The V tattoo is for my favorite nickname, Vieve. I’ve wanted to get a tattoo for a while, and I’m thinking about eventually getting a larger piece on my back of an ocean wave (my name means “white wave”), but I wanted something smaller for my first one.

A tattoo is something I never really thought I would get, I guess because it’s something I thought I shouldn’t want. Maybe I would regret it later. Maybe it would say something about me that I didn’t want other people to think. But I did want one, and so I decided, why not? If it’s something I want, I should do it. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and learning about myself lately. Instead of trying to figure out what other people want me to be or focusing on what I wish I were, I’m trying to figure out who I really am. Slowly getting there, and it turns out I like this real me a lot!

The V reminds me that I am me, if that makes any sense. I love it.

The left side is straight and strong, and the right side is delicate and whimsical. This represents me pretty well, I think. I got it in dark green ink because, well, I like the color green, and also because I love green living things.

I modified the Rossetti font a bit for the design, and Markus at Kaleidoscope (Cambridge, MA) cleaned up the drawing I doodled on the back of my cable bill and did the work.

- Genevieve

More Hip Tattoos

My father committed suicide in 1992, when I was 12. I was very close to him, and losing him so suddenly and tragically was a huge blow to my 12 year old mind. It took me years to be even able to talk about it or mention him without tearing up or getting excessively defensive.

Every August (the anniversary month of his death) I pretty much go mental…lose control of my emotions. August 2004 marked 12yrs with him, 12yrs without him, and I pretty much had a nervous breakdown. After I recovered from such a set back of healing progression, I decided that I would pay tribute to him the following year with a permanent reminder of his love and my love for him.

August 2005 came around and I realised I just couldn’t do it quite yet…it had to be the right time, not just because it marked a date, but rather because it marked a time in my life when I felt more healed. January 2006 I decided I was ready – to start a new year with a new outlook on life.

I had the tattoo placed on my back to remind myself that the past is behind me. That his love is still with me, but I can put the pain behind me forever and just remember the love and good times. It is centered on my back because he was and always will be the center of my heart, and it is at the top because I want to be able to touch it whenever I feel sad and somehow feel a connection to my daddy.

I am planning an addition to the tattoo this fall. Custom work being designed by Gene at Adrenaline (New Jersey, but he guests in Vancouver). It’s going to become a larger piece, the heart being the center of it, and more like a coat of arms style piece, incorporating aspects of my family ancestry/heritage plus images that I hold near and dear to my heart…

-Jaclyn (Jaclyn’s Aztec Tattoo)

Design: JaclynTattoo work/colour/shading: Gene at Adrenaline (Vancouver)

More Heart Tattoos

I’ve always been a wanderer…never good at staying in one place for long. As a kid my younger brother and I spend summers with our grandparents traveling around in their Lincoln Continental dragging a silver Airstream from the top end of the East Cost to the bottom end of it. I remember seeing the “Mud Flap Girls” on the mud flaps of many 18 wheelers during all those treks. They were also two of the first woman I fantasized about as a lesbian youth.

These girls are a beginning of an eventual large back piece that I plan to one day start again. I’m into dragons and I have a neat drawing of a dragon riding a motorcycle I want to incorporate with a Lincoln Continental and Airstream also riding a highway away from the Mud Flap Girls, road signs (with special meanings), puffy clouds, and other things that speak to my wandering needs.

Anyway, just thought I’d share the tat I have right above my butt crack.

-Tami

Tattoo by: Lea Smith – Lucky Lady Tattoo in Greensboro, NC
(she also did my Mama Bear and Mowing Dog tattoos)

More Lower Back Tattoos

This is my 3rd and most recent tattoo. Even though I don’t practice Judaism anymore I do still feel it is a part of me. I was raised Jewish and went to a Jewish private school for a long time. I had the whole Bat Mitzvah and everything. My parents gave me the name Chayah (as it is in Hebrew in my tattoo), which means life or living thing. I will always feel Chayah is part of me and I wanted to get a tattoo for that.

Ironically I didn’t realize that the place I had design and do my Hebrew tattoo had a business card with Hitler on it. Go figure.

-Robin

More Hebrew Tattoos

Robynn’s Lily Tattoo

The flower tattoo on my shoulder is a lilly/orchid hybrid designed for me by a friend at work 7 years ago. I handed her pictures of 3 flowers, and she amalgamated 2 of them into a great design. My artist from Club Tattoo 1, in Tempe, Arizona made the tattoo even better than the original with the coloring and the shading. I’ve worked on saving up for this tattoo for 7 years, and it was worth the wait.

-Robynn
Done by Denise from CT1

This is my second tattoo. I got it on April 9th, 2006. It is the Japanese Character for “adopt” or “foster” I am adopted, have known that since birth. My dog’s name is Foster, named partly after Jodie Foster and partly because, like my folks, I took him in.

I moved to Japan in 2001 and studied Japanese for 1.5 years, so I have a basic knowledge of the language. I despise people who get Asian characters but have never studied the language. I choose red for China, where I am living now. In Chinese, the character is close to what one would use for ADOPT as well, but they use one more character.

- Tanya

BlackWork Shoulder and Face Tattoo

The first tattoo was a present 4 myself on my 19th birthday, the second one just now.

I have a hobby since I was 17 years old, its aggressive inline. I’ve got my favorite skate producing company- Salomon, and i was riding with them some years. So I designed my salomon skate as a tribal tattoo, cuz I knew, even if i don’t skate some day, its been a big part of my life, and is worth to be inked on my body, cuz I love this art.

My favorites are especially tribal tattoos, so next one is just a piece of art with no meaning or story under it, except that the idea of it came out pretty silly. I had 2 scars on my eyebrow from piercings done. I loved them, but the 1st one I ‘knocked out’ by falling down on it while skating, the second just came out and so- if I can’t pierce this eyebrow anymore, I thought I could tattoo the scars over (cuz many people do that on their scars). It was a joke at first, but as I loved this art even more, I just felt I needed a tattoo on my face :] I’m now a month happy with it and yeah- the scar on the eyebrow was most painful when tattooed :/

-Anna
Designed by: Anna
Inked by: Vadim – Vadim Tattoo (Latvia)

I just turned 38 this April and wanted a present that was something that would be more than an average birthday gift. I felt I needed something that made my mark, and that mark had to be ink. I have been wanting a tattoo for a long time but didn’t want anything that someone else had. I needed something that was me. The reason I wanted a tat in the first place was because I love to write and felt the ink in my tattoo would be a representation of that.

I write poetry and feel that my words are forever a statement of who I am. My life, thoughts, feelings get thrown into the world and won’t be removed. So my tattoo if you look at it closely is two quills. The words “Poet Speak” is the title of one of my poems that I feel explains why I write. My favorite poet made the design for me which makes it even better. I have my permanent “River of Ink” added to my body.

-Nae

I am a female to male transsexual who has gotten sex reassignment surgery and have been on hormone replacement therapy for the past 2 years. Not only have I physically evolved, I feel as though I have experienced an emotional and intellectual transformation as well. I continue to find ways to grow as a human being through lessons I learned during my transition that pervades every aspect of my life.

I have been very active in LGBT activism and Transgender awareness in the past few years and have come across some extremely ignorant people. “Evolve.” is what I would like to say to them. The word is as much symbolic as it is a command for society as a whole to evolve into a more progressive and tolerant mindset.

-Eddie