Inked Identity
This project was originally born out of a need to feel embodied, to discover what it meant to celebrate my body instead of hate it, to embrace who I was growing into. Now, almost 2 years later, stepping into a new chapter and a new version of myself, it’s time to revisit what it means to be embodied and whole.
So we’re back….kind of.
Over the last few years I have carefully compiled these blog posts, journal enteries, artwork made about the experience and began to work on an autoethnographic study on the experience of being tattooed as part of body liberation and self-discovery. My hope is there will be more tattoos and more promotion of tattoos for mental health, in the future.
Filth Is My Life
Tattoo by Heather of Earthship Studios March 2023 in Waterbury, CT
Heather is always the perfect person for weird ideas. I wanted a tattoo of Divine the drag queen as Ursula.
Since Ursula was designed after her it only made sense to honor her memory in the best way possible. Heather beautifully recreated a Disney cartoon and the queen of queens herself to create the tattoo to end all tattoos. If I could explain my gender, my personality, my truest being it would be Divine as Ursula as Divine. The sassy, direct, mischievous and outrageous will always speak to the deepest parts of myself and there is something comforting about looking down at my leg and seeing this being come to life.
Divine while shooting Pink Flamingos
Say My Name
Tattoo By Lex of Black Hatchet Tattoo on January 4th, 2023 in Wallingford, CT
Hours before this tattoo I went to probate court and had my first name legally changed. It was a beautiful experience to give myself the name I have wanted since childhood. Shortly after Lex gave me this wild name day tattoo. Lex had drawn this one night while out at a bar and kept it on her board of potential tattoos to do. I saw it and instantly thought of all the mythology I read about Chimeras.
Chimeras are creatures made by greek gods that incorporate 2-3 kinds of animals with some kind of human capacity such as speaking or having human-esque body parts. Seeing this zebra snake lady just made sense to me, it was an intuitive, “oh this reminds me of these stories so I should get it”. We didn’t know when we booked that this tattoo would be my name day tattoo and it just makes sense.
Stay Wild
Tattoo by Sabrina at Integrity Ink in Wallingford, CT November 2023
After getting my first belly heart tattoo I knew I needed another one to balance it out. Stay weird felt so like me that I wanted something that equally had the same message. Stay wild popped into my head and it just felt right. I can never not be weird and by virtue of that I can never not be wild.
Wild reminds me of feeling free, of brae feet on moss in the woods before other are awake, of seeing the neighborhood fox and being unafraid and instead honoring that we share the same space and most of all, the feeling of wind in my hair, rain drops on my skin and being unafraid to stand outside in a storm and look up at the sky.
It’s Creepy & It’s Spooky
Tattoo with Jessika Long of Black Hatchet Tattoos, Wallingford, CT September 2022
Asking Jess to design a tattoo for the back inner thigh was amazing and dumb. First of all this was without a doubt the most painful tattoo I’ve had to date. That spot was a beast and Jess managed me and my bodies reactions so well!!
Sitting through it was hard, healing it was equally hard and it was worth it. I’ll never have to tattoo it again and it was so worth it.
Creepy and spooky, 90’s retro throw back. That’s how I would describe this tattoo. I loved the Adam’s Family growing up and Polly Pocket was actually top 5 favorite toys. Having them come together to make such a detailed tattoo was an unexpected and spooky surprise.
As a kid I’d watch The Adam’s Family TV Show, back when Nick-At-Nite was a thing, episode after episode of strange and spooky, campy comedy kept me going. It made the dark parts of the world seem easier to manage and frankly I felt more at home with them or The Munsters than my own family. This tattoo feels like a celebration of that and for that I will always be grateful.
We All Die In The End
Tattoo Re-work by Annalise of Refuge Tattoo Studio in Hartford, CT September 2022
To make a very long story short this back price was done in 2008/2009 right after my great uncle died. The experience I had getting it was not a bad one but not a good one. I can remember feeling uncomfortable with how the men in the shop I went to acted and spoke and how uncomfortable I became. When it was done I loved the tattoo but not the experience.
Now 12 years later I realize it wasn’t done as well as I deserved, it was a little crooked and faded with time. I really wanted to fix it up and add some of my favorite horror movie things to my back as a way to reclaim the original point of the tattoo.
Annalise did such a beautiful and caring job fixing my back piece. She took it step by step figuring out how to bring it to life and each step of the way it became more beautiful and vibrant and new. I became teary eyed seeing this tattoo become vibrant and beautiful again
“I have seafoam in my veins, I understand the language of waves.”
Tattoo by Coral Condy owner of The Eleventh Hour Tattoo Co., Lake Worth, FL August, 2022
I want to start with this, I never planned to tattoo my whole neck. I always worried about what people would say, the bullying I’ve experienced both personally and professionally and that it would be viewed as unprofessional. I ultimately decided I would do it if I found the right artists for when we were on vacation and the universe responded!
Coral was incredibly kind, direct, and with very little direction (it’s what I do now lol) designed a truly beautiful set of tattoos to finish my neck. From the moment I met Coral she was this bright light of warmth and acceptance and was wonderful at admitting when she made mistakes with my pronouns and very accommodating of my disability. She was so easy to talk to and such an enjoyable person to be around. She reminded me of this quote, “The heart of man is very much like the sea, it has its storms, it has its tides and in its depths it has its pearls too” - Vincent Van Gogh
As a non-binary person, seeing my whole neck tattooed is so euphoric and gender affirming. I never realized how much I needed this beautiful brightly colored sea garden on my throat.
