of my life in Denton. Denton is a college town, home to UNT and TWU. Skateboarding is something that I have been doing for a long time there, and elsewhere, and it is how I ended up meeting a lot of people.
In Denton, I was part of this kind of skate club called the Denton cruisers. It wasn’t super organized or anything, but we would go out together and bomb hills, skate around, it was fun.
A lot of the time I rode a long board, but my friend Bianca gave me this hilarious short board. It was so short no one else thought they could ride it… It was tiny, hot pink, and said Primo ten times in the shape of a ‘V’.
I guess it was a sort of initiation or something, but me, Bianca and our other friend all went and got this tattoo together. It reminds me of that time. "
Monday Jun 05, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Picture a Happy Family
"I started this tattoo about nine, almost ten years ago now after the birth of our last child, Breanna. The older part of the tattoo is the sun/moon with the names of all three of my children; Breanna, Cameron, and Ava.
I got the design for the sun/moon from flash at Deluxe tattoo. I didn’t have a specific idea of what I wanted before I went in, I just knew that I wanted a celestial image. I liked the way that the sun/moon had the feeling of completion, of a Yin Yang.
Since then, I left the image pretty much alone until about three months ago. Today, I’m on my third session getting work on this arm. The image I’m getting is from a hotel that my wife and I have been going to for a long time. It is a very unusual hotel. It’s called the Edgefield, and it was originally a poor house. A poor house was a place they used to put people who couldn’t pay their debts.
The Edgefield was resurrected by the McMenamin Brothers. They have a philosophy of rebuilding old and actually Haunted buildings, and turning them into incredible artistic spaces. They have all these funny little breweries and bars, one is actually in a shed! They have pools, golf, and gardens. We try to go every other month or so.
When we first went to the Edgefeild, we couldn’t believe the artwork. Every surface of the building is covered by murals, many celebrating the antics and legends from the residents of the poor house, others simply beautiful decorations.
This tattoo comes from one of the images that struck my wife and I on one of our many visits. I took a picture of it, and Wade, from Raven Ink has worked it into my tattoo image. He also incorporated all of our children’s and my wife’s astrological signs as well. All in all, it is a tattoo of happy family memories."
Every BODY Has a Story: Dragonfly Meadow
When I was a kid, my parents bought a piece of property a couple of miles away from our house. The idea was that it was an investment property and someday they would sell it. For me though, it was a meadow wonderland.
There was a creek to wade through, acres to romp in and old buildings to explore. I managed to spend at least a few hours there every week. Sometimes we camped out, but most of the time we just played there during the day. Because of local building codes, it is very difficult to tear down or repair very old and damaged houses in our neighborhood. So the house that was buried in stickerwood was off limits for us.
There were some amazing finds, however. After we spend a lot of time uncovering it, we discovered a greenhouse! I think my dad used it a bit, and we kids played in it as well. Next to the greenhouse was a heart-shaped pond. Someone had built it that way, dug it and lined it with rocks. It wasn’t in good enough shape to use as a real pond, but it still attracted insects of all sorts.
I think that is when I developed my interest in the insect world. I collected butterflies, the sort that you get in a box, when I was about seven. I also adored dragonflies, but I couldn’t stand to kill either kind of bug, myself.
After I had kids, my children would go there too and I saw them playing a lot of the same games I would play. They liked to take the dogs to the creek and run around.
A year or so ago, my parents sold the property. I got this tattoo remembering all of those times. I hope someday to have an empty piece of land for my children to chase dragonflies through…"
Friday Jun 02, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Scarab
"I have always been drawn to Egyptian symbols and mythology and the scarab in particular. Something about that little dung beetle rolling that sh-t around and creating life from it…
I was living in LA trying to be an actress at the time, a soul sucking life experience to be sure, and I was on set as an extra one day and there was another extra with a scarab tattoo on his calf and we started chatting about scarabs and mentioned that I wanted to get a tattoo of a scarab but I just couldn't find one that I liked. He said he'd gotten his out of a coloring book and that he'd bring in a copy of it the next day. To my complete shock and surprise he brought it the next day (actors/artist types are notoriously flaky).
As soon as I had the acceptable image I was chomping at the bit to get it done, but where??? I went to a place on Melrose, just walked in, and there I met the most dreamy tattoo artist Jesse Tuesday. He was adorable and nice, we talked about my coloring book image (no shading just outline of a scarab without wings). He suggested wings, and we talked about color. I told him about the colors I didn't want, and I left the rest to his artistic judgement. He put the temporary image on a few times to make sure it would be straight. And then he began.
It hurt a lot more than I had anticipated. The blood was kind of a shock as well. But we got through it. He is an amazing tattoo artist. I absolutely love my scarab and am so glad I will have it for the rest of my life.
That was nearly 10 years ago and I remember it like it was yesterday!
A short time after it healed, I was in line at Pavilions (supermarket) and some guy was in line behind me and just touched it. Which totally freaked me out. Since then several strangers have touched it, without asking, just compelled to touch it. Others have asked me if I'm a Journey fan. Of course, I had no idea what they were talking about, but I was informed that all Journey album covers have a scarab on it. And for the record, I am definitely NOT a Journey fan."
Thursday Jun 01, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Butterfly!
I got the first butterfly on my arm ten years ago from a place in Milwaukee that doesn’t exist any longer. Good thing really, because I didn’t end up liking it very much at all!
I got the idea to get a tattoo from my daughter, who got her first tattoo as a teenager. We are both animal lovers, and in fact, run a pet and pet supply shop called Animal Crossing. She has several dragonfly tattoos, and I decided on the butterfly but have wanted some changes since the beginning.
A couple of years later I got another butterfly, and to me, it looked like a moth! That is the one with the yellow center. It was clear that I needed to go to another artist.
About two years ago, a gal I knew had a roommate who was a tattoo artist and he had just opened a shop called Captain Jack’s. I went in to have Jesse at Captain Jack’s take a look at the work I had already and see if he could recommend anything.
It funny, everyone Else seemed to like the butterflies that I had before, just not me! After I talked to Jesse, we figured out how to extend and fill in the tattoos that I had. He made them so much better by extending the antenna, surrounding the wings with other colors and elongating the bodies.
I love them now! After that, I told I wanted a vine that wrapped around my arm. I chose the vine from flash that they had in the shop, but Jesse freehanded it, to make it custom. "
Wednesday May 31, 2006
INKEDblog Readers Share their Stories: My Treehouse
My tattoo is based on a drawing done by my best friend. I think you could safely call him a bum. He definitely smells that way. But if you can get past the funk and the nappy hair, he is one of the most intelligent people I know and without a doubt the best artist. Tattoo artists always love his work. I was fortunate enough to have Ed at Big Bear Tattoo do mine about a year and a half ago. He enlarged and reversed the image but kept the detail that makes it so unique. I can't go a day in short sleeves without a complement on it. I love knowing i have something truly unique. I'll probably get the rest of the drawing or another piece of his on my other arm (I need some symmetry)
Share your tattoo stories with us by emailing them to getinked@inkedblog.com
EveryBODY has a Story: The Eyes of the Spider
"A couple of years ago, Sage and I sat down to talk about an image. I wanted a large back piece, and it took some working out to decide exactly how to place it.
I had had some very intense things happen to me at that point in my life, the results of which were that the father of my children could no longer be with us.
I worked then and now at Seventh Revolution Productions, promoting music and setting up electronica shows. I was not expecting to be a single mother.
At that time, my children were three and five and I identified with the spider as a power animal. I never felt that the spider was enclosed in its web, but that instead, it took being a spider to have the creative force necessary to make an amazing piece of art like a web.
When I sat down with Sage, I decided that I wanted a giant web with a spider reaching towards the top. The eyes in the web represent the eyes of higher consciousness. This is my attempt to illustrate that goal for myself.
I suppose that I have generally been overwhelmed by the negative conduct in our society. The intense lack of individual and personal connections in our world has left us with a fundamental breakdown in the social fabric. The remedy is to open our eyes to each other and to focus on creation."
EveryBODY has a Story: Ancestor Tattoo
"I travel around the country a lot both for my work as a tattoo artist and writer, and for my partner Tom Spanbauer’s work as a writer. I go to San Francisco fairly regularly to do work for some long-term tattoo clients and friends I have made.
Last January, I was down there and I decided to get this tattoo. In a way, it was spontaneous, I hadn’t decided to get this tattoo before I came out, but the actual image has deep significance for me.
I got this work done by Jason Donahue at Cold Steele, and we worked out the design together during a two-week period. I love the way it turned out. I call it my ancestor tattoo because the image is based on Tahitian images of gilded authentic skulls that were used in ancestor worship.
I am part of a prolific pagan community, and one of the important roles that I play is that I am the keeper of the ancestor altar. This is an idea I had that began about two years ago. I actually traded some tattoo work for the actual altar, and it is amazing. It is an enormous wooden structure full of drawers and ornamentation and secret compartments. It’s beautiful.
Many of my friends store the ashes of their friends and relatives within the altar. Some leave them for a long time, others, just for a while. When I decided to get this tattoo, one of the most important things for me was that it not be about me, per se. I wanted an image that was more about my community and our conjoined history than My image on My arm.
It took the full two weeks to get it right, but it is a continuation of my ideals within my pagan community. To see images of my work and more about my history, please see sage-ink.com.
Tuesday May 30, 2006
EveryBODY has a Story: The Calling Card
"The image of the baby and the swans comes from a woodcut block from the turn of the century. What I like most about this tattoo is that it has no symbolism for me, it doesn’t really Mean anything.
