Caitlin’s Phoenix Tattoo Story

This phoenix tattoo is very personal to me. The phoenix describes the struggles I have gone through in my life and trying to rise above them. It took 2 years for me to compile everything that I wanted in the tattoo. This is just the outline and I am currently getting color done. It will take quite a few months to finish since it is so large.

-Caitlin

Tattoo artist: Wayne
Tattoo Studio: Body Tech

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I got my tattoo on my 18th birthday from my father. It was a big deal to get this tattoo because I had picked it out so many years ago. I was severely depressed and suicidal. I was kicked out of school and there was nothing out there in the world for me and it really got to me. My life then revolved around reading my vampire novels, writing, drugs and music. Especially music. It was what helped me out the most.

I didn’t go on the internet very much and one day I was just aimlessly looking around and found this picture. It had a wonderful quote with it but that’s not what caught my eye. I immediately saved the picture. I kept a print out of the picture in one of my many notebooks and finally got it tattooed last year. I felt that soon after was the turning point in my life. I stopped being so depressed and realized life isn’t all that bad and not everything is out to get me.

Thank you daddy you have no clue how much this means to me.

-Tina

Tattoo artist: Eric Johnson
Tattoo Studio: Firehouse Tattoo, Quesnel, BC Canada

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Agamid’s Tolkien Cleavage Tattoo

My third tat (the symbol between my breasts) is the Tolkien symbol – if you don’t know what that is, please go to your local library, pick up a copy of one of his books and look for it. It’s his signature. I’ve always loved Tolkien’s books. I grew up hearing them as bedtime stories. To me, he was the best writer ever born and the father of the fantasy genre as we know it. He’s my hero.

This tat is the first of what are going to be several Tolkien themed tats. I want a couple of original Tolkien illustrated dragons to flank the symbol and the tree of Gondor on my back. Lucky for me my tattoo artist is a massive Tolkien fan too.

- agamid

Tattoo Artist: Loz
Tattoo Studio: Westside Tattoo, Westend, Brisbane, Australia

Agamid’s Other Tattoos: Lizard Arm Tattoo Story, Lizard Leg Tattoo Story

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This is my fourth tattoo. It is a fairy tattoo – I got it as a birthday present for myself. The original plan was to have it on my belly but since I wanted the details as much as possible, I decided to put her on my hip.

I always wanted a fairy tattoo. All my other tattoos have been about something symbolic and simple (an infinity symbol on my lower back and my initial on my right foot), and one was to cover a scar (a flower on my left leg above the ankle).

To have this piece of art work on my body strengthens my love for tattoos. The process took about four hours and yes, it was painful. I can’t stop admiring this one and it feels good knowing that I now have my own fairy to keep me safe.

-Elza

Tattoo artist: Clay McKay from Anonymous Tattoo, Savannah, GA

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Traci’s Yin Yang Tiger Dragon Tattoo

My tattoo started out as just a ying-yang that I had done for my 18th birthday. The ying-yang represents balance in my life, which is more of an abstract concept than something I’ve been able to practice. Its a goal I aspire towards. It was always the intent that I would finish my tattoo with a dragon and a tiger around it, but I did not have enough money when I was 18.

Through the years I’ve been keeping an eye on designs, but never following through on finishing the tattoo. Then a tragedy happened this past winter. One of my best friends from high school was brutually murdered in a random act of violence. I was angry, and that anger found me in the chair at the tattoo studio.

The artist who did my work competes nationally, and I was amazed all of the awards he had gotten. His nickname was Freehand. I told him what I wanted, and he sparked an interest in working on me. He had drawn a design of a tiger and dragon with the intent of putting it around a ying-yang on one of his friends. But this never happened because his friend had been murdered only a couple of months prior. He modified the design a bit for my tastes, but said that he would love to put the design on me, and even signed the original handdrawing for me to keep.

I guess I’m a bit of a whimp when it comes to needles, or at least thats what I’m told, but my anger got me through the first 40 minutes of the job. It was the last 5 or so that my anger faultered and I was in tears, from both the pain on my shoulder/back and in my heart. The experience for me was very healing, and I found it much easier to start to deal with the pain in my heart as the other pain subsided. I still miss my friend very much, and I ache to know that I never got to say good-bye, but I know she is still with us, at least in heart and spirit.

So, thats my story, and I’m sticking to it….

