“I grew up in a Southern Baptist culture, pretty hardcore in practice. But, I always thought that those (tattoos) were cool. I wanted to have a permanent form of expression for myself.
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In some aspects, I feel judged, but mostly by the older generation. When I managed a brewery, I distinctly remember an older man saying, "Oh, you're so beautiful. It's a shame you have all those tattoos" and comments like that, where it's somehow directly affecting your ability to be beautiful or to serve some kind of purpose, because it's like... Well, you've already discounted yourself, because you got tattoos or something. I've gotten more comfortable with who I am. The more I feel like myself in a way, for me, they're always about markers in my life or like stories that have meant a lot to me. It's made me more consistent in who I'm continuing to become, more than anything.
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I really like my knuckles. They say, "Seek well." It's for Proverbs 2:4-5. "for if you seek it like silver and search for it, as for hidden treasures, then you'll understand the fear of the Lord and the knowledge of God." So much of it is about the searching that comes in life and the permission to ask questions and the permission to not know, because there's more to come and there's more to learn.
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I'll say this cause he's (husband) in the room and he'll feel embarrassed, but I have a honeypot with bees because he's my honey.
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The snake on my chest, I love a lot because we used to have three snakes. It was fun to introduce them to people, which sounds strange, but they were the first depiction of evil in scripture. I think a lot of people pick different things in the world and decide immediately that they're evil. The reality is, the God that I believe in, created all things to be beautiful and all things to be loved and celebrated. It's so unfair to look at people, or I guess animals in this instance and declare them something without knowing them, without understanding them, when in reality they are deeply loved regardless of people's feelings, which I guess kind of ties into being judged by appearances, too." - Mallory
"My first tattoo was the skull on my shoulder. After that, I was addicted.
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All my family members had tattoos growing up, so before I even had any or knew what they were about, I had this image of me just being tatted when I was really young.
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I just went with the flow on what I liked. My right arm is all my heritage, and what comes together, what I like, just little fillers here and there. My left arm is mainly jungle themed animals. I feel connected with animals in a certain way, so that's why I'm doing that on my right side, and then just putting it all together in the middle.
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I wanted to have a nice blend of everything. I didn't just want to focus on heritage on my full body. I want to split it up into certain things. I'm going to do something different with my legs and back. I'm pretty sure I'm going to put a panda, maybe a giraffe somewhere around here, just for the hell of it. But I love animals. Even growing up, I was just watching Animal Planet or fucking documentaries about animals for no reason.
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I have plans for an ocean theme going all the way down my right leg. And then my left leg, when I was younger, I really loved dinosaurs, so I'm just going to get dinosaurs all the way up. My stomach, I've been thinking about doing a Buddha, a protection Buddha with seven arms and all the chakras going to each arm.
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I feel pretty natural with tattoos, honestly. My whole family has tattoos. Everybody I work with has tattoos. It's definitely funny when we travel anywhere out of state that not a lot of people have tattoos, and we'll all go as a big group, and we're just all stared at and looked at differently, because we're the only ones really surrounding each other with tattoos and shit." - Cristian
"I always loved it (ink culture). It wasn't very popular in my family but it was something I was drawn to, a little bit rebellious, but then also the beautiful artwork that you can get.
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I got my first tattoo when I was 20 and it's covered up now, but it was a saying, which I didn't love, which is why it's covered up. After that, I got a cancer ribbon for my grandpa. My mom and I got the ribbons together, which was cool. The phrase I got covered was something like “smile now, cry later”. So cringe worthy.
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I had been thinking about getting a sleeve for two years but I was constantly worried about what other people would think. At some point I told myself I shouldn't try as hard to please others and if I want to do something, do it for myself rather than anybody else involved. Looking back on it, it does mean breaking free and becoming who I want to be and not listening to other people's criticism. But it's really pleasing to the eye. I gave the artist a few key things that I wanted him to do and he just went for it.
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The one on my back is good to keep in perspective. It's a Led Zeppelin lyric “it's upon us all, a little must fall”. It’s something that I live by, we're all going to hit rough patches in life, but you have to persevere and move forward. The rose is for Guns and Roses, I went and saw them when they reunited in concert in Denver for the Not in this Lifetime Tour, and they've always been my favorite band since the third grade. And so I was like, I have to commemorate this event. That's probably why I've always liked tattoos because they made me feel like a rockstar.
