Horseshoe tattoo. About 15 years ago, I met a former racehorse and fell in love. The horseshoe, to me, represents liberation. I think I was lost in corporate America and climbing the corporate ladder. Champ grounded me. I did not know I had a passion until I met him, and my passion was for horses and equine. The horseshoe is very freeing and liberating. Now, though Champ is gone, he is always with me. I got that tattoo while Champ was still with me. The tattoo artist was Kohen Meyers from downtown Durham.

The ankh and my initials. These were the first two tattoos I got. I got them because I drew them and I thought they were cool.

I also drew these tattoos. I thought they looked cool, so I got them as tattoos.

Cross tattoo. This was the only tattoo I did not draw. I was with a buddy when I was in the army and it was there.

Hearts never heal in a straight line. It is a picture of Kiki from the movie “Kiki’s Delivery Service.” One of my best friends passed away last year. We would see all the Studio Ghibli movies together. Her favorite one was Kiki’s Delivery Service. She was exactly like Kiki. I got this to remember her.

This dragon is from an anime called Dragon Ball Z. Its name is Shenron. The idea I have behind this is Shenron grants wishes. I have myself on the little nimbus cloud. I have Shenron granting wishes, and I am along for the ride. I want to be a person in people’s lives around me where I grant their wishes, so they don’t have to worry about that type of stuff.

I am an artist. I designed this myself. If I have any art on myself, I want it to be my own. I also want it to be unique and significant to me. This is so that every time I look at a piece on my body, I know I designed it.

My first tattoo is the symbol that Rafiki gave to Simba. It is a sign that Simba would be king at some point. It was the beginning stages of his upcoming royalty, so I added the crown to it. The crown is from a game called Kingdom Hearts. Disney and Square Enix became one entity. Kingdom Hearts then had Lion King elements added to the game. I wanted to put them all together. It also represents the logo from my business, Core Taekwondo. We use a lion. I tried to put it all together.

This is one of my favorite pokemon, Luxray. He also represents a lion. I have this lion theme going on. I am not a Leo (joking). I have always liked lions. I wanted it to represent having a strong personality in my beliefs about what I do. It was also cool to have an original piece as a pokemon, which is my favorite. It’s also an electric type which is my favorite element.

This is from an anime called Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure. All the Jo stars have a star birthmark. I thought it was fantastic. All the characters were very relatable, and I wanted to be part of the family.

This is a tattoo from A Curse Born Saga. A very good friend created this tattoo from the manga and graphic novel. I became interested in it when I would cosplay one of the main characters. I have also become a Patreon for his business. He considers me a part of the curse-born family.

This is a chaos symbol. Around the chaos symbol, I put fire, water, and waves. I am a musician, and this is the hand I hold the microphone in. This is me controlling the chaos. Two elements of chaos surround chaos. I thought this was a cool concept and aligned with the type of music I play.

One rule for one way of life: Only the strong survive. This is a lyric from a band called Chimaira. The song is written about the band itself and being a musician. Only the strongest bands survive.

Your memory is the fight in my veins. These are the dates for my guitar player who passed away. My band (As Ocean) released our first album, and he passed away two weeks after. I decided to put a memorial. Instead of his death date, I put the album release date. It was a symbol of a new beginning of what he was becoming.

Three years ago, I met my biological family. There are ten of us. I was the 8th one. When I met them, we all got matching tattoos.

This is Polynesian art. I am part-Hawaiian. I wanted to get some art to echo back to that heritage. Each band represents something. The arrowheads mean protection, the water means life and flow, and the shark teeth symbolize protection. The shapes are for fertility.

Whale in Native American art style. Killer whales have always been my favorite animal. They represent the same things as wolves but in the water. Hawaiian heritage was where I got that. I also wanted it on my chest over my heart.

The claw marks are a symbol of toughness and protection. I thought it was a cool thing to tie it all together.