When I look at it though, I see something elegant, almost classical. I didn’t want to put a skull or a dagger on my arm, I didn’t want to be marked that way, or to suggest anything that might be perceived as negative or threatening.
I wanted to have an image that was positive, something attractive for people to see. This tattoo is on my right arm, and when I shake somebody’s hand, when I make contact with another person, it’s the first tattoo they see on me: Something with positive energy that is the calling card for my career.
The tattoo was done by Donny Manco at Studio B in Indiana. He was my art teacher in high school. Tattooing was illegal in Indiana until around 1997, and that’s when Donny Manco opened up for business. In 2001, I asked him to let me apprentice, and when he realized that I was serious about my request, he accepted me as an apprentice.
He tattooed the baby and swans on my arm just this last winter. It is almost exactly like the image from my business card except that my business card has geese instead of swans.
People always ask me if it is my baby, and at first I didn’t know what to say because I don’t have any kids. Now I just kind of go with it, “Yeah, he’s two now, learning to walk, smart as a whip...”.
I have since moved and opened shop in the West. You can check out my work at ryanzachary.net.
Friday May 26, 2006
INKEDblog Readers Share Their Stories: Djehuty
Many people have asked me over the years why I have Djehuty (Tehuti, Thoth) on my left arm and, in two weeks, Yinepu (Anpu, Anubis) on my right. The answer is simple and complex.
Let me explain what I don't have:
I am of a mixed Czech (3/4) and Scottish (1/4) background so why not have symbols those backgrounds? I love retro imagery so why not have pin-ups, sparrows?
As much as I enjoy my background and retro imagery, they do not call to me. They don't have the "deeper" meaning to be placed deep into my skin.
Now, let me explain why I do have the tattoo(s) I do have:
The Egyptian imagery appeals to my thoughts on many levels.
First, it has the appeal to my eye that I enjoy in symbols. They are "set" symbols, static in imagery yet constant in time and ever changing. Second, I am not a man of religion. I am a man that believes that I am solely accountable for my actions and those actions will have a ripple effect those surrounding me. I am a man of ethics and am known by my girlfriend as the "Most Christian non-Christian she has even known". I follow my ethics and am in no need to an external influence or force to keep me on a path save for my own will.
Third, with any aged symbol, there are layers of meaning through out time that become attached to it. This appeals to me. Eternity by action, deed and written thought over eternity by acceptance of faith.
The symbols of my tattoos:
Djehuty is the "Leader (derivative form)" Ibis-headed Lord of Time, Writing and Wisdom, Djehuty is said to have invented the hieroglyphic script and negotiated five extra days from the moon in order to perfect the 365-day year. As a result of these mythological connections, Djehuty is the patron of writers, teachers, accountants and all persons involved in the dissemination of knowledge, writing and/or calculation. His consorts are alternately Ma'at, Netjeret of Truth and Order; or Seshat, patroness of recordkeeping, libraries and the foundation of buildings. He stands at the side of the scales in the Hall of Two Truths to record the verdict which Yinepu delivers after weighing the deceased's heart against the feather of Ma'at.
For most, they thought it odd that I got Thoth before Anubis tattooed (since I am an Embalmer by trade). For me, Thoth is the grounded me. The me that seeks knowledge, that is fascinated by new ideas, that measures time, that enjoys partnerships with those that are teachers, are educated, that challenge me. And there is a grounding in the symbol. Measured time and foundations with eternal knowledge passed on through humble acts of leadership.
The scarab with outstretched wings below Thoth in my tattoo are a reminder to me to keep expanding my mind, to mutate with my years on earth.
In two weeks I get Yinepu.
Yinepu is "The Royal Child", a name of predynastic origins, depicted either as a full jackal or as a jackal-headed man, Yinepu originally, as Khenty-amenti or "Foremost of Westerners," was both embalmer and caretaker of the deceased, and the guardian of tomb and necropolis. Masks of Yinepu were routinely worn by the Sem-priest officiating at the funeral and the 70-day mummification process; images of Yinepu wrapping bandages, pouring oils or embracing the coffin are generally not actually images of the Netjer Himself, but of His servants doing His work. In later times Yinepu would be seen as a "psychopompos" or messenger/guide of the deceased soul. In Kemetic iconography, Yinepu can be seen leading the deceased person into the Hall of Double Truth, where He then weighs the deceased's heart against the feather of Ma'at.
This tattoo is more literal for me. It is a symbol of what I do. Who I am and what my calling has been. Anubis will be carring a Was. This is a symbol of power and dominion. This has other meanings in my life and symbolizes the other activities with living bodies that I may be known for(being a Dom). Both are guidance symbols.
I will have vultures facing one another with outstretched wings below Anubis as a reminder that I protect the dead as well as the living. Both vultures will be holding a Shen for the protection of those that cast brightness into
my life.
The original tattoo and new one are done by Harley of Wild Bills Tatoos in Roseville, CA
Thursday May 25, 2006
EveryBODY has a Story: Guarding the Garden
"When I was seventeen, this guy I knew stole money from my girlfriend. A while later, I went to his house and stole just about everything he had and sold it for the exact amount of money that he took from her.
I got arrested and convicted. Because of the mandatory sentencing laws, I got seventy months in prison, even though I was under eighteen when I committed the crime.
While I was there, I learned three things, how to do tattoos, draw and how to play guitar. You had to do Something to pass the time. The tattoos I mostly did on myself, you can see in the pic where I’m covering them up.
I got out of prison and a couple of days later got stabbed by this random guy who took my wallet. He got arresting and convicted but only got thirty-four months because the mandatory sentencing didn’t apply to him. The guy stabbed me and he got less than half the time I did.
I was twenty-three when I got out. I was pretty angry for a long time, but in the last year, I have decided that if I don’t focus I’m not going to do much with my life. I took a drawing class last summer and started working on a portfolio for an apprenticeship.
I knew I wanted to work at Raven tattoo, and I got this tattoo from Wade, the owner there. The tattoo is two Celtic dogs, surrounded by grape leaves. In the house where I live now, there’s an outside fireplace area that is surrounded by grapevines. It’s my chill space. I am going to slowly cover up the tattoos I got in prison and replace them with organic garden images. I’ve thinking of plants, beehives, a sort of Bio-Veg style. The dogs are there to protect the garden I have made for myself.
Wednesday May 24, 2006
INKEDblog Readers Share their Stories: Indelible Twins
"I wanted to get a tattoo for some time, actually... several tattoos. I had a few already planned out in my head, but was still yet to get “inked”.
I called upon my twin brother Michael, who is a graphic artist/musician living in LA, to design what would be my first tattoo. He was working with several different designs of a Yin Yang containing two fetuses, given that we are identical twins.
One day, he called me and said, “I’ve got it, I’ve got your tattoo!” It came to him in the middle of the night, and made his previous concept completely inadequate.
He sent me the file over email and I WAS FLOORED. Looking at it, I knew instantly what it was and what it meant. So, after asking a gaggle of folks around the neighborhood where they went for their tattoos, I found my parlor. With a little liquid courage and the moral support of my older brother Andy, I made it happen.
The tattoo’s on my back, over my heart. It’s an ovum containing a zygote undergoing mitosis, wrapped in parallel lines. It represents how my twin and I came from one, remain one, and keep each other straight and true. I’m proud to say, it’s my only and will always be my only tattoo.
Jeffrey Swart
Photographer/Musician
Brooklyn, NY
Tuesday May 23, 2006
INKEDblog Readers Share their Stories: Swallow
"Ever since I moved to Minneapolis, I've wanted to get a tattoo. There's no shortage of talented artists and after getting a couple in my hometown, I wanted to get a tattoo in my new home. However, life got in the way. I went through a period of steady partying and a disastrous three-year relationship that involved me supporting a man for the last year of it, only to find out that he had stopped loving me.
Shortly after we broke up, I met a man who brought out my strong inner self. I figured out how to not put up with any crap and to enjoy the delights that my new hometown has to offer.
He encouraged me to get more ink, but I was still trying to figure out what image I wanted and where I wanted to place it.
Recently, I went through a health crisis and spent almost a month straight in the hospital due to complications from an appendectomy. We've had an up and down relationship that is currently in a status of friendship, but he was there for me the whole time I was sick, cheering me on and supporting me.
That's when I decided to go with traditional swallows on my chest. I read that they represent renewal, and that's how I feel about my life after getting out of my 3 year relationship with the wrong man, starting grad school, getting my health back, and accepting the fact that a relationship with the man whom I'm in love with may never happen.
When I look at the swallows, I know that I can do anything and am tougher than I ever thought. I'm a new woman and these tattoos represent that.
(Got a story or question for us? Drop a line to getinked@inkedblog.com. We’ll do our best to respond to questions)
Every BODY Has a Story: Flower Girl
"During high school, I traveled quite a bit to see bands that I wanted to see. Somewhat surprisingly, my parents were very supportive of my adventures, as long as I called that to tell them that I had yet again survived…
I grew up in New York City, and after I graduated from high school, I took a year off. I lived at home during that time and work as an accounting assistant and receptionist at Wieldlinger, a name I still have difficulty pronouncing...
Though the work was boring, I saved my money to travel during the summer before my freshman year at college. I didn’t know exactly what I planned on doing, but my older sister and I knew that we wanted to go somewhere together so we left our plans open.
Sometime at the beginning of the summer, we decided that we would take a two-month trip across the United States. We had both been to Santa Fe before, but not together, and if not our destination, it was one of the places we intended to meander though during the course of our journey.
We left from New York, and drove through the south to Santa Fe. I don’t know if it was because we were two women traveling together or what, but every where we went people were incredibly kind.
