My Journey into Tattooed Awesomeness

The first tattoo I got was when I was 19 years old. I wanted one SO badly, but really never put much thought into what I would get. I was watching some sort of TV talk show and got the idea from one of the guests to get an angel right smack on my chest. This angel didn’t mean anything, it had no significance to me at all, but I just HAD to have a tattoo and that was what I decided on. I got it done at the only tattoo place in my small city of Orillia at the time, which happened to be in a sketchy corner house in the downtown area where the guy did all of the tattooing at his kitchen table. I wanted something small, and he convinced me that if it was small it would lose the detail so I ended up with a tattoo that was quite large, and quite difficult to cover completely. He did an ok job on some parts of it, but somehow the face of this angel looked pure evil. So after I got the tattoo that I had to have, I basically concentrated on covering it up.

Fast forward 20 years to May 2012, and I’m a different person than I was even the year before. I’ve made some real and honest life changes, and I felt positive and hopeful for the future. And I was finally going to do something about this tattoo that I despised that reminded me of my past mistakes and failures, and the person I no longer wanted to be. I explored it (Google is a great resource) and designed something myself that I absolutely LOVED and it was going to go right on top of Little Miss Evil Angel Face. I also researched and visited several tattooists. The girl I chose was Holly Beemer (shameless plug: check her out on Facebook….you can see samples of her work) and she turned out to be fabulous, and very much on my wavelength. She could totally dig what I was envisioning and added to it nicely with her own style. The symbolic cover up of the old tattoo with the new one was just overwhelming, and it made me feel better about myself than I had in a very long time.

After: Awesome peace sign



Before: Evil Angel

                                                         
 After that incredibly successful cover up was done, I started concentrating on a cover up of a different kind. When I was 14 years old I felt like the world was totally against me, like I could never make it and everything was utterly hopeless. I thought the only way out was suicide, and one night when everyone else was sleeping I took a razor blade and I sliced into my wrists. At the time, I was horribly disappointed to wake up the next morning. Now, of course, I feel it a blessing that I did. Back to the here and now: the scars remained, and I was very self conscious of them. As a paediatric nurse, each time I went into a room to examine a patient, I knew that the parents watched step by step what my hands were doing to help heal their child. Each time I turned my hands a certain way, I knew they could see my scars. I wanted to get those scars covered up, like covering up another piece of my unhappy past, but I was unsure of having tattoos that could be seen all the time. I finally decided I would rather see the tattoos all the time than the scars, so in July 2012 I went back to my girl Holly once again, and once again she did a fabulous job. I had positive words of encouragement permanently inked on me to cover the wounds of long ago. I wondered if I was the only client she had that hugged her with absolute joy and teary eyes when they left her.

                                            "Dare to be remarkable" and "Live your truth"

In December 2012 I took a great friend of mine, Christa Davidson, to get a tattoo with my Holly. Christa got the word “Run” tattooed on her leg. It was a great symbol to her, as running is how she maintains her sobriety. Another part of it was the upcoming occasion of her 40^th birthday, which I think at one time neither one of us thought we would make it to. I decided while I was there I would get two more tattoos that were meaningful to me. The reason for two was simply because I loved them both so much that I couldn’t possibly choose between them. The best part about Holly is that she has a keen eye and she isn't afraid to say what's on her mind. With the design on my ribcage, she said, "Let's put it on a bit of a diagonal. That way if you ever gain weight it won't totally ruin it if stretches." I love her candidness, and I've found that she's usually right with her suggestions.  

                                                           Christa and her "Run"

In January 2013 I had a fresh tattoo put on me for my fresh outlook. Again, I left a perfectly happy customer, although my mother told me I was going to end up being a book with all of the script I have on my body.

 

Yesterday I went back to Holly for the largest tattoo I’ve gotten yet. It covers the outside of my upper arm, and was designed entirely by Holly with only a few suggestions by me. Ever since I was a teenager I’ve felt kind of….out of place. I’ve listened to '60s music and read about the '60s culture, and somehow felt very lost here in the present times. No longer having a care or concern of having a tattoo that shows all the time, I sent Holly a picture of a bird, a flower, a turtle and a paisley, all in '60s style. What she sent back for my approval can only be described as a work of art. I made my appointment and showed up on tattoo day with my lunch, my phone (for sharing pictures on my Facebook as it progressed), and a blanket to which she said, “I’m glad to see you came prepared like a seasoned tattoo collector”. When she put the stencil on my arm I fell more in love with it than I had been just seeing it on paper. After four hours of working to complete the outline, I was still ok. It obviously hurt, but Holly is a great conversationalist and when we weren’t talking I was amusing myself with my phone or listening to the kickass music she’s always playing as she works. At one point I was browsing Pinterest, and showed her a few pictures of other tattoos I was interested in. “You know you’re looking at pictures of tattoos WHILE you’re getting a tattoo, right?” was her amused response. At the five hour mark I was starting to curl my toes and deep breathe to get through the pain. She kept using an instrument she referred to as The Tickler. I think that was sarcasm because that thing hurt like a SOB. Right when I decided I might pass out, Holly suggested we finish up for that session to which I wholeheartedly agreed. “Finishing up” actually meant going for about 45 more minutes so that she could wrap up the part she was working on, but at least I knew there was an end in sight for that day. I never thought a tattoo would be such an amazingly positive reinforcement in my life, but they are my symbols of joy!

 

 My new work of art isn’t completed yet, but I’m super happy with how it’s turned out so far. Can’t wait to go back to finish up the torture in the next session!

                                                    Holly Beemer hard at work :)