On ink and needles

I have four tattoos at the moment and I’m scheduled in to get my 5th, and largest, on Wednesday. What would be my sixth just needs a design… and there may be a seventh starting to wander around in my head too; it’s fair to say it can be quite addictive.

Number 6 will also be a cover up of the second tattoo I got about 20 years ago. Back then it was, if I’m honest, more for shock value and the desire to be different and so I wasn’t really thinking about it terms of design or meaning, just something that (at the time) I thought looked ok.

I’ve been lucky in finding, via a recommendation, an excellent tattoo studio that only does custom work. They don’t have flash art on the walls, there are no Yosemite Sam tattoos available, so there is already a sense of something a bit more thoughtful. Any time I’ve been in there whilst other people are talking through a design, it’s usual based on some personal reason, even if that’s just a ‘I like this style of tattoo because’.

Bar my first two tattoos, the first I got when I was 18, the second when I was 19, the others all have some meaning.

Number three, my ampersand, I’ve discussed here already.

Number four was to mark the start of a new ‘life’ and driven largely by my divorce and a desire to re-learn who I am (again, discussed here).

Number five is part of that continued learning and discovery process. It is loosely based on a shape that ‘represents the nature of experience and the intricacies of both the enlightened and confused mind, or “a microcosm representing various divine powers at work in the universe’ with the inner design symbolising the ‘different stages in the process of the realisation of the truth’.

Photos will follow, of course, and I’m properly excited to get this one done!

Number six… well it will be Japanese themed, a style I love and which is definitely influenced by growing up admiring a print of The Great Wave off Kanagawa and two embroideries that my Mum did of Japanese Geisha (must get a photo of those!). It’s likely to be a bigger piece again so I might need to save the pennies before getting that one!

Update: Here it is.

New Ink by Ema @ Custom Inc

Comments

  1. I too have tattoos that are personal. One contains the Erzuli symbol (that represents the Goddess of Power, Passion and Pleasure) and the only thing I dont like about this tattoo is that people like it so much that they think it is OK to stroke it. Needless to say, I feel a strong urge to stroke your new tattoo – praise of the highest kind!

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