Tattooed in a Snowstorm

I don't think I'll forget today in a hurry. No, seriously.
Mainly because of my tattoo but partly, partly because of the snowstorm.



Seriously. It snowed in Wellington. More than I can ever remember.



But yes. Also the tattoo. I'm in love with it.
Síorghrá is Gaelic for eternal love.



Gill does amazing work.



I can't wait until it's healed. He used turquoise for the keyhole and the script but it doesn't really show up here.
It's beautiful though.



It was kind of chilly spending most of the afternoon in a sleeveless top.
In a snowstorm.

Tattoo Number Seven - St Paul's Cathedral

When I've been asked what I planned for my seventh tattoo my answer was ... generally longer than a tweet. I eventually whittled it down to: a traditional style reinterpretation of "St Paul's during the blitz" inside an ornate gold frame with traditional roses underneath. Which is only 130 characters long. But kind of confusing.



The idea for this tattoo came to me fully formed last November ...

It's no secret that I adore London. It was London which made me believe in the ridiculous Carrie-Bradshaw-esque notion of falling in love with a city. St Paul's Cathedral is at the centre of my London.

It was crossing the Millennium Bridge with my hands clasped round a coffee and that Dome in my sights when I couldn't keep from breaking into a wide wide smile.


St Paul's during the Blitz - photo by Herbert Mason

I've loved the photo of St Paul's during the Blitz by Herbert Mason for ... as long as I can remember.

It was used as symbol of resilience, to show that - even as late as 1940 - London could not be brought low by destruction. What was not then well known was that St Paul's was assiduously protected by local forces and citizens alike.

It's a beautiful image and a beautiful sentiment. But I digress (SHOCKING, I KNOW).



I chose a frame to anchor the image, to make it stand alone as a tattoo. The roses link it from my right arm to my right side to my left thigh. And just because I love traditional tattoo style roses.



Jeremy Gill from Tattoo Machine did all the work and he was amazing. I loved the drawing and when he freehanded the smoke? It was kind of terrifying. He really was moving the machine like he was using a coloured pencil. Blech.
I ended up bleeding quite a lot.
And despite all of that? it wasn't really all that painful.







Twelve days from now he's going to add the colour. I can't wait.


And so, Saint Paul joins my other darling tattoos:
1. Cupcake
2. Crown
3. Rose
4. Sugarskull
5. Jitterbug Perfume
6. In Omnia Paratus

In Omnia Paratus: Done for Now

October 2010

This is what my side tattoo looked like the last time I showed y'all.
It was a day after I'd had the first session and I was feeling exceptionally badass. It hurt a lot but I had endured.

In early January I received an email from my Auckland-based artist (Erin Chance) saying she was going to be working down in Wellington in late January and did I want to have another session? get some colour added? I jumped at the chance and on the 21st I had the colour added.


January 2011

I sent a few emails to Auckland to try and arrange a time for the final session - to have the shading finished on the camera but the flowers and the banner and the text are all done. It was a lot of back and forth and ultimately we put the appointment-search on hold.

I was going to wait until it was complete before posting this but ... I saw on the Sacred Tattoo facebook page that Erin is heading off overseas in June. There is no way I will be able to make it up to Auckland before then.



Thankfully I like the camera being outline-only.
It seems like this is how it will remain for the foreseeable future.

Erin is planning on coming back to Auckland from time to time and I'm sure it will be finished eventually - but I love it as it is.

On being tattooed

My favourite time of the day at the moment is just before 7am.
I take a moment, before getting dressed, I look in the mirror and, more often than not, I smile.

It’s wholly and completely unlike me. I have always had a realistic sense of self.
Or rather, I've always accepted my egotistical self-disinterest as merely one of the many many facets of my shiny personality.

I've always been more intelligent than pretty. Verbose rather than beautiful.
Too short, too round*, too pale, too baby-faced.
Too prone to pedantry.

