Tale of a tattoo

For over a year now I have been wanting to get a tattoo. What started as a fascination grew stronger with time. I spent many hours scouring the Internet for design inspirations. I found one design that somehow stuck with me in my head for almost a year. It did not matter how many new designs I saw, I kept going back to this one. Something about it resonated with me. I did not want it like it was, I wanted to change it to mean something close to my heart. A friend’s sister-in-law is a tattoo artist and I tried conveying my ideas to her via email. Here is the inspiration design.

I wanted to change this design to include the symbol of peace, a shining sun and make the shape into ‘S’. My first son’s name means peaceful, my second son’s name means radiance, my husband’s name and my sister’s name begin with S. Here is the first draft.

This taught me a lot about communication. I thought I was being very clear in expressing my idea. This is what got conveyed. Very different from what I had in mind. Then I made yet another poor attempt at design and communication. I wanted the sun inside the lotus, I wanted the actual peace symbol instead of the olive branch, I wanted a full moon.

In the interest of keeping the design cohesive, the artist got back to me with this.

I was not happy yet, I didn’t like the sun outside the lotus. It was a lesson in the art of compromise. It made me stop and think instead of getting carried away. I realized that I do not care much for a lotus. I love a cheery sunflower, but that does not gel with a S shaped stalk. We worked together and decided to remove the lotus/sunflower and the moon, make it a S shaped jasmine vine with the peace symbol and sun inside the curves.

The day arrived and I was very nervous and excited. We worked on the design a little bit more. All through this she was super patient with me. I was quiet stubborn, if I was going to get something permanent on me, it better be what I want.

She did the stencil on my arm first and I fell in love with the design. It meant what I wanted it to mean to me.

When I saw her prep the needle, I did freak out a little bit. I stood firm and stayed committed. The first few minutes were hard and painful, I followed her voice and breathed through each minute slowly. It is true what they say about getting a tattoo close to the bone. When she was doing the edges close to my shoulder bone, it hurt more. I was surprised by my tolerance for pain, the last time that was tested was when I had my children. And this was nothing compared to that. After the outline was done, I was very happy. I was a bloody mess, I bled a lot and she kept wiping it away.

I wanted some color. Who knows when I will have the courage again to get inked, I wanted to go all out. Inking the color was a true test of endurance. The sun was painful, very painful. The borders are filled with orange and the whole middle part is in yellow. We quickly took this picture before I became a bloody mess again.

There! All done. She bandaged it up and I had a tricky time driving home with an aching arm. I now have a tattoo. I did it! It is healing and will take a couple of weeks. Here’s a last shot of it after I removed the bandage.

I have a cousin who has 5 tattoos and he keeps telling me how happy he is getting each one. I didn’t understand then why he would do this many times over. Now I get it, the pull of getting inked. A test of endurance with the result of exhilaration.

If anything, this experience has taught me the importance of a cohesive design, clear articulation of an idea and why the idea is important to me, be flexible about the design since it is clearly not my forte, trust the designer to do her part well, leave the execution to the artist while staying focused on the meaning. My first product with a strong emphasis on the design.