Totem Animals

Like more than a few other eighteen year-olds, I went out to get my first tattoo, a cartoonish dragonfly on my right hip that I had drawn myself. I still remember the little house in Eureka, CA where I went with my friends one afternoon, the old television set turned into a tarantula terrarium and the piercer who pulled out a scorpion and let it walk all over his hands, freaking us out. But as I grew older, I knew that I would someday modify that little blue creature of ink, but just didn't know when the inspiration would come.

Flash forward a decade or so, to the time when I'm living in the Presidio of San Francisco, and going through a rough patch in my personal life. One spring day I was meditating on our porch that overlooked Baker Beach, and a little lizard joined me in the sun. I decided that this western fence lizard had shown herself to be my new totem animal, and I went about searching for an artist who could ink one onto my upper left leg (providing balance to the two tattoos on the right side of my body). It took a surprisingly long time to get an appointment for a consult with Cecilia (she was next to Rainbow Grocery at the time), but the final appointment was made for January 20, 2009, and my totem lizard was finished in time to watch President Obama's inaugural celebration that evening.

After migrating away from the Bay Area to work for a few seasons in Yosemite's high country, I landed my current job in rural Eastern Oregon. On my first evening of walking around my new (small! quiet!) hometown, I was struck by the thought that it was time to change up that little dragonfly remnant of my past - that whatever life event I'd been waiting for had finally arrived. Earlier that summer, I had encountered a number of butterflies, and decided that the swallowtail would be the icon of my metamorphosis. I worked with Lindsay, a great local artist, to cover up the blue dragonfly (look closely!) with a realistic new insect. This piece was completed in January 2012, and life has been getting better and better ever since... I met my husband about six months afterwards, and gave him a body-balancing tattoo from Lindsay for his birthday this spring!

Gypsy Burks
Exhibit Specialist
National Historic Oregon Trail Interpretive Center



Want to share your own story and tattoo?
Email Beth: beth (at) redmond-jones (dot) com or Paul: info (at) orselli (dot) net.

Mississippi Animals

I love to teach people about nature, especially in our current climate of outdoor educational deficit. Kids and adults don't seen to get outside much anymore, since we're glued to our screens. So I've been doing nature-related classes for years, in the hope that one time, just one kid (or adult) will get inspired enough to be interested in the living world around us. One of the classes I teach is about identifying animal tracks, a class I myself had taken about 12 years ago. I had been wanting another small tattoo, similar to the three tracks I already had under my watchband, but I also realized that the detail was limited because of the size.

This led into looking at making them a little larger, which led to looking for other natural history images--in particular, an owl, which is a symbol on another business I own, Night Bird Design. While searching for clean, clear images of owls, I found an artist on-line at (of all things) a clip art web site, who had drawn not only an owl, but also a bunch of other animals in a style I loved, sort of flowing, but not tribal. I bought all the images he had of Mississippi animals and started trying to put them together in a design pattern that I liked. Some images worked better than others, so eventually I whittled it down to 13 (heron, bear, snake, wildcat, fox, coyote, armadillo, owl, deer, alligator, otter, raccoon, and skunk). Another consideration was the final size of the work, as I'm a fairly small person, and had to rule out any place that would be seen while wearing a bathing suit, as my parents STILL don't know I have tattoos (I'm 48).

Finally, I saved enough money, and it was my birthday, so I went to a tattoo parlor about an hour away. I had been there before to talk to one of the owners, and examine the pictures of their work (and assess the cleanliness and professionalism of the shop), and had been duly impressed.

The tattoo artist's name is Adam at the Classic Tattoo Studio in Vicksburg, Mississippi. He did an excellent job, and I'm so pleased, I MAY even show it to my mom...but not my dad, quite yet.

Robin Person
Branch Director
Historic Jefferson College
www.historicjeffersoncollege.com


Want to share your own story and tattoo?
Email Beth: beth (at) redmond-jones (dot) com or Paul: info (at) orselli (dot) net.