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I always think back to when I was going about my sleeve and the advice that I got. For anyone that would want to get a sleeve or something big find someone who was as passionate about it as you were. If they’re excited about your tattoo, you know you're going to get a quality piece done. I thought that was a really good thing to have." - Paige
If you're one of the few out there that still doesn't have a tattoo but really wants one take some time to tune in to this short video. feel free to share with your friends and leave a comment if you have any additional advice. I'm definitely not going to cover everything.
Stay whelmed my friends.
“I always thought that people with tattoos were really cool and interesting. Growing up, I always thought, "Oh man, I want to have a tattoo sleeve one day." My mom has a bunch of tattoos and so I kind of followed in her footsteps in many ways, that being one of them.
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My first tattoo was when I was 18. I got the word forza on my side, which means strength in Italian. The Italian pride is really strong on that side of the family. We're really into our heritage - I got that for that side of the family and just because that's kind of a good reminder for me to be strong because I've had a lot of anxiety my entire life. I like to have little reminders like to keep me going.
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For the most part, yes, they (tattoos) all have meaning. My desert piece that I have inside of an Arrowhead was one of my first bigger pieces. I was reading a book called Women Who Run With the Wolves. It mentions a lot in the book about going out into the desert and seeing into the bones and finding your spirit. Like reconnecting with the wild woman within you. It’s something that has always resonated with me and I've felt very free and wild whenever I'm in the desert. It's just a place of peace for me.
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My wolf - as cheesy as it sounds, the wolf was kind of like my spirit animal. I got the sleeping baby wolf to show the more innocent side of the bad-ass wolf spirit. I have a hawk that is my mom's spirit animal. Her brother passed away 20 years ago now. The day that he passed there was a hawk that flew overhead and a feather came floating down out of the sky.
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I think people with tattoos are rad. If people don't choose to get them, that's their choice and they're also rad. There's no perfect way to do it. Some people like to sit down for several hours with the same artist and they have one big piece and that totally works. It's honestly up to you because it's going to be on your body so you just gotta make sure that you're doing something that you like.” - Avory
“I've always loved the tattoo culture. Both of my parents have tons of tattoos so I always thought when I grew up, I’d have tattoos as well.
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I got my first one right after I graduated basic training with the Army. It's a typical thing that we do when we get out of training. I got "Fearless." It spoke to me because I was doing something that was scary and life changing as far as entering the military for my career. It was the first time I had really split out on my own journey to build my new life as an independent individual. When I got my first piece, there was no research at all. My friends and I went to Maryland, stopped at the first tattoo shop we saw, walked in and said, "Hey, we want these tattoos." (they didn't get the same ones) and sat down with the first person that would take us.
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Most of the tattoos I have revolve around a moment in time. Getting a tattoo was a way of bookmarking that step in my life through a piece of artwork to remind me of what I went through and the lessons I learned through that situation.
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My favorite tattoo is definitely the skull and roses.The skull represents death and the flowers represent regrowth. I can’t change into the person that I’m destined to be until the old self dies and I allow myself to regrow into that beautiful person like a rose.
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My advice to anyone getting inked is to basically just find something that speaks to you and tells a story about who you are. Even something that you think is beautiful, because that's your perspective of beauty in the world and you're sharing your story with others through your tattoos and artwork. It's also okay to get stupid tattoos because they make even better stories. They don't all have to mean something, but if there's a funny story behind it, that's a meaning in its own way.” - Jordan
"I've always been a very rebellious person. I've never really liked authority and always liked upsetting conservative people. A lot of people make fun of others with tattoos saying they have daddy issues, or something in that realm. What they fail to realize is that a lot of people who come from abusive homes actually never had the ability to ever express themselves. As soon as I was out of my home situation, I really wanted to make my body my own, so to speak, and decorate it in the way that I wanted to. I love literature and poetry and music, and I wanted to express myself on my body and that's what I've sought out to do with every single piece I have.