We spent a lot of the time camping, and one night during a pounding rain storm, a family came to our tent and invited us to come stay at their house. They made us dinner and took us in. Another family gave us salmon to take on our way, and another man gave us a bottle of whiskey. This happened many, many times during the trip.
We made our way to Santa Fe, and it was as magical and lovely as we had remembered. Santa Fe has a large artist community, beautiful canyons, and the desert, which is a very special place for me.
We camped outside of town for the first few days before we met a bunch of people in town. Like the rest of our trip, after we met them, they invited us to stay with them. While we were there, we decided to get tattoos. I had wanted a tattoo for years, but I had just turned eighteen before the trip began.
Though I knew I wanted a tattoo, I didn’t know exactly what image I wanted. My sister and I went into the shop, and I found some of the designs that the artist there had in his private selection of flash. This tattoo appealed to me immediately. I liked the idea of the spirit in the flower, and life inside of life.
Because it was my first tattoo, I didn’t know how much it was going to hurt. The ankle area is particularly painful, but because I went first and my sister was going second, I didn’t want to let her know! She’s pretty tough too, though. She got a phoenix in the same place after I finished.
We stayed in Santa Fe for a couple more days then continued our odyssey. We drove all the way north through the western states, then back through Canada. I had a wonderful time with my sister."
Monday May 22, 2006
INKEDblog Readers Share their Stories: The Two Stars
I had wanted a tattoo since probably since I was a pre-teen. They fascinated me, and it didn't help that my grandpa had a couple navy tattoos and a lot of my dad's coworkers [he's a fireman] had tattoos, as well. However, my parents didn't like them, despite how liberal they normally are.
Finally, when I was 17, I got so frustrated at not being able to have one, that I took matters into my own hands. At the time, my neighbor's uncle was going to do it for a reduced price, but when he found out I didn't have my mom's permission, he bailed. I was so disappointed.
Then, I had a bright idea. In one of the anarchist/radical newspapers I read, I remembered it had a section showing how to give yourself a tattoo. I bent a safety pin so it stayed at a 45 degrees angle, sterilized it, and used some India ink I had in my art supplies drawer.
For a self-tattoo, the first time I had ever attempted one, it didn't come out half bad. In fact, I was really proud of it... despite the fact that it was an oh-so-unoriginal nautical star. But when my parents found out, they were appalled. My dad called it a "prison tattoo" and they almost forced me to get it removed.
I decided to try to appease them by getting it fixed by a professional once I turned 18. I didn't want to keep it as a nautical star, so instead I asked to just have it a solid color. I had to choose a darker ink so it would actually cover up the original, so I chose purple. The tattoo artist convinced me to let him shade the star, instead of keeping it a solid color, and I let him.
Go figure- now that I have the self-tat fixed, I miss it. I honestly wish I had just left it, because I did it myself, and I was honestly proud.
I can't wait until I expand on it so it doesn't look so.... so silly. I've almost finished my tattoo design that I want and am so excited about having a piece of art that I designed swirling up my side!!
Now then, if I can only find a way to not show my stomach to my parents or grandparents for the rest of my life... heh."
Every BODY Has a Story: Tikki God
I run a high-end design studio called Oakley Design. I’ve spent a lot of time doing many big commercial campaigns, but I have a secret passion: all things Hawaii…
I grew up in Hawaii, learned to surf, and learned to love Hawaiian culture. I am particularly interested in historic Tikki art, as opposed to the cartoonish replicas that you see around beach towns.
My Tikki project started as a completely sideline project. I have collected Tikki art for ages, and I decided to work on some Tikki images. I started slow, figuring out the right way to use the images. Soon after, I got a request from a client who I can’t name here, but sufficient to say he is a famous celebrity owner of a skin mag…
My client requested a large installation piece consisting of Tikki god images. The final painting was nine feet tall and three-dimensional. The sculpture was created by taking a flat painting and adding materials to make the surface have three-dimensions.
At this point, I started thinking about my secret passion a little differently. If I could run my design firm using the images I am so fond of, work becomes much more fulfilling. There are only about twelve Tikki designers in the US, so competition is not much of a problem either.
Even the best job in the world burns you out if you do the same thing all the time. So, after the installation, I used the images for a series of greeting cards. Two million ended up being sold. I realized that I didn’t want the image to be overused, so I decided to cut back a bit.
The last project before this tattoo was a series of woodblock prints that I made for clients as Christmas presents. It was then that I decided to use the image one last time- as a tattoo.
I am getting this work done today by Melanie Nead at Icon Tattoo. She is ceremonially retiring the image. But I’m full of ideas for the next piece…"
Every BODY Has a Story: Strike Anywhere
"Hard Core was something I’ve been into for a long time, but when I was seventeen my older brother brought me an album I hadn’t heard before- Strike Anywhere.
I was really moved by it at the time. It was the first time that I remember connecting music and politics in such a definitive manner. Since then, I have always been interested in political music. I’m still a huge Strike Anywhere fan, and saw them in concert in the Rock Against Bush tour.
The tattoo on my leg is a Strike Anywhere emblem, but also an anti-fascism symbol. This is a great part of their political agenda. One of my favorite lines from the music is:
“I pledge allegiance to the world. Nothing more, nothing less than my humanity.”
I have a more personal connection to this music as well. My brother, my friend David and I started a series of underground punk parties in the small town of Corvallis. We started a pretty cool scene there. Everything was free, and we had amazing bands play there all the time. It got so a lot of big name punk bands would insist on starting their tour in our little town.
We didn’t have any money to pay them of course, but the feeling of the space and the crowd was incredible. One of the best parties ever was when Strike Anywhere played. We made a banner to cover the windows of the house and the image from my tattoo was on the banner.
This tattoo was done by my friend Dave from Icon Tattoo who lived in the house with me and my brother. I got it about four months ago. We all did. Now we’re thinking about doing something similar in a larger space. See you there."
Friday May 19, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Cemetery Art
This is the first of several tattoos I have gotten that are cemetery art. I got this tattoo a month and a half after my mother died of cancer. People may wonder if I am intrigued by cemeteries because of her death, but those who know me well know that I have always found cemeteries to be beautiful, comforting places. I never understood what people thought was scary.
When I was four years old, my mother told me that everybody dies. I became very upset. “I don’t want You to die!” I cried. She smiled and told me that the energy never goes away. When she died, she would still be there and let me know.
It was the same year that I remember first being in a cemetery. I thought it was beautiful. I believe I have been thinking about working in that field since then.
It’s a tough sell, though. Apparently, cemeteries don’t want young people managing them. All the people who I have met that have worked in the business are very old.
My mother was diagnosed with cancer on her birthday. She died exactly five months to the day after the diagnosis. I had never known anyone personally who had died before she did. And to start with my mother! It was so painful. She was my best friend, I literally saw her died, day by day.
The year after my mother died, I got a job in a crematory. That sounds morbid, but the way I think about it, being cremated is the quickest path from point A. to point B. When a loved one holds an urn of ashes, there is a tangible feeling of change and reality that you can’t feel with a coffin.
This tattoo is not from a particular gravestone, but is original cemetery style art. I especially love the old stones. Almost everything is symbolic. An open book represents a teacher, an anchor represents a sailor, and a sword represents a solider.
On my tattoo, I have some traditional meanings as well. The wings signify a soul going to heaven. The clasped hands are a hope for meeting in the afterlife and the hourglass is a reminder that life is limited. Like my mother said, everyone dies.
Unlike everyone said, my mother also told me that she would let me know when she was looking down on me. Three days after she died, a neighbor came over to see how I was doing.
“She was such a wonderful women,” my neighbor said. “She’s somewhere watching you now”
At that moment, the sky split apart! There was a blue light like a welding torch, incredibly bright. Quickly, the blue transformed into an emerald green and disappeared in a puff, like smoke.
My neighbor was terrified. But me? I jumped up and down saying “Hello mom, hello! I love you! Hello!!”
Every BODY Has a Story: Sacred Heart
My mother was the one who named me. My name means ‘Moon’, and after I left home, I knew that I wanted to do something to celebrate that connection. Celebrate it, but at the same time, celebrate my independence as well.
This Sacred Heart is actually a cover-up of that original one. The original tattoo was a crescent moon and star, and I got it pretty spontaneously. A friend of mine had come to visit from out of town and she and I both went and got our tattoos the same day. She got a Tasmanian devil over her butt. Needless to say, we Both covered those up…
I grew up Catholic, and have always had an affinity for Catholic iconography. I guess as a kid there were some difficult things about being Catholic, like the guilt… But as I grew up, I learned to take the good from religion (all religions in fact), and to leave what didn’t feel right.
Catholicism entreats its practitioners to give back to their communities. I really support this. At the moment, I am teaching a sign language class at Voodoo Donuts in Portland on Monday nights. I think that everyone should learn sign language.
The day I got the Sacred Heart however, was actually pretty funny. In a strange act of symmetry, the Same friend who had been with me to get the first tattoo went with me again. She covered up Taz with a beautiful flower. It ended up looking really beautiful.
I had a crush on the artist, Joey, who worked out of a shop called Sacred Art (oddly enough) in Corvallis. I ended up doing the entire tattoo in one day. Four and a half hours on my chest bones. It was excruciating. The only thing that helped was the crush…
I’ve been very happy with it ever since. I didn’t chose the image. I told Joey I wanted a sacred heart and he drew it up right there. I think it turned out great. If you’re going to have a tattoo on your chest, it can’t be small…"
Every BODY Has a Story: Jimmy’s Skull
"When I was a kid, I remember seeing my uncle Will’s tattoo. I don’t know how old I was (young!) but I knew that I wanted one too.
