Meera's Animal Kingdom Tattoos

These tattoos are dedicated to the people and creatures that are a part of my life. My fascination with animals and the natural world began as a youngster in Queens, NY where I visited many museums, zoos, and gardens over and over again.

After studying Natural History at SUNY-ESF, I wanted to cover myself with illustrations that represented the animal kingdom.  So far, I have included birds, insects, reptiles, and fish. Although I still have a long way to go, each animal reminds me of an extraordinary person, critter, or experience.

The zebra finches are my pet birds that I had as a child - Joe & Judy. As a kid growing up in Ozone Park, I didn’t have much exposure to the natural world. One day my aunt brought home these lovely birds and they became very special to our family. Joe even lived for over 9 years!

The bees remind me of my love for gardening, and helping kids overcome their fear of bees – a fear I thought I would never overcome!

The snake spine combines my attraction to both science drawings & skeletons.  Our museum has lots of animals children can meet and touch, most of them being reptiles. Holding a snake is another fear I have recently overcome, and it has become a part of my everyday museum routine.

When I got my first tattoo at 18, I asked my mother “What should I get?!”

She responded, very seriously, suggesting that I get a seahorse. At first, I thought this was a ridiculous idea. Five years later, my most recent tattoo, of a seahorse, is dedicated to my mother.



Meera Jagroop
Science Educator
Brooklyn Children’s Museum



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

Nature Lover's Work in Progress

 

Steph Hample submitted this "work in progress" and here's the story...

When I was in high school I was obsessed with wolves!  In college I decided to get my first tattoo not knowing it would turn into something more!

I was visiting a friend at college and we decided randomly (yikes!) to go and get tattoos.  For me, it felt like a natural choice to get a running wolf, and although I love the concept it unfortunately didn't turn out as great as I had hoped.  Fast forward 11 years and three tattoos later, I decided to finally get my tattoo covered.  I still loved the concept of the wolf but it just needed some revamping.  I have always believed tattoos to be a form of art and my body is just a medium for the art.   I try not to tell the artist what to do but rather give them a guideline and let the artist create their work.  I told the artist that I would like to cover the wolf, add a new wolf, and incorporate a maple tree in fall foliage with a owl in the tree --- OK so I did have SOME stipulations, but I did let him do the creative part.  The image included is the result - so far.

What I love about this tattoo is, well everything, but mostly the wolf.  I know the wolf isn't done in this image but when I got the running wolf at 19 years old it was very appropriate for my life.  I was busy! Always moving, always looking for the next thing.  These days my life has settled and I enjoy standing still to enjoying the scenery.  The owl also has some significance as well.  To start, it was created from an image of an owl I work with, Oliver, at The Wild Center. I have loved owls for a long time and that love has worn off on my daughter, so it also represents her.  In addition to that I have a cousin that has Muscular Dystrophy who also has a love of owls.  For that reason it is also representative of him.  Needless to say, it's pretty significant to me.  Finally the tree.  It was probably the one part of the work that I was most particular about.  It had to be a sugar maple tree, and it had to be in fall.  I wanted color, and lots of it.  The artist was amazing, getting the "u" shape of the falling leaves of the sugar maple!

You may be wondering 'how the heck is he going to cover the wolf?!' It is still very obvious and I had no idea how he was going to do it so I left that to him. The tattoo artist is going to turn it into a hole in the tree...somehow, I'm very interested to see how it all turns out!  So far there is about 6 hours of work done and I would expect it to be at least that remaining.  There is a lot of detail to come and I will send an image when it is complete!

Stephanie Hample, The Wild Center


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

Celestial orbs

This is happens when your art history degree blends with a natural history museum. Kandinsky circles become celestial orbs and renaissance etchings of the night sky suddenly become far more relevant to your day to day experience.

For many years, I had the rocket isolated on my right arm, the cranes on my left and characters on each of my wrists. It was symmetrical but the images were completely random- like I had placed stickers on my arms. I needed an update; I needed to create a composition.

One day while on the subway, I saw someone with beautiful colored orbs on their shoulders and I knew that I wanted something similar. I had also been been looking at the mural of the constellations that is painted on the ceiling at Grand Central Station. I work under the Hayden Planetarium and staring at the stars has become a part of my daily existence. In the end, I took a print out of a painting I loved (Kandinsky's "Several Circles/Einige Kreise) and several renaissance etchings of the stars to Ink/Ink in Venice, CA. Stephanie created a new universe on my arms, the colorful graphic circles becoming spheres in my constellations.

Hillary Spencer
Assistant Director, Global Business Development
American Museum of Natural History

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

Benjamin Franklin

Growing up in Philadelphia, I always hated Benjamin Franklin. We learned about him in school all the time, every historical plaque had something to do with him... Frequently I remember thinking, "Man, Benjamin Franklin, give someone else a chance to do something for once."

I moved back to Philadelphia during the tricentennary of Benjamin Franklin's birth and suddenly I was working on all of these Franklin exhibits. My brothers mocked me for working on projects about someone I complained about, and I was somewhat irate to be spending so much time adding to Benjamin Franklin's importance.

That's when I realized I didn't hate Benjamin Franklin. I was jealous of Benjamin Franklin. Alll of the projects he worked on were because he was a curious, interested, energetic person with lots of ideas. After that realization I knew that I really just wanted to be Benjamin Franklin.

To show my love for Philly and changing attitudes about a pretty rad dude, I got this tattoo. One of my favorite things about it is when visitors are trying to identify me to other museum staff and they say, "I talked to someone last week, she was small with curly hair, and had a tattoo on her arm of someone, Isaac Newton or maybe Ben Franklin?"

Dana Scholss
OMSI



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.

Aim To Please

I've worked primarily in museums and libraries for over 17 years. I have a handful of tattoos, none of which were conceived with any reference to museums or library science. However, there's one tattoo that I got the summer I became a museum person, which speaks a lot to why I'm still a museum/library person.

I got my guns from the talented Mike Stobbe at Avalon PB in the summer of 1998. I was home from college for the summer and working as an intern at the Museum of Contemporary Art in the mornings, while bar tending at my uncle's bar in the afternoons. I was straddling between a La Jolla fine art institution and Mission Beach happy hours; college-life and hometown; living with parents and trying to be an adult. I was trying be a lot of things and thought the "aim to please" was a true sentiment to the in-between sort of place where I could make everything work.

Sixteen years later "aim to please" now reminds me why I enjoy working for museums and libraries. We are a service industry. We connect people to knowledge, to history, and to culture. We tell stories and invite stories, encourage conversation, and promote traditional and visual literacy. It doesn't make sense to me if it isn't benefitting an end user, an audience.

Why guns? Besides the play on words, the western iconography identified me with the rockabilly crowd I was involved with at the time. Also, while I am definitely not a guns rights advocate, I still appreciate a gun as an object of mechanic beauty.

Kara West
Library Arts and Culture Exhibition Manager
San Diego Public Library


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

Blue Feather

After finding a brilliant blue feather on a hike and reading how the color comes from external light and not from the diet of the bird, I decided that my first tattoo would be a blue feather. On the day I had been in Seattle one year, my daughter and I celebrated the pain and excitement of moving here with the pain, in her words — "of course its going to hurt!"— and excitement of a tattoo. Now the image reminds me of 'lightness', of hiking in the NW and of stepping outside my comfort zone once in awhile.

Kris Morrissey, PhD

Director, Museology Graduate Program

University of Washington

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