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The interesting thing about lifting culture is that people from all walks of life are getting tattoos. It wasn't like that probably even 10 years ago. That's what I'm really trying to do in my work. I'm trying to get people who thought they could never do something like this to find that strength and be able to do it, so it's actually really cool to see all the different types of people that are represented really now in lifting culture. It's getting better and better all the time. Probably from your typical meathead? Probably not. But like I said, I like being different. I try to be different and I'm not afraid to stand out or really go against the grain, which is also a lot of what I'm trying to do with my career.
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Tattoos, for me, have evolved to things that just have more personal meaning. It's difficult to even put into words. I've always loved abstract art because it's up to interpretation, which seems to piss off people who don't like tattoos the most because they always want tattoos to mean something.
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Rebellious as I may be, it's really important to me to feel like people think I'm attractive or that people want me. I got this piece on my arm on my 30th birthday. It was my way of saying, "I don't care if you don't find it attractive, I find it attractive." And I feel like the tattoos on my thighs too have been like me growing more and more into that spirit." - Charis
“My first tattoo was the lotus on the back of my neck. I got it for my mom. She passed away when I was really young - because it represents rebirth and growth.
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I wanted to scrub it off as soon as I was done, I completely regretted it. I want to get rid of it because my body was unclean now. I probably felt that way for six months, until it finally healed and settled in. After that it took me two years to get my next one. The second one was representative of my fall from faith, after she passed away. And that one says Broken Hallelujah, in her handwriting because of the song.
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It is a good song. It’s traveled with me throughout my life, and meant different things along the way. It has brought me through breakups, and I don't think that it's necessarily a religious song. It gives connotation to the Bible and everything, but it's just that we're broken human beings and we fall. There's a line in the original song, that says "Whether you hear it broken or you hear a holy, it's Hallelujah," meaning it's like a cry for help. So it doesn't have to be to God. It can be something bigger than yourself. So that's why I got that, in memory of her. But I stopped believing in God after my mom died.
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I got a lot of American traditional tattoos because it stemmed from my best friend. He has a lot of American traditional tattoos and was a big influence on me starting to get more. He helped me find out how to evaluate tattoos and tattoo artists - That made me look at tattoos in a whole different way, because, at first, I just looked at it as an entire piece of art. And now I look at the artistry of making that tattoo itself.
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I found a phenomenal artist. His name's Ishmael, at Lucky Devil. Since then, I've only gone to him, because I love his style. We're really good friends now so I feel comfortable telling him the stories behind my tattoos.
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Tattoos are a timestamp of your life and the way that you think. It's fun to look back at them and see the way that you change your views on things, and the way that your mind expands, and how different of a person you can be, from getting one piece to the next.” Maegan
I’ve wanted tattoos since I was young. My family was very open about that sort of thing and my sister, who is five years older, sort of pioneered that for me. I look up to her, so her coming home with tattoos not only made it feel like it was okay, but also gave me inspiration to be like her.
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My first tattoo was the infinity symbol on my left shoulder. The idea came about when I was a junior in high school sitting in the back of math class, not paying attention and talking philosophy. We had been learning about theoretical concepts like infinity, imaginary numbers, and the like. Infinity represents the unknown number, which can be a difficult concept to grasp, and for some hard to understand. People tend to fear what they don’t understand, so this was meant to be a reminder not to be afraid of the unknown, with the blue and black to represent positive and negative infinity.
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Most of the influence for my tattoos has been an attempt to remind myself of something, whether that’s to be a better person or of happiness and beauty. The lion for courage, the scene on my right shoulder for home, the pacific northwest. The sleeve on my left arm is from my experience in college. I distinctly remember being a freshman in the dorms and looking out my window to the cold, damp, Seattle autumn night. The glow of the street lamps reflecting off the red and orange leaves stuck with me and I thought of this goth rock song by The 69 Eyes called “Dance D’Amour”, which inspired the couple dancing in the center. The image of dancing in the cold gloom seemed like a beautiful contrast between love and darkness that I wanted to remember.
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It has felt like a battle of perception having tattoos in the military. People have told me that I can’t be an officer and also have visible tattoos because it’s “unprofessional”, and for the longest time it didn’t matter because the regulations prevented me from doing that anyway. Once the regulations changed, within months I went and got a full sleeve done. Fortunately that culture is changing, and I hope to be a part of that change; that you can still be good at what you do and enjoy art through tattoos. - Dan
I was always surrounded with tattoo culture because I was always around a lot of Polynesians as well as Asians. We all had our traditional tattoos. It's part of my culture.