Uncle Will had a bull rider on his arm. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what I wanted to get when I finally turned eighteen. When the day arrived, I decided to get something pretty small so I could see what it felt like before committing to a larger piece.
So, the skull was first, and I got it ten years ago, right after my birthday. After a couple of months, I decided I wanted another part to the tattoo. I got my name, Jimmy, in Old English script.
The guy at the shop had several versions of Old English, and he explained to me that this was the oldest version of Old English that he had found. It is a more ornamental script than a lot of the other versions as well.
So now I have a son, and he just loves my tattoo. I can see by the glint in his eye that he’s going to do something like that at eighteen too.
I think one of the reasons he likes it so much is that his name is also Jimmy. He was the first kid we knew who learned to spell his name- straight off of my arm!"
Thursday May 18, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: V Recordings, Bass and Drums
I grew up in a small town called Medicine Hat in Alberta, Canada. We didn’t have a lot of home grown music and arts culture, but we had a very positive attitude about importing and supporting what we could find.
When I was fifteen, the rave scene was still really new in my part of the world. A guy in my town had a rave, and it was at that time that I became interested in Electronica. Specifically, I was interested in a sub-genre of Electronica called Bass and Drums. Bass and Drums is a beat heavy, exclusively sample-based form of electronica, comprised of a fusion of Jazz, Funk, Hip Hop and many other elements.
The guy who was hosting the party ended up becoming a good friend, and we put on many other parties after that. We went to Calgary (the big city for us) to check out renowned DJ’s, and to find new and unusual labels and albums to bring back to our town.
The label that I became (and still am) very interested in, is V Recordings. V Recordings is a Bass and Drums label based in the UK. The music is an evolving art form that never fails to amaze me. Bass and Drums as a sub-genre became world-known around ’93, but it’s still a fairly obscure variety of music.
I particularly enjoy collecting information about the label, and indexing and cross-referencing producers to keep tabs of the sub-sub-genres that this music has produced.
Since ’93, Bass and Drums has changed a lot. One interesting egalitarian change is that originally, producers needed to have synthesisers and other expensive hardware to make productions. Now, the technology has advanced so that it is easy to get the samples as software, making a place for serious bedroom producers with low overhead.
My tattoo is from the V Recordings labels, and I got it four years ago when I was eighteen. I thought it out carefully before I decided what I wanted. For me, it will be a place on my body that marks what I was so interested in at this time in my life.
I’m a DJ and I have a radio show called ‘The Eleventh Hour’. If you would like to hear my show, check out http://kpsu.org/ and check the schedule for Thursdays from 11 PM to 12 PM. For more info on Bass and Drums, see http://www.pdxdnb.com/.
When I got my tattoo in Medicine Hat, there were two tattoo shops in my town. The older one was where almost every in town went to get work done, but they seemed unfriendly went I visited. I decided to go to the new place in town. It was called ‘Personal Ink’.
When I went in, I discovered the shop was run by these British guys which seemed perfect as V Recordings is from the UK. The guys there were great, and I’m very happy with the work.
A couple of years ago, I met another DJ who ended up being a great friend and my roommate. I noticed right away that he had a tattoo showcasing a V Recordings album as well!
Every BODY Has a Story: Drinking Parrot
When I was young, I was in the Navy. I was stationed in the Caribbean, in South America, all over. I got my first tattoo in Puerto Rico when I was seventeen, and when I got out; I came to San Francisco.
At that time, there were probably less then 2000 professional tattoo artists in the United States. Now, I bet there are that many in the San Francisco area alone! I was very interested in learning how to be a tattoo artist. You really had to earn the right to be taught at that time.
I got a tattoo in San Francisco, and asked Cliff Raven to show me how to be a tattoo artist. He kicked me out of the shop (bodily!). His philosophy was that everyone wanted to be a tattoo artist after their first great tattoo and he wasn’t putting up with people who weren’t whole-hearted or who did it for the money.
So… I came in and asked Cliff to be my teacher everyday for four years. In the end, he did it. He taught me a lot about respect for the tattoo community that I think has been mislaid at this time. One thing he told me was that before you open your own shop, ask every shop around if they’ll hire you first. They’ll know what you’re doing, he told me, they won’t hire you, but they’ll know you are respecting the fact that they have been around for a longer time.
When I got my first shop, it was on the corner of Haight and Ashbury Streets. It was a real hole in the wall. Rent was forty bucks a month and a shoe shine place moved out before I moved in, so I had to get rid of a bunch of shoe shining gear, too. That was no problem, I actually ended up making money on the deal. It was a little place, but it was right for when I started.
Now, I work at Dragonfly Tattoo in Washington State, but when I was in San Francisco, I would go shoot the breeze with other artists like Ed Hardy, Lyle Tuttle, and Pat Martinique. Their shop was really famous. I went in there one day, I was in my twenties, and it was my birthday.
“Let’s have a drink,” I said to Pat, “it’s my birthday.”
“How ‘bout I give you a tattoo instead?” he asked.
So that’s how I got the parrot. I told him I wanted it to be all colorful. Just keep the black in the bottle, I said. I call him my drinking parrot because he’s upside down on my forearm.
Whatever I spill, he catches."
Wednesday May 17, 2006
INKEDblog Readers Share their Stories: ‘Traditional’ tattoo from Borneo
"The Ibans have tattooed each other for generations. They put flowers and stars on their shoulders, broad, dagger-like patterns on their throats, fish hooks on their calves, and a wide variety of designs on their arms. Some of the tattoos are for decoration, some render one invulnerable to iron or steel weapons, some make him irresistible to women, and all, to hear my English language students tell it, were strong tests of raw physical courage.
I got mine from the famed headhunting "Sea Dayaks" of Borneo, while I was in the Peace Corps. I lived with the Ibans for two years at a rural boarding school in Sarawak, on the northwest coast. Although I'd missed the chance to be tattooed by an authentic headhunter by a generation or so, the chance of getting a tribal tattoo was too good to pass up.
One October afternoon, Chendang, one of my students, told me if I visited his longhouse that weekend; we would meet a man who could tattoo. I accepted his invitation. Early that Friday afternoon I showered and shaved my arm. As I shaved, I visualized what would happen that night:
…We'd be working in the long communal hallway of the longhouse, surrounded by people. Pressure lanterns emit a harsh glare and a soft hiss. Strange things cry in the jungle outside, wind rustles the banana leaves, and the night air is soft as a caress. The audience is spellbound as the artist selects a carved wooden block from his private collection, while his assistant mixes soot with rancid pork fat. They use the mixture to ink the face of the block, then print the design on my arm. They use needles to tap the ink into my skin, blunt needles, rusty with age and crusted with the blood of hundreds of other men. As the artist taps, gongs play, slender Iban maidens watch in awe, and Arak, a homemade rice whiskey with the robust character of kerosene, flows like water…
Chendang came over to my house after my shower and we were off. We took a bus to the bazaar, where he bought a packet of sewing needles. Well, there went a bit of the old magic and, a good chance to catch hepatitis…
We took another bus out of the bazaar. I sat with my feet on someone's bale of raw rubber, listening to a fighting cock exchange opinions with a hunting dog in the back. The bus rattled and coughed along the dusty road for an hour, then let us out at Nanga Assam. Nanga Assam is a shop, house and trail leading into the jungle. We walked along the trail for another hour, through secondary jungle, yellow-green rice fields and half-civilized rubber gardens. Finally, we climbed a notched log into the front door of Chendang's longhouse.
"Tabi, Tuai! Nuan udah ngunga mioh ukir itu?" I asked the old man there, "Greetings, Elder Sir! You have done many of these tattoos?"
Elder Sir had lived on the upper reaches of the Rejang River where he had sometimes worked for a timber company. He remembered the British soldiers who had come to Sarawak ten years before, during the difficulties with Indonesia.
Several of them had magnificent tattoos, some in several colors. One sergeant had an eagle on his chest. Apoo! When he breathed deeply, it seemed to fly! Had Elder Sir done a tattoo for a British soldier?
No, he hadn’t, exactly... Was I going to go to Singapore? I could probably get an eagle done there. Very clever, the people in Singapore.
That would be nice, I agreed, but I wanted a traditional Iban design, something that would fit my arm here - see? Where I'd shaved a spot.
Oh. My name, perhaps? That would fit, and then people would know I could read. Several people Elder Sir knew had had their names done.
That wasn't quite what I had in mind either. Could I look over the blocks he used to print tattoos? Maybe I could pick a design from them.
Elder Sir didn't have any blocks at the moment, but he could make one if it was necessary; there was a good chunk of wood over there by the fire. How had he done tattoos in the past, if he didn't have any blocks? Well, he hadn't really Done any himself, but when his were done (here he pointed at his well-decorated arms) he'd watched very closely.
We'd find something before dinner, I guessed. When did Elder Sir want to start? Right after evening rice? Elder Sir's eyes weren't as good as they used to be; he thought it would be best to wait for morning, when the light was better. I agreed.
The next morning, while we were eating breakfast, Chendang had a flash of inspiration, and rummaged around in the back of the room. He came up with a shopping bag from the Kuching Hygienic Plastic Factory, decorated with Iban designs.
“Great”, I said; “if those aren't traditional, they should be”.
Chendang copied one of the designs, a stylized dragon, onto my arm with a felt tipped pen, and we were set.
Elder Sir came in with two eighteen-inch sticks. I tied six needles together while Elder Sir split the end of one stick. He tied the clump of needles into the split end at right angles. He would tap with the second stick.