-Traci

Yin Yang Tiger Dragon Tattoo

Lindsay’s Fairy with Phoenix Wings Tattoo

I got this tattoo because I have been through a lot in my life. I was born 3 months premature and have been fighting since then. I decided to get the tattoo after my mom told me I always fought through everything, never giving up. I saw myself as rising from the ashes.

I had the tattoo drawn up by Megan at Tattoo Lous’ in Huntington, NY. She got the concept down pat when I told her I wanted her (the tattoo) to have bright, vibrant wings and piercing blue eyes and to face my heart

It was done in two sessions. Now, I use this tattoo as in inspiration in my life; when I am going through hard times I think of her as my alter-ego.

-Lindsay

Tattoo Artist: Megan – Tattoo Lous’ – Huntington, NY

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Gaetan’s Phoenix Tattoo

Here is my take on this mythical bird linked with fire, the sun and rebirth. I found this paragraph quite inspirational: “A mythical bird that never dies, the phoenix flies far ahead to the front, always scanning the landscape and distant space. It represents our capacity for vision, for collecting sensory information about our environment and the events unfolding within it. The phoenix, with its great beauty, creates intense excitement and deathless inspiration.” – (The Feng Shui Handbook, feng shui Master Lam Kam Chuen)

After a couple of designs, Gaitan from “Paul and Friendz Tattoo” shop in Belgium crafted this drawing which encompasses nicely the strength, lightness and beauty of the Phoenix. It is my second tattoo. The first one being a snake in the shape of an Ouroboros around my left wrist. After a “snake that bites his own tale”, I chose a bird on fire that flies away without being blinded by the sun…

- Gaetan

Inked by Gaitan – Paul and Friendz Tattoo Shop – Belgium

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Greg’s Centaur Tattoo

First things first: it’s a centaur, and there’s more to it on the sides. This is the unfinished pic; the rest is currently healing up.

Now, as to the why… The short and sweet version is that I’m a Sagittarius. The long version is a bit more complex, as well as revealing: To start, I’m Greek and a fan of greek mythology. In said mythology, centaurs were nasty, vile creatures, who spent the majority of their time engaged in unsavory pursuits, such as murder, pillaging, marauding, rape, and drunken lunacy.

There was one, however, who was different. His name was Chiron, and he was wise and peaceful. He was the personal tutor to some of the greatest heroes of ancient Greece, including Achilles and Ajax, famed from the Trojan War.

The tattoo serves as my reminder that, regardless of what others may think we will be, or what assumptions they make in regards to how we will conduct ourselves, it is possible to be other than what we are considered to be, to rise above our base natures and strive for the betterment, not only of ourselves, but, more importantly, those that are around us.

The tattoo was done by my good friend Tom Kiernan, owner of Mean Machine
Tattoo, Tampa, FL., in two sessions, totalling about 6:30 hours.

-Greg

Inked by Tom Kiernan – Mean Machine Tattoo, Tampa, FL

I just decided it was time for a new tattoo about a month ago (this is my 3rd). I’d been kicking around 2 or 3 ideas for the last year or so, reading tattoo magazines hoping something would jump out at me, but it never did. And there wasn’t a Phoenix in any of them.

I’ve always liked the Phoenix and the mythology behind it, the problem was finding a picture I liked. I hated the tribal looking ones, and all the actual bird pictures I’d seen either made it look like a Peacock or a dragon, and the head almost always looked more like a vulture to me.

The first page of google hits returned for “Phoenix Bird Fire” had the attached picture in it. I continued to look for well over an hour, and never found anything that even came close.

I knew I wanted the folks at the Skin Kitchen here in Des Moines to do it, based on their reputation. Michelle Hall over there was fantastic – as you can see when you compare the result to the original art.

I’ve tried to reach the original artist, Linda Bergkvist, via e-mail, but she’s never responded.

- Nikki

Artist: Linda Bergkvist

Inked by: Michelle Hall – Skin Kitchen, Des Moines, IA

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Alberto’s Phoenix Tattoo Story

The story goes that when a phoenix dies, it falls into ashes, and from the ashes it is reborn. The reason why i got my phoenix tattoo was because i always was someone else, and not being my true self. Well my previous life has died, that chapter of me no longer exists, and the new me (the pheonix) is the new chapter of my life.

-Alberto

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