ink 1. Coffee cup, 1993, Montreal
2. Gemini, 2006, Brooklyn
3. Empty Word Balloon, 2007, Flyrite, Brooklyn
4. Fear Not, Jan 2008, Tattoo Culture, Brooklyn
5. Breathe,
May 2008, Porcupine Studios, Brooklyn
tattoo story
(#1) I got my first tattoo at 17 in a random street shop in Montreal while visiting a friend. It was small, a little iconic glyph of a coffee cup, but for some reason -- perhaps the placement over my appendix -- my body got very upset: I got the sweats, I got dizzy, I got nauseous, I couldn't feel my hands, and finally I couldn't see. All this in the span of five minutes. The poor tattooist finished as quickly as he could, and I ran to the bathroom to puke and void my bowels more or less simultaneously.
I did not get another tattoo for almost 12 years, fearing a repeat of the same reaction. After a nice experience receiving a home tattoo from my girlfriend of the Gemini constellation (#2) and giving some to some friends, I tried again, getting an empty word balloon on my right shoulder. I could barely tell that the guy was doing anything. Hallelujah!
Free of fear, I went ahead with a design I've been wanting for a long time, which I was proud to see featured on modblog.
Sleepy Just me, late at night
Mod-Tracker
ink
breathe tattoo: by emma @ porcupine
Surgery Scars
2008/10/30 11:13 So okay, maybe this isn't a traditional voluntary functionless mod, but hell: I'm different than I was. I had laparoscopic surgery to fix a hiatal hernia. These five scars will not amount to much, but inside, I'm radically different: check it out.
raised tattoo
2008/07/09 12:10 The parts of my tattoo that have white ink in them haven't settled into my skin as much as the gray or purely blue parts. It's been a month and a half now, and people still keep asking me if it's painted on. It's cool, I guess. But it's raised in a way that it kinda looks like scar tissue. Is my skin super-sensitive -- not to pain, obviously, but maybe to scarring? I've never noticed it particularly before.
Tattoo Done!
2008/05/19 16:38 Emma did my tattoo yesterday, and I was surprised again by how tough I appear to be. I found the process to be a little irritating, but not really all that painful. I know when I'm in real pain, because sweat starts popping out all over my body. For the most part I didn't experience ANYTHING worse than the last time the dentist drilled me before I was numb.
She altered the design a bit from what I had originally given her, and I like the result -- looks more like a tattoo and less like an Adobe Illustrator document.
Note that there is no black ink in the tattoo! That's one of my rules.
not ready to let go of control yet, i guess
2008/05/08 16:34 OKAY so I'm going ahead with my latest design. I'm trying to attach it to this post, to be replaced by the actual tattoo image once it's installed on my right inner bicep May 18th.
I feel conflicted about the way I have been going about this, though. I want very much to be like the people who go to an artist they trust and just say "put a donkey riding a submarine here" and end up with an awesome creative great thing.
But I keep making designs myself and bringing them to top-notch artists. Is this not turning them into glorified contractors? Is this a problem?