Chendang's mother mixed Tiger Brand cooking oil and lampblack into a thick paste; I added a squeeze of antibiotic ointment to the goo and we were ready to start. I put my arm on a rolled mattress.
Elder Sir dipped the needle points into the ink, held them six inches over my arm, blinked, squinted, then tapped the needle stick just behind the needles, driving all six needle points into my skin. He dipped again, blinked, squinted, then tapped. Again: dip, aim, blink, squint, tap.
After a dozen taps I asked for pause. Chendang asked me if I wanted a piece of wood to bite on. I told him I'd stick it out a little longer, but could Elder Sir pay a little more attention to the edges? Some of his taps were going wide, and I'd be carrying his mistakes for the rest of my life.
Elder Sir didn't know what it was, but he wasn't seeing too well this morning; maybe there was something in the air… Chendang's mother offered her services. She tapped faster than Elder Sir had, and came fairly close to the mark with each tap, but not close enough.
Wait a minute, I said. What about holding the needles right on the design, then tapping? In fact, gollly; I would hold the needles while they tapped. Chendang wondered if that would be asking too much of me, what with the agony and all. I told him it wouldn't, and set my jaw at a steely angle. I Could have told him the pain was a bit less than it had been reported to be, but who was I to shatter his faith in a traditional rite…?
I heard a set of small exclamations as I took over the needles. Turning around, I saw that a group of primary school students had slipped in to watch. I waved, turned back, positioned the needles, and Chendang's mother tapped.
When she quit to fix lunch, Elder Sir resumed his place. At first Chendang had winced in sympathy with each tap, but by the time Elder Sir tired, Chendang had gotten into the spirit of the thing, and was ready to take Elder Sir's place. By then the audience was so close I see the eager glint in their eyes, and I was beginning to feel like the fence Tom Sawyer's friends had whitewashed.
We shooed the children back before they could even ask to try their hands. We went over the design five times, with a break for lunch, then finished in time for dinner.
Elder Sir said I should rub oil into my skin to keep the new tattoo from peeling, and we spent the night swapping stories in broken Iban. I taught in long sleeves for a week while the swelling went down, then came into class in short sleeves.
Instant commotion and concern; had it been very painful, Sir?
I shrugged. Aw shucks, class, we English teachers are made of sterner stuff than you thought. Now maybe we could turn to more important things, like adverbs.
Get your books out.
Every BODY Has a Story: Bugs!
A lot of people have ‘Love’ and ‘Hate’ tattooed on their knuckles. My name is Christy and I have an African Assassin Beetle and a Spanish Fly.
When I was twelve years old, I lived on the East Coast and I was moving houses. It happened to be the time of the seventeen-year cicadas. If you have ever seen them, you knew how dramatic it is. TONS of enormous bugs crawl across the walls and drop with a sick thud in regular intervals throughout the summer. It seemed like a curse…
At first I was horrified, but they are very gentle animals. I think the funniest thing about the summer was the reactions of other people. There was every extreme from people publicly eating the bugs, to dark prophecies about the end of the world. The whole thing turned me on to insects in general.
I have a number of insect tattoos though the first one I ever got was a cicada. I got it after visiting home a long time later and seeing some of the seven-year cicadas doing their summer thing. That’s what cicadas make me think of now- home, summer, and calming, positive thoughts.
In 2000, I got the bugs on my hand. First, I decided on placement. I knew that I wanted something on my index finger. I had been reading about African body modification and my research lead me to discover the African Assassin Beetle. I got the beetle, but a couple of weeks later decided that I needed something else for balance. The tattoos were done by Johnny Bidwell, and I work at Dragonfly tattoo.
Spanish Fly was the clear opposite of an assassin beetle. I got the pinkie fly another week later. The Green Lace bug on my thumb is another story all together. Green Lace bugs are very aggressive and carnivorous during their teen-age years, then mellow out and become peaceful vegetarian adults. I guess I identify with them…"
Tuesday May 16, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: The Mermaid
"My mother and I both grew up on Manhattan Beach, in California. We lived in the same neighborhood, and went to the same elementary, middle and high school.
We both have always loved the ocean, and its presence and sound are things that seem as natural and necessary to us as air.
My mother still lives by the ocean; you can hear the waves crashing even when the window is closed. This tattoo is dedicated to her. It is actually a cover-up of an angel that I had on my shoulder before.
I knew I wanted to get rid of the angel, but it was my mother’s favorite tattoo, and she did not want me to change it. We are very close, and her opinion mattered to me.
Though I didn’t stick with the angel, I did chose another beautiful, strong, female image for my back. My mother approved of the mermaid, and in a way, I think I wanted her to like the mermaid because of her disappointment about the angel.
When I ask her what she thinks, she says that it is sweet that I dedicated such a large part of my body to her and to the sea.
Every BODY Has a Story: Beautiful Night
When I was about fifteen, I read the graphic novel that came before the movie, The Crow. The comic was a Lot more graphic than the film. The whole revenge thing made a lot more sense after reading the comic.
I saw the film when I was sixteen, and it made a really big impression on me. This tattoo is a cover-up of a tattoo I got right after I saw the movie.
The tattoo said, “True love is forever”. I still really like the quote, but pretty soon after I got it, I began to regret it because of the script I used.
The quote was done in large Old English lettering, and it was not what I wanted. I was still wild about romance though, I guess that I wanted everything to happen just as soon as possible in my life.
I am a dancer, and I think that for a long time I had trouble with my body image. I ended up getting breast augmentation the day after September 11th (coincidentally), and the week after that was a haze of pain and worry that the world was ending.
Since that point, I have made a real change in my attitude about my body. I really started feeling comfortable with myself, and getting this tattoo cover-up was part of that process.
I got the tattoo from Wade, at Raven Tattoo. I knew him through an old friend, and he had done other tattoos for me. Since I trusted him, I gave him complete leeway with this piece.
Originally, I wanted Vincent Van Gogh’s ‘Starry Night’, there, but Wade told me that because there are no outlines in that image, that I would have to sit for the whole thing in one session if that’s what I wanted.
We compromised, and ‘Starry Night’ is prominent, but there are a lot of other beautiful details as well. I requested the flowers. I’m working now at Mary’s Club and my stage name is Satori. I am not Asian, but I am very interested in Asian art and culture. This is why I chose the Lotus flowers. The whole thing took many, many sessions to completely cover up the old tattoo. A year in all.
When I first finished this tattoo, there were not that many dancers with tattoos as large and colorful as this one. I ended up very happy with my choice, and myself."
Monday May 15, 2006
INKEDblog Readers Share their Stories: Electrician
"My story is simple. My father and grandfather owned an electrical company called Vogel Electric in Union NJ. My father passed away when I was really young. My grandfather passed away this summer. It was hard for me cause it was my first grandparent to die and my father’s father so it was even harder.
This tattoo designed by Scotty from Shotsies in Wayne, NJ. It’s a modified version of the original logo designed many years ago for the company. The tattoo is on the right arm on the inside close to my heart.'
Each day on INKEDblog we highlight the stories behind why people get a certain tattoo inked into their skin. As we head into the Season 2 premiere of INKED on A&E on May 31st, we're interested in hearing and showcasing YOUR stories on the INKEDblog. Send us a photo and your story to getinked@inkedblog.com. Over the next couple of weeks we'll try to feature as many stories as we can.
Every BODY Has a Story: Cherokee Brothers
My dad is Cherokee, and this is a tattoo in the Cherokee alphabet. His parents died before I was old enough to know them, so my dad was my main link to my Cherokee heritage. I am a mix of a lot of other things, mainly mutt, but the Cherokee is something we are proud of in my family.
I grew up in Boulder, Colorado and this isn’t a big Cherokee population there, either. My family is very close, especially my brother and I.
When I was twenty and my brother was twenty-two, he decided to go to Florida. It was a hard thing for me. I knew I would miss him a lot. We both got this same tattoo to honor our bond.
My name is Bear, and my brother’s name is Will. The tattoo says Will, Bear, and brothers. We know that we will always be close, no matter where we travel."
Friday May 12, 2006
EVERY BODY HAS A STORY: TELL US YOUR STORY
Each day on INKEDblog we highlight the stories behind why people get a certain tattoo inked into their skin. As we head into the Season 2 premiere of INKED on A&E on May 31st, we're interested in hearing and showcasing YOUR stories on the INKEDblog. Send us a photo and your story to getinked@inkedblog.com. Over the next couple of weeks we'll try to feature as many stories as we can.
Every BODY Has a Story: Birthday Dragon
"I have wanted a dragon tattoo since I was about seventeen years old. I’m not sure when I first started liking dragons, but I remember always liking them. I got a couple of other smaller tattoos when I was eighteen, but I am thirty-seven now, and this is a tattoo I’ve been thinking about for twenty years.
At several different times in my life I have tried to get people to draw out the design that I wanted, but it never seemed to work out. Though I knew that I wanted a dragon, I also knew that I wanted a unique dragon. I did not want to have flash.
My aunt has a fair number of tattoos, and she always comes to Lyon at Twenty-First Century Tattoo. I knew this, but I hadn’t seen any of their work and had never gone there. Through complete coincidence, a guy at East Plating (where I work) showed up today with a tattoo that Lyon had done. I really liked it.
My thirty-seventh birthday is next week. My friend who works with me knew that I wanted tattoo and she gave me this as a present. We went in today, Lyon drew it out, and I got the whole thing done in one go.
I looked at a bunch of other dragon pictures, and the one that struck me the most was a dragon guarding an egg. I had Lyon draw something like that, but I decided I wanted wings on my dragon. Also, I chose a Yin Yang instead of an egg. As Lyon says though, an egg Is a sort of Yin Yang, each part contains the other’s destiny.