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The ink on my arm resembles my heritage, family lineage, and me, as it helps us tell a story. Depending on the individual and our history. Eventually, as I get older, I'll add to my tribal bands. So that's the one thing I look forward to. Basically when I get married, have kids.
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The first part on my left side is basically my family lineage. If you see a little detail at the bottom, it looks like scales. That resembles my family's Aumakua, which are our family animals, the owl and the turtle. The eye in the middle is so my ancestors can watch over me.
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My first piece wasn't my Polynesian ones, it was actually my chest tattoo. The one for passion and heart was in memory of my coach that passed away. At the time, I was at a cheerleading camp and I struggled because of my height holding up some of the girls. My coach told me no matter how tall or how short you are, it's about the passion and heart you have for something. That really stuck with me.
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If you’re looking for your next tattoo or even your first do your research and look up the symbols, because they all resemble a part of history and someone too. - Chuck
"The only person that I knew that had tattoos at that time was my best friend's older brother. He was a thug from Colorado Springs. I don't think that's what I was going for, but his art intrigued me. My friend and I thought we were going to end up being gang members too. Being part of something and fitting in. When you're a kid, it's like being cool, you know?
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I was actually at church with my best friend when I decided to get my first piece. They were talking scripture. I think it's Matthew 8:26, it's what I have on my chest. "For what should it profit a man to gain the whole world but lose his own soul?" I've always been a hustler, even at that young age. I held onto that until I was 18 and then I got it because I felt like there's a line between clean money and dirty money. Just to make sure that I'm not selling my soul in order to do that, harming people or doing whatever in order to make money. There's a right way and a wrong way of doing it.
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Tattoo s now are almost like a rite of passage for me. I try not to allow the act of being tattooed to be diluted by something that is just really cool at the time. If I'm going to sit in a chair for hours and feel the pain, I want to associate it with something meaningful that has occurred in my life.
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I started doing laser stuff in general because I have a lion on my arm that I wanted to remove. What I didn't understand at the time was that when people get tattooed, often they get tattooed for a reason. But if you want a tattoo removed, which is more time consuming, more painful, more costly, there is a much larger story behind that. I didn't know that getting into the business, but once I found that out, I became even more passionate about it because I get to facilitate somebody's growth. Somebody's changed. They're literally stripping themselves of something that they used to identify with and they found out that they no longer want to. Even if it's just a name, that is a huge transformation oftentimes in people's lives, and I'm just happy to facilitate.
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It's crazy but I'm just happy to be able to really help people like that. I think that's dope. That's what I'm about." - Joe
“So I was going through a phase where I was reading a lot of Eckhart Tolle. He's written a few books, but the one that I was really into was A New Earth, which talks a lot about the ego. During that time, I was going through a lot of transitions, a lot of depression. I was moving from here (COS) to Denver and experiencing a lot of guilt and shame and living in the past. And I really wanted to help myself and stop thinking about the things that I've fucked up on. So I got into the concept of the ego and really exploring what it actually means.
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When someone says to you, "Oh, you have a big ego," or something like that, it's technically a bad thing, right? The ego is... It's not you, it's what you are trying to be. It's the face that you put on for other people, like a mask. I started getting tattoos to represent what my ego was. And that's why I got the eye in the cloud because the ego symbol is a circle with a dot. I was like, "Okay, just make it into an eyeball," or whatever. After that, I got the deer and the moth to a flame. I feel like I resonate a lot with the deer because they're so peaceful. And the moth and flame because it’s attracted to something harmful.
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I've based my social media, not that that matters - but everything about that I've integrated it into my life somehow. I had a mentor that was pagan. She told me that my - not spirit animal, but animal medicine was a deer and it really stuck with me.
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Yeah, so moths are instinctively attracted to the light and sometimes it's a fucking flame and they fucking die. They're always attracted to something that isn't good for them or attracted to what's evil or attracted to what's bad. I was trying to get rid of my ego and be someone different or at least live differently.
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I am always curious how people perceive things. I realized that getting tattoos is part of your ego. A lot of people that they get tattoos and have this whole elaborate explanation as to why they get tattoos.
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In the end, tattoos don’t need to be elaborate. It can be whatever you want it to be.” - Hailey