I've wielded fashion like a mask, a costume.
Camouflaging myself with the generic fashions of my friends, the black and studs of the goth, distracting people with my cleavage, wearing clothes which exposed me and hid me all at once.

But my tattoos? My tattoos are me.
I designed them, I chose them, I endured the pain of them. I adore them.


It's taken me far too long to work this out. But every so often I turn to Craig and I say I just love my tattoos. I can't keep it in!


* admittedly, the weight loss of the last two years has probably helped as well.

In Omnia Paratus: a tattoo

When someone tells you that getting your ribs tattoos hurts? believe them.
I'm telling you now. It hurts. A lot.
This was by far my most painful tattoo. But I still adore it, and I'm so glad I have it. I just won't be rushing to get the second session (colour) done. It looks good as outline and shading. Thankfully.


nervous face!

So yes. I emailed Erin Chance at Sacred Tattoo an appropriately garbled description of a traditional style memorial tattoo, except with a camera instead of a person, a couple of roses and a peony, and a banner with "In Omnia Paratus" (Ready for anything) on it*. And that I wanted it on my ribs and landscape orientation and about the size of my hand.
She came back with something about 3 times bigger and portrait oriented but it was perfect.
This is why I always always advocate researching your artist. And giving them a bit of leeway. The orientation and size that I was originally envisioning wouldn't have left enough detail for the flowers OR the camera.
I had also wanted a more fancy font for the script but she pointed out that it would be getting a bit busy. And of course, she was right. That's why she's the artist.


Sacred Tattoo, K'Rd, Auckland

And that's how I ended up getting my ribs AND hips tattooed**.
I cannot emphasise enough that it HURT. Like really really hurt.
Which is why there are no being-tattooed photos. I could not let go of Craig. And I was worried that if I took a break that I wouldn't let her start again.
Ouch.


After the outline and before the shading

Craig and I were talking about which bits hurt me the most. I came up with: the bony bits of my ribs and hips, right in the centre of the curve of my waist, when she did the long long lines, and the little lines on the leaves.
I was surprised that the middle of my waist hurt as much as it did. Same with the little lines on the leaves.

Thankfully the shading hurt less. It still hurt a LOT but less than the outline.
And I just adore it.





Also! Erin told me that I was the third large rib piece she'd done that week and that I had sat, by far, better than the other two. And they were dudes. I feel officially badass now.

* Yes. The latin is PARTLY but only partly a Gilmore Girls reference.
** Sorry mum!

Jitterbug Perfume Tattoo, or: a lot of words about words

It was my darling cousins Kirsten and Adrian who first foisted Tom Robbins books on my sister and me. I cannot remember which one I read first – possibly it was Jitterbug Perfume – but I know that I still have a couple on my bookshelf and it was … too too long ago for me to remember exactly. I have had these books for years now. I should probably return them.

Either way, Jitterbug Perfume’s tale of Alobar and Kudra’s passionate love affair and their quest for immortality intrigued me. When I think back on the book the mental image is humid and fragrant, richly coloured, and completely vague. I remember snippets, mental images of the randy goat-god Pan, of twisting smoke, of a New Orleans’ accent, small jewelled perfume bottles, and of mud.
What? They’re mental images. I can’t explain them. I don’t know where the mud or twisting smoke come from. But there they are.

Last night I tore my house apart (not really, I’m not much for heavy duty demolition) but I don’t seem to have a copy in my possession (horror!) and I know there are two knocking about in my family. I held the first copy ransom, my sister eventually purchasing me my own as a present, which I believe I then promptly lent out. To whom? I have no idea. This is very frustrating.
Either way, the Wikipedia entry reminded me of the prominence of beets, of the four distinct storylines, and of the Bandaloop Doctors. These things my mind has chosen to forget.

The themes ribbon-ing through Jitterbug Perfume include striving for immortality, the meaning behind the sense of smell, individual expression, self-reliance, sex, love, and religion.