Every BODY Has a Story: The Passionate Skull
"I had this tribal band around my biceps before I got this skull done. You can see it; the skull is eating the band now. I got the band because this woman I loved picked it out for me. I got the skull because she broke my heart.
She was a reporter for the Sheridan Sun, and I contacted her originally six years ago to get her to write a brochure about my business, which is a sheet metal company. The whole thing took forever, about twelve hours of driving around. I wanted her to see all the job sites, and she had to take pictures and stuff.
She was going through a divorce and I was going through a divorce and I don’t know what the hell happened, but at the end of the day, we ended up in a hotel and that was that.
We fell in love really quick. After a month, I moved her up to live with me. The thing was, she was so damn bossy. I don’t take well to that kind of thing. Always jealous for no reason, I think she might have had people follow me!
One day she went to work and I got a U-Haul truck, put all her stuff in it, and moved her back to where she lived before. That was it. Kind of.
During the next six years, we weren’t really together, but we still couldn’t stop the physical side of our relationship. I guess I really loved her even though she drove me nuts.
So, upshot is that I married her last July. We decided to buy this 750K house, and I needed a 250K deposit for the down payment. It seemed like things were going good, and I was working my ass of trying to get the money together. A little while after we got married, a friend of mine told me that she was waiting for me to get the house and then she was going to divorce me.
I came home and it was over for real. The thing was, her name was on the safety deposit box along with mine, so she had to come with me to get the money. There was no way I was going to let her get that money!
I have not and would not ever hit a woman, but I did mention that I had a hell of a lot of guns in my house. She went along to the bank with me. Once we were in there, damn. We had another huge fight. She handed me the check and said something… I can’t even remember exactly what, but it seemed really important that I start telling Everyone in the bank Exactly what she had done. I was screaming, she was screaming. It was crazy.
After that, I got this skull tattoo. I really felt like I hated her. She called and called and called, but I wasn’t having any of it. Not for a couple of months at least…
I guess she called today and we talked for a while, but what are you going to do with passion?"
Every BODY Has a Story: Scorpion
"I got this scorpion done yesterday. It was covering up a scorpion I had before, but the old one wasn’t very sharp. It looked kind of puny next to this one. Why the scorpion? Well I guess I must be the ultimate Scorpio. I am completely, 100% consumed by all the things that I decide to do. This tattoo, for example. I came in and had the whole thing done in one day. It took about five hours of work.
The rest of my life is like that too. I’ve been in the UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship), been a Baptist preacher, made and lost and made a ton of money… You understand?
The fighting started though, when I was pretty young. My parents were splitting up and it was a messy business. I ran away and was just kind of roaming around when I met this pretty girl. She went to this church, and I went with her. When I was there, I met a guy that ran a boy’s home. His name was Grandpa Boyce.
One day while I was living there, an older guy about twenty-one years old said something mean to my little girlfriend and she started to cry. I jumped up to defend her honor.
In the boys’ home, we were allowed to fight if we wore boxing gloves and did it in the ring. I took on this kid and he just pounded the crap out of me. Twenty versus fourteen is not great odds… I ended up winning anyway though. Kid’s hands got so damn tired from punching me, he finally gave it up.
After that I put a call into a cousin of mine and told him that I thought that I might be a pretty good fighter. We started a little business after that when I was fifteen. I would stand outside of bars, and my cousin would go in and tell people I would fight them for twenty bucks. They would all come over to my cousin’s house and I would work my way down the line. I guess I got kicked in the head pretty good a couple of times, but I made some money.
My mom and I are now pretty close, and she was the one who told me about the Scorpio thing. I think it fits me to a tee. The other thing she told me about Scorpio’s was that they don’t tell their secrets. That’s what the faces at the top represent and I’m not telling."
Thursday May 11, 2006
EveryBODY Has a Story: The Drowning Geisha
"I got this tattoo about three years ago after I started working at Temple Tattoo. I had just finished reading Jitterbug Perfume, by Tom Robbins.
The book has a complicated series of characters including the god Pan, Alobar, King and others who are all trying to live forever. It turns out that there is a mysterious scent that is the secret to eternal life. I read it quite a while ago, but several things in the book made an impression on me.
One of them was a character in the book called Bingo Pajamas who’s this crazy guy that has a swarm of bees flying around his head all of the time. I saw the bees as a metaphor for a continued interest and curiosity in life. In the Buddhist sense, bees are a symbol of living every day and every second like it is your last.
The idea of death was another thing that Jitterbug Perfume made me think about. Before I got this tattoo, it occurred to me that death was something that was a part of life. Death was in fact integral and that some parts of your own self have to die several times in a lifetime in order to keep your own growth and interest in life alive.
Before I worked at Temple, I danced at a bunch of different clubs in town. I don’t regret it, and it was pretty fun at first. Dancing out is one of those things you do not do forever though, and I wanted to be sure to stop before I hated it. So, I quit as soon as I started to feel like it wasn’t what I wanted to do anymore.
The geisha is another kind of dancing girl. She is drowning in my tattoo, but not because I am killing her, or regretting her. The bees flying over her head remind me that she is simply dying a natural death as I progress to other things.
Every BODY Has a Story: ‘Untitled’ Memory
"My grandmother was in the Marines in WW2. A lot of people don’t know that women were in the Marines at that time, but there was a government program called “Free a Man to Fight” at that time. The Marines accepted women reservists in order to make room for more men to go to the front lines.
My grandmother died last November 9th, 2005. The day she died, I gave myself a tattoo with a sewing needle and a pen. I needed to do something with the pain I had, and the tattoo seemed like a good place to start.
The tattoo that I made was a spiral, which I thought was a fitting metaphor for infinity, and eternal life. I placed it on the inside of my elbow, and though I don’t regret the symbol or the action, the end result didn’t look exactly like I thought it would.
After I finished it, I kept looking at it over the next few months, I think I expected it would change into something else at some point. After a while, I decided to get another tattoo there, and started to look for inspiration.
I am at Optic Nerve tattoo studio now beginning a tattoo that comes from the image here. This picture is ‘Untitled’, by Luis Miguel Munilla from Spain. I found it in an anti-war picture book. I’m starting with the band, and I am going to get the whole image finished in the next week or so. I am an anti-war advocate, but the image also made me think of my grandmother and the stories she told.
She was the one who sent the letters home to families telling went their husbands or brothers or sons had died. She talked about the camaraderie of the women there. No one could understand other then them, the gravity of their daily work.
The first grave cross in the image is larger than the others. This is the one I am putting over the image of the spiral. I am still giving my grandmother that space on my body, but in a new way."
Wednesday May 10, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Little Blue Star
"I grew up in Barbados and lived there for about ten years. When I was in middle school, we moved to Florida. I stayed there throughout high school.
Actually, we lived in Florida in the winter and Michigan in the summer. My mother is a potter, and we followed the sun to find the art shows to sell her work.
The area we lived in Florida is a weird place. The dudes I hung out with were all punk rock kids into The Misfits, Suicidal Tendencies, stuff like that. I wasn’t a punk rocker; I was sort of the hippie who hung out with the punk kids.
I recently took a class that discussed authenticity, and I can see how ‘unauthentic’ the punk scene there could be considered, compared to other East Coast punk scenes. When it comes down to it, all of that part of Florida had been constructed in the last ten to twenty years. It wasn’t like in a city, where there are a bunch of people who are homegrown. In Florida, everyone came from somewhere else, and their main desire is to build identical subdivisions and strip malls deeper and deeper into the swamp.
When I hung out with the punk kids, they were all getting tattoos and partying. They were a lot different then the other people I knew in Florida even if they weren’t totally old school. They definitely partied as hard as anyone. Maybe being burnout suburban kids really did impassion them in a sense
The general conformity was hard to take as a teen. Other than the beach, there wasn’t really Anything to do. A lot of people I knew were arrested, because driving around was the only thing To do.
All these guys used to go to a tat shop in Port Salerno where there was this other guy that would seriously do Anything. My friends would all be smoking blunts and getting drunk with he would give them tattoos.
I was interested but didn’t want that life entirely either. I am a person who thinks things out for a long time before I act on them. So for two or three years I thought about whether or not I wanted a tattoo, and what image I could live with forever. When I went to get the tattoo, the place was not as bad as I thought it was going to be; I was really concerned with cleanliness, and it looked ok. I remember that the artist had a tattoo gun with a 13 on it.
I chose the blue star before I knew it would be so popular, it’s become a kind of Emo emblem, I guess. I got the tattoo when I was sixteen, and I am twenty-one now and have been planning my next one for nearly that long. Next, I am going to get a starfish like the ones that were on the Barbados. I want it to be totally realistic. I go to search for the perfect image when I am at bookstores and libraries all the time."
Every BODY Has a Story: Butter-Fly?
"I work at Pussycat Tattoo, a tattoo studio in Milwaukie, Oregon. The people I work with are all friends, and we hang out and talk and have a lot of fun in the shop.
One day, we were all discussing the flash we had. Flash are images that people get tattooed on them from pre-made pictures in the tattoo shop. Since most of us have a fair number of tattoos, everyone there had at least a few flash tattoos… Everyone except me!
A lot of people get flash for their first tattoo. They either want a tattoo for the experience, or they know what they want but they don’t have a picture of it. In my case, my mother drew out my first tattoo. My mom was an artist, and both of my parents were pretty heavily tattooed. They knew lots of tattoo artists and had one come over to the house. I was fourteen.