My friend that I worked with in college drew this butterfly repeatedly. She got me into alternative music and rounded out my college experience. When I got a butterfly on my ankle, it was the butterfly she drew.

It is not our mistakes that define us. That is only part of the quote. I took that part of the quote. When I was 22, I got a DUI. I am now 39, and that still follows me. It was realizing that I am not this criminal record that I have. The majority of people I talk to have driven while intoxicated. It is not a deficiency in me. It is something I got caught doing, and that does not mean I am a deficient person.

I have had people guess this is a menorah or related to Indiana University. It is the Greek symbol for psi, which the academy of psychology uses. I went into psychology because I fell in love with helping people who need help. I am now a psychologist. I got the initial tattoo from someone apprenticing, and it was terrible. I got it revamped, and it’s still questionable, but it is on me for life.

I went to the Philippines. I showed up with absolutely nothing to do. I heard about this lady called Appa Wong Odd. She was the oldest living Ma Baba tattoo artist on the planet. She was 101 when I traveled out to see her and got a traditional tattoo. Hers were the three dots at the bottom. However, the top came from her apprentice. She is bringing back the original style of tattooing with tapping and charcoal ink. They bring money into their village by doing these tattoos. It cost me $28. This is a traveler’s compass in their culture.

Every time I visit another country, I want to get a tattoo of their flag representing traveling for me. The North American Bison is native only to North America. It has flags from the US, Mexico, and Canada. It reminds me of everything I have done here. The bison used to roam the entire continent until we killed all of them.

This is going on to flags of each country I have gone to. The bigger bike is a BWM SX50GS with a Montenegro flag. Montenegro is a country I enjoy. The little one is a Roman Flag and a little monkey. I rode a 50cc knock-off Chinese Monkey across Romania for a week. It was almost the best ride of my life. The other 12 countries banded around my arm are all the eastern block. I did Hungry, Italy, Austria, Serbia, Slovenia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Croatia, Albania, Romania, Moldavia, and Greece. I may have missed a couple.

I walked into a tattoo shop in Dallas, TX, in 2018. I had been a vagabond for like a year and a half. I said I wanted a tattoo, and they said we got time. What do you want? I said, “I don’t know, like a fox on my hand.” I ended up with a fox on my hand.

I got this from a 13-year-old in the Philippines. They passed down the tradition of tattooing from the females in this tribe. They speak OTOT [sp]. You have to do a homestay, which means you have to get an English guide and some Tagalog (National Language). There are over 2000 languages spoken in the Philippines. I got this because there was a 13-year-old practicing tattooing. I wanted it to go all the way around, but I could not stand the pain. It was a partial band that I filled in with modern art that encompassed my year on the road. This is my second-year vagabond tattoo. In Tagalog, it says, “a danger inside a challenge outside.”

[Writer’s Note: I misunderstood and misspelled “otot.” If you know the correct word, please contact me.]

This is my 5th-anniversary vagabond tattoo. I have currently been a vagabond for 5 1/2 years. This was my covid year. We did not get the badass Mad Max year out of quarantine, but I got a badass tattoo out of it. I rode through covid. I watched myself become a hero for being on the road, and all of a sudden, covid happened, and they were like, you need to stop traveling. I was like, I am still houseless, I only have a motorcycle, and I live on the road. People started to hate me and told me all these bad things. I kept going anyways. Throughout the year, I watched myself become the antihero. People were staring at me with desire because I was still living my life and was not depressed. I hung out in states that did not have restrictions. FYI, this reminds me that I visited about 43 states in that year.