But above all, it was one little sentence. A sentence which resonated with me, which I have remembered word for word from the moment I read and reread it, even read it out loud, was ultimately the one I chose to have inscribed across my back.



Uncertain, intrepid, possibly immortal, decidedly in love.

Jitterbug Perfume is not my favourite book (that would be Lolita, or Rebecca, or Middlesex), and Tom Robbins is not my favourite author (that would be Stephen Fry or Bill Bryson) but that sentence, those seven words, are my favourite.

I love the cadence, the rhythm, to me they are inestimably evocative. Truthfully, if it came down to lyrical quality and the beauty of words they come second to the first 5 paragraphs of Lolita, but that would be too too long for a tattoo.



It means more to me than a pure reverence of the written word. A favourite quote can be a highly personal thing, and while I hate to burden ink in skin with too much symbolism, I cannot avoid the fact that, to me, these words are a way of looking at life.

Be uncertain, be wary, but don’t let that hold you back. To fall upon a cushion of cliché, to feel the fear and do it anyway. Be intrepid. Embrace life as though you may be immortal, do everything but don’t rush through life. And most of all, be in love. With yourself, with life, with the small things, and the big. Robbins is referring to the passionate centuries long love affair of Alobar and Kudra, but I see it as so so so much more.



The font? I cannot remember. It is free, from dafont.com, and all I can say about it really is “Oo, pretty!”.
I chose the unusual spacing because I didn’t want any of the sentiment broken with the end of a line. And then, the second line was too short. Which is why I added the decoration.
Oo. Pretty.

And so my darling Jitterbug tattoo joins my others:
Cupcake
Crown
Rose
Sugarskull

Careful Mum, you'll strain your eyes rolling them that hard.

Introducing ... Wilbur!

The birth of Wilbur, my dia de los muertos sugar skull tattoo.



Craig took me to Manu Tattoo in Petone & held my hand as I breathed & zen-ed through the outline. Then he took this photo where I look wiped out and you know what?
IT HURT SO MUCH MORE.



From the sacred heart on his forehead to the tudor rose on his chin & all the swirls and twirls in between? he hurt a LOT.
More than I was expecting, and I was expecting a lot because of the whole baby-skin on the underside of my arm.



On the other hand, it was good practice for my yogic breathing, mind power, disassociating tactics. I closed my eyes and breathed slowly, focussing on sweeping the pain around my body instead of leaving it inside my arm.
I squeezed Craig's hand until my fingers turned purple, and tried very hard to not twitch.



It worked! I survived & he is worth it. I love his little face.



And by the way? I have no idea why I named him Wilbur. It just seems to be his name.



Craig: huh. It almost looks blue where it's not coloured in.
Me: That's called BRUISING.

Now? he's yellow. A yellow aura of bruising.





It's love!

I'm still alive: a Rose Tattoo story

Sir C and I flew all the way up to Auckland for ever-so-slightly under 48 hours in order for me to go to Sacred to get a new tattoo.
It was all because of the internet. I put the call out for recommendations for colour tattoo artists in the Wellington area and the internet came back with one recommendation. I asked about Auckland? New Zealand? Anywhere? and I received many many more.
The only person who received more than one was Dan at Sacred Tattoo.


My best "I'm not nervous at all" face (HA)

I took in the idea of a traditional rose tattoo, sans stem & avec curlicues, in shades of pink (FUCHSIA!), the size 8cm squared to 10cm squared, and these photos:



The lovely Dan talked about what I was looking for and drew 3-4 different traditional style roses (after each one I proclaimed "I love it!" and then amazingly the next one was even better) and talked me into ... bit larger than I was originally thinking.



But oh, he was right.

...

And then there's a gap ... Craig had to hold my hand while the outline was tattooed.


The shading was much less painful.


I love the reflection in my glasses.


I think Dan is adding the gold to the leaves here. But there's a little bit of blood in the way, I'm basing it on the ink on the paper towel.