Though I like the flowers my mother drew, in retrospect I don’t think I had much business getting a tattoo at fourteen. For one thing, when you are younger, you tend to get smaller pieces instead of planning a larger piece of body art. I try and educate my younger (but still over eighteen) clients about long term tattoo choice.
So to get back to the flash, I looked through the pages we had and saw this one done by my friend and colleague, Matt Shaver. It just made me laugh; there isn’t any ‘meaning’ or anything. It is my smallest tattoo, too. I love it."
Tuesday May 09, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Live Your Myth
"I got this tattoo in maybe May of last year in Memphis, Tennessee. The bass player from my band decided to enter a huge BBQ contest in Memphis. It was seriously expensive to be in the contest, like $5,000, but the prize for the best BBQ was $50,000.
So he got up the money to be a BBQ vender and maybe fifteen of us came down there from Chicago. It was awesome. Rows and rows of BBQ, there were separate sections for chicken, beef, pork, all free after the cover.
Later that night, we were on Beale Street which is this famous street in Memphis where all the music and clubs are. We got totally wasted. They had these little drink carts right out on the street and as long as you didn’t leave Beale street, you could walk around drinking whatever you wanted.
It was sort of a blur after that point, but I remember there was an Elvis impersonator there. He was kinda old; not really that hyped on his job anymore. Actually, he was pretty much blowing it…
I got up on stage and asked him if I could try, he said sure, and I started belting out Heartbreak Hotel, but with my own lyrics. He took the mic back about half way through the song and told me if I kept going I might end up with his job!
We went into another bar, which oddly shared a door with a tattoo studio. Usually you’re not supposed to get tattoos when you’re really wasted, but I guess it worked out ok in Memphis.
I had wanted to get ‘Live your myth’ because it was the slogan I made up for a program called the Maui Hero Project for at-risk youth. The project was designed for kids to find the hero inside themselves.
We had tee shirts that had lettering exactly like this tattoo. Six months later, I went back to work for that program again. We all took off our shirts to go swimming, and everyone freaked out about my permanent tee shirt... "
Every BODY Has a Story: The Hagakure
"I got this tattoo on my eighteenth birthday at Alternative tattoo in Beaverton. This symbol is seven or eight hundred years old.
I had wanted to get a tattoo for a while, but I waited for my older brother who was in Wisconsin to come back so we could go together. He got the same one but the red and black are reversed.
My brother is a very well read guy, and when I was fifteen, he gave me The Hagakure to read. The Hagakure is a story written by an old retired swordsman in Japan. This symbol is the image on the front cover.
A lot of times people mistake it for the radioactive symbol, and I’ve heard there’s a Celtic symbol that is similar as well. In The Hagakure though, the five rings stand for the five principals of life, and the five principals of war. This is a little bit like The Art of War.
The five principals of life and war are a way of living your life as well as a method for excelling in martial arts.
I started taking Sambo (a Russian Martial Art) a long time before I read this book. I’m a black belt in Sambo now, but I have always been interested in Japanese culture and art. This is the first tattoo I ever got."
Monday May 08, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Luna Moth
"The first time I had ever even heard of a Luna moth was a really strange occurrence.
I grew up in New York City, near Times Square. At Thanksgiving, there is always an enormous Macys’s parade with floats and celebrities and crazy celebration. It’s really hard to get to be on a float, but when I was fourteen a friend of mine knew someone at Macys and a bunch of my friends were all assigned to a float that happened to be a Luna moth float.
We had no idea why they decided on Luna Moths, the costumes were ridiculous. I think the guy from the TV show, Webster, was the celeb assigned to our float. There we were, green outfits with huge wings…
The night before was a great night. Every year before the parade, there’s a huge party. All my friends and family were out all night in Time Square for the festivities.
The next morning I woke up completely hungover. In order to be on the float we were supposed to get to Macys’s extremely early, and my mother had to really shove us out the door to get there in time.
My mother came back around seven to bring us some breakfast to eat, and she says she remembers that all she saw was a friend of mine lying on the ground outside the Natural History Museum, throwing up. She recalls that his face was the exact green color of the costume…
After that, I found out about Luna moths from a butterfly museum. What a different association! It was amazing to see how enormous and beautiful they were. I guess I have been saving this space on my back for a long time for a tattoo but I didn’t know exactly what I wanted until recently.
One thing that captivated me about Luna moths when I first found out about them is that they are only alive for a few days. During that time, they do not nourish themselves in anyway. They are truly ephemeral creatures.
It is so rare and so special to see a creature so delicate, particularly after the struggle of metamorphosis. All lives have challenges, and I wanted a tattoo that would express my own journey of change. "
Every BODY Has a Story: Quelle Pomme!
"I had this tattoo done yesterday, or maybe the day before. Yes, it was the day before from a man named Paul. My daughter recommended him to me because she has gone to him for her own tattoos. He works at Infinity Tattoo in Portland.
Though I have lived in many different places in my life, now, I live in Australia. I am far from my children and grandchildren there.
Originally, I am French, then as an adult I moved to the United States and had my children there. I will be in Australia for the next one and a half years.
I am now a grandmother of four, and when my daughter was pregnant with her first baby I thought about what the baby should call me.
I had a friend who’s grandchildren called her Fleur (flower in French), which I thought was nice, but I talked this over with friends quite a lot until I decided my own name.
In French, the expression ‘Quelle Pomme!’ means, what a kooky or funny person. It is a very affectionate expression. I thought that perhaps I would be Pomme to the grandchildren. A friend told me it was a good English pun too: a Granny Smith IS a type of apple! With that, I was decided. All four of my grandchildren have called me this ever since.
About a year ago when I was sixty-two, I decided I wanted a tattoo. Both of my daughters had tattoos, and I knew they would tell me where to go. I am visiting my daughter this week in the US, and the tattoo I chose was the apple (for me) surrounded by four little apple blossoms (for my grandchildren)."
Wednesday May 03, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: A Woven Family
"My wife and I have been married now for about twelve years. We have three sons, Aidan, Brendan, and Collin. They are eleven, seven and three years old now.
After Aidan, our youngest, was born, we realized that our family was complete. My wife and I decided to get matching tattoos to represent our family.
Our Irish heritage is important to us. My wife and I are both Irish, but my grandfather was born there. We still know people in Ireland and would love to go and visit but of course it’s hard with five!
Every part of this tattoo is meaningful. It is comprised of the Irish trinity which is a Celtic symbol composed of three knot that never come to an end. This symbol represents the holy trinity, as well as the eternity of souls.
The Celtic knots are woven into the Irish wedding band, or Claddagh. These are combined with the three clovers, one for each of my children. Tim from Optic Nerve drew out and inked this tattoo for me. He has since done many others, nearly all having to do with my family and children.
This tattoo is a single tattoo made of many parts, all composed of love."
Every BODY Has a Story: Asian Phoenix
"Asian art is something I have always been surrounded with and had an interest in. I particularly like traditional Asian art when it comes to tattoos.
On my back, I have a large dragon. For me, the dragon represents power, not the kind of power from intimidation or forcing people to do things, but the true power that comes from internal balance and poise.
I felt that I needed something to compliment the dragon, however. In many cultures, the phoenix represents birth in fire, rebirth and the survival of difficult circumstances. This isn’t exactly what it means for me, however
Though I am not orthodox in my practices, I am a Buddhist. For me, the phoenix represents true freedom. Freedom within the Buddhist sense. The ability to fly wherever you want to go, to do whatever you want to do.
I have a salon down in Bend, Oregon that I have had for a while. I come up to Portland to have my tattoos done by Adam at Painless tattoo.
He drew out this phoenix; all I really told him was that I wanted it to be traditional. My sort of traditional."
Tuesday May 02, 2006
EveryBODY has a Story: Flutter by, Butterfly
"I got this tattoo about four or five years ago, and I haven’t seen another quite like it. Though there are a lot of butterfly tattoos around, this one is a bit more unique because of the placement and separation of the wings.
I was working at tower records and thinking about tattoos at the same time, and the idea just came to me.
I am a light-hearted person by nature, and this suited me well. My son, however, had been killed several years before and I have a tattoo that I got in honor of him.
The tattoos that I have gotten since then have reflected a lighter side of the world to balance that out. I have to add though that geeze; people are not kidding when they say that tattoos on your toes hurt! It took about forty-five minutes to do, but it was Very painful.
It was done by Jeff at Sea Tramp tattoo, and I love all the compliments I receive on it!!"
EveryBODY has a Story: Tribal Heart
"I got this tattoo when I was a couple of weeks shy of my eighteenth birthday. My friend was getting one, and a guy we knew was an artist and had just started doing tattoos. I think mine might have been his fourth or fifth tattoo.
I found the image in a tattoo book he had, and I really liked it Almost as an after thought, I had him add ‘Rest in Peace, Andrew’at the bottom.
Andrew was my brother. He was about four years older than I was. When he was eighteen, he got into a fight with some guys in a Burger King, and later the fight moved to the Clackamas Town Center Mall. At some point, this guy pulled out a gun and shot my brother.
It was a real shock. They caught the guy who did it, and he is in jail for eleven years. I guess that doesn’t make it hurt any less, though. Even though I thought of the lettering at the end of the tattooing process, I had known that I wanted to do something for him before that. I just wasn’t sure what.
I got the tattoo at the same age he was when he died, but I don’t think the artist did a very good job. Within a couple of years, it was faded and looked like a very old tattoo.
Today I am here getting it touched up, and I like it a lot better. The thing that we are going to leave original is the lettering, though. I want to have the memory of Andrew stay stuck in that moment."