This is a European Mink. I was in Europe. I went to Budapest, Hungary. I posted on Facebook, “I am in Hungary. Does anyone want to hang out? I want to meet some people here.” One guy was like, “yeah, I am in Budapest; come stay at my place. He said, “I got some co-workers here; I am on a work job. We have a spare room.” I showed up, and this Serbian man was so nice. He was like, here is coffee, and I wouldn’t say I like coffee, but I sipped at it anyway. You don’t turn down good hospitality. He told me you have to see my family in Serbia. I continued from Hungary to the Italian Alps and the Austrian Alps. I did the Dolomites and Stelvio. I did all the big rides over there. On my way out of there, I swung through Serbia. I go to his family’s house and stay there a couple of nights. They take me out on the town. We then go to a Yugoslavian punk concert. I have no idea what they are saying. It sounds good anyway. I drank a ton of beer and got drunk. Everyone walks around and talks to their neighbors. While I was there, I googled tattoo shops. Found this shop a 5-minute walk from where I was staying. I walked in, and he didn’t speak English, and I didn’t speak Serbian. I sent him a picture of a mink. I was like; you can do it your style. He did the exact image I sent him.

This is a rainbow phoenix. I got it in 2017. I started on the road in August 2016. I was going through my second winter as a vagabond—my first “real” winter since I started so late in 2016. I had seasonal depression. It was cold. I could not go where I wanted as a vagabond who lived outside all the time. I bought myself this tattoo for Christmas to remind myself not to give up. It is very inspiring with each winter, I may die, but with each spring, I come back to life and rise from the ashes.

Lion Fish are an invasive species in the Golf. They are also badass fish. They kill everything; they have spikes. People love to spearfish them. They do a lot of significant tourism hunting the Lion Fish that are not supposed to be there. They are gorgeous. They are apex predators. I learned how to dive recently. I got interviewed by some women in a scuba diving podcast. One of them lived in St Croix. She said if you ever want to come to St Croix, you are more than welcome. That was August of 2021. Please don’t say that to a traveler; I will show up. She said no, I am serious, and I said, how does January of 2022 sound? She said yeah, and I was booking for four weeks. I stayed at her house. I went for my first scuba diving session. It was a discovery scuba dive. You don’t have to be certified. You go out with someone, and they provide everything for you. I loved it and then got certified. I saw my first lionfish and various other creatures.

I was in the Philippines yet again. I was there for 27 days in 2018. I got five tattoos in the first week; 2 traditional and three moderns. The jellyfish was one of my first tattoos there. It’s from an award-winning tattoo artist. That I just happened upon in Manila. He was a super cool guy. He was like what do you want. I said I don’t know a jellyfish; he said what kind. I said I don’t care; make it look pretty. He did a badass job creating a beautiful jellyfish. I think it is Manowar-inspired.

This a fleur-de-lis. It is from France, and it’s the symbol for New Orleans, LA. My boyfriend and I ended up in Nola last year, and we decided to get a tattoo together because we had such a great time eating the food. I got a fleur-de-lis design tattoo with the design of my bike in the middle. He got one with the outline of his bike in the middle. It kind of matches. His bike is a touring bagger, and mine is a duel sport.

This also came from the award-winning tattoo artist. I said I wanted to do a Filipino tattoo with their flag, which is a big star and three tiny stars around the edges. I wanted to do it based on the Filipino eagle. This animal is only native to the Philippines. I said I wanted a realistic head.

This was my second tattoo. It was the first time I had gone to Seattle. I was a very sheltered child. My grandmother was a cop, and we never got to travel. At 24-years-old I went to see my best friend. I had never been anywhere, and he had moved to Seattle. We got the tattoo together. Inside is a wolf which represents me; it’s my favorite animal. There is a hawk, which represents him. We got the feather before it was trendy. It matches me with my best friend. We got opposite shoulders, so when we are standing next to each other, it’s like a mirror. It means a lot to me.

My very first was my eyeliner. I got that from a lady named Marion Kay. She is in Oklahoma City and is world-renowned. I went in as was like; I want to get this done. I have been wearing eyeliner for ten years. I don’t ever go outside without it, so why not get it tattooed? I got this a month before I hit the road in 2016. It was my most expensive tattoo until recently. It was $400.

 

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