The next day I covered it for brunch (a fresh tattoo is not brunch appropriate) but couldn't help peeking at it.


And! I lovelovelove how it peeks out of the sleeve of a regular t-shirt.


And on Sunday? the yellow bruising came in.

But I love it. So much.
The painterly black shading and the three (four?) different shades of pink. Dan says the colours will really come into their own more as it heals. The curlicues and veins in the leaves are actually dark-grey to the outline's true-black, the three (four) different shades of pink, the different shades of green etc etc.

This tattoo definitely makes my others look like babies. I cannot believe how worried I was about the cupcake! But, as Dan says, a little trepidation is healthy. Otherwise you can be caught unawares by the pain.

I was caught a little ... by the post tattooing pain. I thought it would be like my others, a little itchy and after three days it would still feel a little raised but otherwise just like skin again.
This time it feels more like sunburn. It aches, every so slightly, just enough so I forget and over extend my arm and then the pain, the tight-skin sunburn kind of pain.
But of course, I'm not complaining. Because it's my own damn fault.

And totally worth it. Adoration abounds.



By the way? Dan and Sacred Tattoo were amazing.
I felt like Dan helped me design my own tattoo based on quite broad general ideas, and their hygiene and safety procedures were unlike anything I've experienced before. I had to fill out a form with any allergies or medications, that I understood tattoos were permanent (Yes! Seriously!) and that I had agreed upon the design with the artist, Dan even showed me the sealed packaging of the one use needles (At my earlier tattoo appointments I'd seen them open the needles and seen the empty packages but still).
And after all that? it worked out to be cheaper than I had been quoted.
The internet is amazing.


&


Craig and I were sitting in Starbucks post-tattoo and I was bouncing up and down in my seat, peeking at the glad-wrap covered tattoo and Craig smiled and shook his head:
Me: What? I just love it!
Craig: We're going to have to come all the way to Auckland for any other tattoos you want aren't we?
Me: Yip! Well ... maybe.
But if they are colour? then Yes. Definitely yes. Dan was worth the flight.

Tattoosday!

It only took 48 days but Craig and I finally bought each other anniversary presents.



The Crown of King George the Fifth, from the near-ubiquitous poster:


(by Olly Moss)

Uhh ... not exactly. This one:


(*)

We decided on the crown because ... well. Let's put it in a list!
1. We wanted to get matching tattoos
2. I think that getting names or dates or faces or anything obvious tattooed in regards to a relationship could (and in my case probably would) jinx it
3. We wanted something related to London or England, because of the time we've spent there together.
4. We liked the crown!
5. Keep calm and carry on is a good thing to keep in mind when dealing with the British Immigration Association. And life in general.




I woke up making my nervous cricket face.
Sigh.
It was my second tattoo and yet, the face, the face! Good Lord.**


the last look at our bare forearms***.



My big bad husband is scared of my camera. So the first photo of my tattoo is this one.
All done.



We sat by the most pathetic park in Wellington (well, almost) and I drank a V (and was not crotchety, I swear!) while we waited for Michelle to set up for Craig's tattoo.

And then ...



I like that Craig wore his fake tattoo t-shirt to get his first real tattoo.







(Michelle from TattooFreaky.com)





Don't let his bravado fool you. He cried like a little girl.



Okay, okay, he didn't cry or flinch or anything.
But I did well too! I was actually able to maintain steady conversation while getting tattoo-ed and I could even bare to watch it. I did need Craig to squeeze my free hand however but still! I did very well! Exclamation!







(I made that cowl/scarf I'm wearing)



Why I chose the crown?
C! Cupcake, Crown, Craig!



Uhh ... they are even. I swear. My elbows aren't lined up properly.




(by Everyday is a Holiday)

Adoration Abounds




* The poster was created by someone in the Home Office in 1939 and was to be posted around London during the war. It wasn't. But it was found years later and well, then the internet happened.
** Aly impression!
*** I regret looking like a black power member.