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| My very first tattoo. 11/99, Bodean's Tattoos, Richmond, Chris Ward. Purple Celtic Trinity/Eternal Life symbol. I'd wanted it since I was 12 years old. Located on the small of my back. It's hard to believe I've been getting tattooed for 7 years now. I had to have back surgery in March 2006. The scar is right down the middle of this little tattoo now. The doctor did an awesome job lining it back up! |
| My second tattoo. 04/00, Bodean's Tattoos, Richmond, Chris Ward. Purple,blue,gold,red Celtic Dragons. I found this in a design book and fell in love with it. It took about 1 hour to do the outlining and another hour for the colour. Ouch! Located between my shoulder blades. |
| My 3rd, 4th, and 5th tattooing. 11/00 & 04/01, Bodean's Tattoos, Richmond, Chris Ward. 3 Black bats. The first tattooing was for the center bat. I decided he looked lonely and got two friends for him. Located on my left shoulder/upper arm area. I have since added the bright-ass background. I get a lot of compliments on the brightness that is retained even now, 3 years later. Being ungodly pale and avoiding the sun like the plague is good for something, I suppose... |
| I view tattooing as an art form. Our bodies are our eternal canvas. On a personal level, I view this body as a casket for the soul, and I want to decorate it as I see fit. I view my piercings as adornment of an otherwise ugly shell. There are many things I can't change about my body, so I will do what I can to make my life more aesthetically pleasurable. The tattooing process itself is both physical and spiritual in that by achieveing this physical pain, I am made more aware of my spiritual existance. It bothers me that both tattooing and piercing have become fads; something of value that has been diluted and washed into mainstream culture. It takes away from the artistic value of the thing when you have a bunch of people walking around displaying the current "IN" tattoo genre because it's "cool" to have a tattoo. The same goes for Piercings. The reasons that many people get these body modifications are devalued and in some ways degraded by this merge into the mainstream. At any rate...here's my BodyArt thus far... |
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| My 6th and 7th tattooing, 07/02 Art Attack, Richmond, Chris Ward The first picture really sucks, but the tattoo is of the cheshire cat from American McGee's ALICE. Chris realy did an AWESOME job! the background was added in a marathon 5-hour session. GAH! We were both about to die by the time we got finished. It was well worth it, IMHO, as I love the results. |
| Piercings... I currently have one 00g, one 2g and one 12g hole in each ear lobe. I have a 12 gauge cartilage piercing in each ear. I have my right nostril pierced, an 8g slave barbell in my tongue, and a 12 gauge ring in my left nipple. I had my labret pierced fro a little over a year but had to retire it due to scar tissue issues. :( |
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| The latest and greatest...an on-going project, started 11/15/03 Art Attack, Richmond, Chris (of course)/ Finishing with Robert at Charmed Life Tattoo, Lexington So, the adventure begins on my full back piece. in the end, it will be the Magpie Faerie , originally created by Josephine Wall. The first sitting was one-stencil's worth of line. It took 4 sittings to complete the lines and I'm done with 1 session of shading with Robert. Hopefully I'll finish the shading soon so we can move on to color! |
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| 05/03 Art Attack, Richmond, Chris Ward My smallest and hardest to photograph tattoo... two purple calla lilies behind my right ear to commemorate the passing of my grandfather, Eli, and my great aunt Eula. in 2000 and 2001. |
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| 07/04 Art Attack, Richmond, Trevor Jones A little memorial for my beloved Pandora who passed away one Saturday afterr a week of illness. We think it was a stroke. I miss her so much. This tattoo really helped me to deal with the loss. |