Monday May 01, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Fawn-o-Corn
About two years ago when I was working at Pussycat tattoo, my brother and his friend Ryan drove up to see me from LA. While they were driving up, they had a conversation about the dumbest tattoo somebody could possibly get. The conversation started because they had seen this sign on the outside of a hot tub store that seemed like a good place to start…
The sign featured two unicorns in a hot tub, one male (you could tell from his cheesy grin), one female. They were both drinking champagne and wearing Oakly Razor sunglasses.
Difficult to top an image as stupid as that, but my brother and his friend worked hard. By the time they got here, they decided that the unicorns had to be eating corn dogs and ice cream cones. Since we’re all vegans, this was even funnier.
That night we went to a friends house, and the conversation just got more and more ridiculous. The consensus was that there had to be panda, the tat had to say ‘Aloha’, and there had to be something you hated at the end of the corn dog.
With that (though it was four in the morning), we headed to Pussycat. I drew it out and one friend chose a tie-die peace sign on the en of the corn dog, and the other got a rebel flag.
It was about the funniest thing ever. It got to be so a bunch of people wanted these tattoos. I made it a policy that I would do these ones for free as long as they were exactly like the others. However, for creativity’s sake, clients were allowed to choose the horn color and object of hatred…
A while after that I went to a really lame tattoo convention with Matt Reed and my friend Cameron. There was this five-minute art ‘fusion’ contest where you had five minutes to sketch something out and the results were judged. The only thing they had to draw with was a crayon.
Matt and Cameron thought the whole thing was sort of silly at this point, so they entered the contest and Matt drew the prettiest lil’ Bambi/unicorn while Cameron filled it all in with clouds and rainbows.
The picture kind of reminded s of the panda bears… “I’d Totally get that as a tattoo”, I told my friend. “Yeah?” he asked, then made me an appointment. The weird thing about it is that Matt and I ended up really liking it. Matt spent about three hours on it and took pictures of it to bring home to his daughter. It’s really kinda cute…'
"Every BODY Has a Story: Flags of my Heritage
"I got my first tattoo when I was eighteen, and it was the Swedish flag. I got the other two and the lettering a year or so after that.
When I got the first one, my parents hated it. They said it was my decision, but I seriously think that if I had gotten before I was eighteen they would have disowned me. I have to tell you though, my parents aren’t necessarily like a lot of other people’s parents.
They are kind of hippies. They had been dating for awhile, they went to Reno to go to a Grateful Dead show, and when they came back and unpacked, they found a wedding certificate. Apparently they had gotten married after the show but neither of them remembered it!
Both my parents are Pagan, and they strongly disagree with tattooing. They consider it mutilation. They felt as if I could have marked my cultural heritage in an other way than a tattoo. Now however, they tell me that it is my body and my choice.
I considered getting symbols to represent the nations, but I wanted something that was easier to understand when you looked at the image. If I had a Viking ship, or Celtic bands, I would have to tell people what that meant to me all the time and I didn’t want to do that.
I respect my parent’s ideals, and I don’t think they are misguided. After their interesting beginning, they are still married and have been for twenty-seven years. It takes a lot of love and respect to do that.
In part, that’s why I chose the tattoo I did. I see so many people getting tattoos that have to do with something or someone who they will surely not be in their later lives. I knew that my heritage and my family are things that will always be true for me. "
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!"
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."
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."
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."
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!"
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."
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."
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."
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."
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."
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."
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."
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."
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?"
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."
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."
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."
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
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."
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."
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."
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."
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. "
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"
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!"
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."
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!
"
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."
Friday Mar 31, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Gummy Bear
"About two years ago, or it will be two years in June, I got this tattoo. I got the tat a month after my girlfriend left to go into the military. She was my first real girlfriend, and our relationship grew fast and was really intense. We had been seeing each other for about four months when she discovered she was pregnant.
I would have supported her whichever way she chose to go, I kind of thought adoption would have been a good option, but it wasn’t my say. She was supposed to go into boot camp a week or so later, and we had the operation to terminate her pregnancy.
The whole time we were discussing what to do about the situation, I don’t why, but we kept talking about how the Zygote was the size of a gummy bear. It became a sort of sad joke between us. The tattoo is really a kid image in some ways. I guess it was my way of expressing what it would be like for me as a kid to think about my own kid.
When my girlfriend originally decided to join the military, they had told her that she would do linguistic work in Germany. As soon as she reached boot camp, they told her she would be learning Arabic and heading straight for an infantry unit in Iraq. After getting a fracture in her heel from the training in boot camp and a lot of stress, she got a psychological discharge about a month later.
When she returned, we got back together again, but it was too intense. When I told a friend of mine about the tattoo he said it was like I lost all of my innocence in one go.
Yeah, I think that’s what happened."
Every BODY Has a Story: Bar Code
"After my nineteenth birthday, I decided to get a tattoo. I knew this girl from high school named Mariya who was a wonderful artist and had become a tattoo artist since finishing high school.
We had hung out in the same crowd in Modesto, California in school, and we had known each other for a long time. Mariya did the art for about 90% of all the publications our school put out, so I was totally familiar with her work. She had always done art all of the time I knew her.
Mariya was sort of against the bar code. She is a devout Christian, and the idea of it bothered her. It’s been funny seeing how her ideas about this have changed as she continues her business, but that’s how she felt then.
As for me, I wanted to get the bar code because I felt like another number. At the time I was working for an inventory company, scanning products day in, day out. It occurred to me that if I had a bar code, my employer could just scan me too, and save a little more time.
I think it was sort of a socioeconomic thing for me too. I worked since I was about sixteen, and in Modesto, it was really hard to get a good job. I had waited a month or more to get a job at McDonalds. I realized that it took half of my income to pay for my apartment, and I was still getting a ton of taxes taken out. So the bar code was kind of ironic: I’m already the property of my employer and the government, why pretend otherwise?
The actual code used in the tattoo was from a CD in the shop. I actually don’t even remember which one now. I guess it’s not what your code is that’s important, it’s that you have one."
Thursday Mar 30, 2006
EveryBODY has a Story: Playin’ Pool
"About two years ago, I got really into pool. After I got the bug, I played all the time. I was about nineteen at the time, so even though I played constantly, I couldn’t join the bar league until I was twenty-one.
I spent all the time before I turned twenty-one practicing at an all ages billiards club. When I finally turned twenty-one, I joined a bar league right away. I met Adam Jelinski, (the guy who is tattooing this one here) in the league but he’s on a different team than me.
I first thought of this tat when it was Halloween. One of the women on the league was dressed exactly like the woman on my tat. I looked at different tattoo flash pin-ups, and added the clothes and the pool cue.
I wanted the tattoo to have a kind of 30’s gangster feel. It is going to go all around my arm. Today I’m getting a section done with a girl playing Video Poker. "
Every BODY Has a Story: A Crest My Own
"I think that maybe I’m having a mid-life crisis. I was going to get a motorcycle, but decided instead on tattoo. This tattoo shows where I come from, where I’ve been, and where I am now. Is a motorcycle going to do that for you?
I was born in Holland in a little town called Millingen a/d Vijn. I still consider myself Dutch, and am still a Dutch citizen. I lived there until my parents decided to immigrate to Canada. They did this after visiting relatives who lived there. At the time, I was thirteen and not happy to leave my friends and town.
I think I stayed pretty unhappy to have left Holland until I was about twenty-one. At that time, I joined the Canadian Navy. When I joined the Navy, I felt like a Canadian citizen for the first time when I was serving my country.
Eighteen years ago, all the Navy boats were on display at the Rose Festival, in Portland, Oregon. Our ship was right there with them. While there, I met my future wife. It was really love at first sight. We spent the next three years getting through the rest of my Navy requirement, and when I was done, I came to the United States with her to live.
It’s been eighteen years since we were married, and though I still feel roots in Holland and in Canada, my wife is an American and so are my children. This is my home now. One reason I got this tattoo is to show my crest to my kids- they are first generation Americans; they need to know their heritage."
Monday Mar 27, 2006
Every BODY Has a Story: Day Lilly
"This flower on my back is a Day Lilly. I chose it especially for its name: Strawberry Candy. I intend to have a series of strawberry themed tattoos that move down my side in that area. I guess when I was little; I had a birthmark called a strawberry. I had it removed, but I always thought it would be cool to keep the idea of it there.
Over the Day Lilly, is a small ant. This ant represents my actual aunt. She has been a huge influence on my life. Though things in my family were often rocky, she was the one constant. I guess you could say she raised me.
I put this flower on my shoulder because I wanted to have her looking over my shoulder, guiding me and whispering in my ear.
My aunt is only ten years older then me, so she is almost like a big sister. She is a bit more conservative than I am, but actually, the tattoo was her idea. She decided to get a tattoo with my name on her ankle. She was pregnant at the time, so she waited a while to get it. In the mean time, I got this one.
I am happy to have her stay with me."
Every BODY Has a Story: The Huge Dragon Tattoo
"I used to work with Matt Reed from Tiger Lilly Tattoo. He and I were friends and he wanted me to finish up a piece for him. I didn’t really feel like finishing it, and kept putting it off. In the meantime, we got this book on traditional Japanese tattoos. Not Kanji, but full body pieces, huge stuff.
I saw these two dragons that were really amazing. I told Matt offhandedly that a combination of these two dragons would be a really cool tattoo. When I saw him the next day, I couldn’t believe it. He staggered through the door, his eyes blood-shot and wild, and his hair standing on end. I think he was actually wearing the same clothes as the day before, too.
In his hand, he had a gigantic sheet of butcher paper all rolled u