I finally feel balanced again...!
At A Glance Author Keri Contact Keri@bme.anon When It just happened Artist T. C. Williams Studio Ace of Spades Location New Britain, CT I love being asymmetrical. There's just something about a perfectly balanced asymmetrical design that really gets me, whether in a painting or, of course, my mods. Of course my ears don't match each other... but they are balanced and complement each other. And my tattoos are finally balanced, now too!
My first tattoo, which I got about a year ago, is a beautiful, feminine tribal cross on my right upper arm, about 4 inches tall and 3 inches wide. A few months after I got my cross, I knew what I wanted for my next one, on my other arm: an iris, my favorite flower, but with a tribal design, to match my cross, in place of the stem. I spent a long time online looking for great photos of irises, printed them out, and stuck them in my purse for whenever I had money and time to go back to my artist, T.C. Williams at Ace of Spades in New Britain, CT.
Well, the months passed and I still didn't really have the money to spend on another tattoo (which I figured would be much more expensive than my cross, since, unlike the cross, it would be custom, a little larger, and in color). Then I got an idea for another tattoo which I knew I really wanted right when I thought of it: a triforce on my inner right wrist. Yes, a nerd tattoo: I grew up playing RPGs with my sister and Link was actually my first crush, so the nerd tattoo is very appropriate. I wanted it right away but I made myself wait a few months. Some people said to me, "Are you sure you will still like that when you are 80?" (apparently the magical age of sudden regret), but since I have always loved the Legend of Zelda games and they played a big part in my growing up, I doubt I will suddenly hate them when I am older. I debated about waiting and getting my iris tattoo first, but I figured, hey, this is a small one, it won't cost much, I'll just do it and wait on the iris.
So I did... but now I had two tattoos on my right side and none on my left! I really needed my iris in order to be balanced again. Plus, I am getting married on May 26th, and my dress is a halter-top, so I really wanted to have it done before the wedding day! If it isn't in my wedding photos I will feel like something important is missing, like if I had no jewelry or didn't do my hair!
On my sister's 18th birthday, my gift for her was to take her to get her nose pierced. I brought her to Ace of Spades (their piercer's name is Jay) and T.C. was sitting at the front desk when we went in. Of course, I still had the iris photos in my purse after all these months (almost a year, actually), so I whipped them out to show him and describe what I wanted. I happened to have some extra money on me for a down payment, and I made an appointment for the next week.
Well, the whole week I was on pins and needles waiting for that appointment. I told practically everyone I work with about it, and it was all I thought about every day.
Finally, the time came, and I went to AoS. He said he had had trouble working on the design, so another guy there, Murray, had seen the photos and offered to draw it. I looked at the picture and at first I wasn't sure. It's kind of hard to describe this, but when I gave him the photos, I knew what I wanted – but I couldn't visualize it at all, and I had no picture in my mind of what to expect. So I wasn't sure if this was what I wanted. But I looked at it for a few minutes and we talked about the design, and I decided it was perfect. So we went to the back room and he transferred the design on my arm. I looked in the mirror and the placement was perfect.
I don't know if anyone reading this has had a tattoo done before or not, so I will describe how it felt to me. To me, I imagine it felt like someone heated up an X-acto knife really hot and then sliced shallowly through my flesh, over and over. Yeah, it hurt, but not too bad, really. The hard part was to relax and keep my arm from twitching! When I try to keep a part of my body still, it wants to do the exact opposite. So after a while I actually tricked my mind into thinking that it felt good, like a really hot, hard, pointy massage or something, so my arm relaxed and stopped twitching after a while. We talked a little, but mostly I was just quiet, looking at the art and books around the room and thinking to myself.
After a little over an hour, he was finished. I had looked at it a few times while he was working, but now I got to stand up, look in the mirror, and few the finished product. It was beautiful! I knew it was exactly what I wanted. He bandaged it up for me with Saran wrap and taped a folded-up paper towel underneath the bandage to catch the dripping. He said the price would be $120, which was less than I expected. I gave him a $20 tip and told him he was awesome, which he appreciated and actually seemed a little surprised at; I wonder if people don't usually tip him? We showed Murray, the artist that drew the design, and he loved it, too. The colors are perfect, with the green base of the flower fading into the black of the tribal. I wish I had a picture to put here, but my camera isn't working right now! So you'll just have to imagine my beautiful iris-and-tribal tattoo, which makes me feel balanced and whole again! Until the next one...