What Coral didn’t know was my the 8th Anniversary of my Uncles death by suicide was the day after and he always went to the beach with us as kids. He taught me how to fish, helped me collect seaweed, and find coral and sea flora. It was my mom’s favorite thing to see us running down to the beach with him, little plastic buckets in hand and screaming in excitement when we found a little piece of coral. Now when I look at my neck I see all the thing that remind me of my mom and my uncle and the grief feels a little less heavy, a little less painful, a little less like a burden and more like a gift.
Thank you Coral, you gave me so many gifts when we met, there are no words.
What’s your favorite scary movie?
Tattoo by Annelise of Refuge Tattoo in Hartford, CT July 2022
So it’s the early 2000’s and we’re having a sleepover, mattresses, blankets and sleeping bags all over the living room floor. We wait for our parents to go to sleep and put on Scream. The minute we heard, “What’s your favorite scary movie?” I was hooked.
Slightly campy, cult classic horror movies became a lifeline as I got older and began facing my trauma and moving into a stable version of adulthood that I so craved. Over time watching the Scream movies on repeat became a trauma recovery lullaby where watching someone face their own trauma over and over, coming back stronger and more capable was an anthem for that recovery.
So Ghostface and I should probably be together forever making prank phone calls to find our your favorite scary movie.
They/Them
Tattoo by T of Blvck Rose Tattoo in Hudson, MA July, 2022
Two simple pronouns…they/them.
These two words have caused more upset, fighting, tomfoolery, foolishness or buffoonery than our world or my life has needed.
And yet they have become two most powerful words. They affirm my identity, they disguise and create ambiguity, these are the two words that have made my self-definition beautiful.
Find an artist who mastered solid black tattoos and ideally who also used They/Them pronouns felt so important for this piece and being recommended to T was the perfect fit.
Not only was T kind and funny, easy to talk to and felt safer to be around, I felt comfortable in the shop right away and secretly with my house looked like it (it does a bit!).
So here is to all the They/Them’s, the Ze/Zir’s, the NeoPronouns and the folx who have decided not to use or specify them, we get to rule the world now.
I am enough.
Tattoo by Rune Winter in Shelton, CT November 2021, February 2022, May 2022, & July 2022
My chest and I have been through a lot. When I was in my early 20’s I was emotionally manipulated into tattoos on my breast. A story I’m not willing to share yet. I then went through laser and surgical removal of those tattoos (though none of them worked fully) and top surgery, yet they still remained.
Now I have no nipples and a very small chest which means I can finally get these tattoos covered up and create a chest that feels beautiful and magical and congruent to me and my identity.
It’s a joy to be in a place where I feel like my body is congruent to how I see myself in terms of my gender expression and to feel in a solid place in my recovery, in my life, with my partner and in my career. This tattoo has become so much more than I could have every imagined.
Rune and I bonded over many things that make us truly magical individuals who bonded instantly. It made sense to have her do this tattoo at one of the only shops I can imagine being topless in and feeling safe and cared for. Rune custom created this whole tattoo for me including a custom sigil that has such deep meaning.
We did a sitting in November and then in February and I felt the real magic that is queer joy, trans joy, gender affirmation, gender euphoria and all the magic that tattooing has personally brought me and my own healing, recovery and becoming.
In May and now July the piece became essentially finished (minus a few touch ups) just in time for my 1 year top surgery anniversary. It feels unreal to imagine that I have hated this chest for so long and despised the trauma it held and now, it is unrecognizably mine in a way I only dreamed of. Rune gave me a gift that is invaluable and incomparable and I am so glad this is the chest I get to see for the rest of my life.
Poor Unfortunate Souls…
Tattoo by Alice White of Coastline Tattoos in Provincetown, MA, June 2022
Ursula was supposed to represent everything wrong with me. Fat, queer, and with those tentacles gender could be confusing. She liked the dark creepy things and didn’t fit in.
As a kid she spoke to me so deeply and she was the only Disney character I could see myself in.
In Greek mythology there is a demi-god (like Ursula) who was the sea witch child of Poseidon and Amphirtie. The shell Ursula used to steal voices was the very shell this demi-god inherited as the one thing she from her mother.
Ursula stole voices after being banished and cast aside, silenced and ridiculed for being different. It feels like our current political climate is no different, especially as a fat, queer, disabled person. I often inhabit the body, spaces, experiences that are often unseen, cast aside or deemed unworthy. So now I walk around with a nautilus shell firmly on my throat, a reminder of the voice I have, that no one can steal it from me no matter how hard they try to silence me and the queer, fat weirdos like me. I guess if you’re not on my team you’re just a….poor unfortunate soul.
Dragonflies are reminders that we are light and we can reflect light in powerful ways if we choose to do so.
Tattoo By Makayla at Integrity Ink in Wallingford, CT June 2022
“Dragonflies are reminders that we are light and we can reflect light in powerful ways if we choose to do so.” -Robyn Nola
Makayla is a true gem…she’s this nugget of pure joy and kindness. The universe kind of made this happen. I was scrolling instagram when someone shared Makayla’s recent flash sheet and I instantly wanted her dragon flies and cat skull.
I had been wanting dragonflies on my shoulders for a while. I wanted a reminder that the power to do good is within me and reset on my shoulders, not as a weight, as delicate, beautiful and powerful as a dragonfly.
Makayla was kind and affirming from the first text to the last tattooed line and gave me these beautiful glitter dragon flies.
The cat skull was just cool and my love for my cats (as some of you know) is this endless and fierce love that I hold deeply. My cats have been with me throughout all my gender affirmation procedures, all my chronic illness issues, they have been constant and loving and so very annoying (as most cats are). So this is for them…together forever.
Make It Michael Meyers…but Sexy
Tattoo by Annelise of Refuge 33 May, 2022 Hartford, CT
One of my. favorite movies of all time is the Halloween Series. Seeing Jamie Lee Curtis age overtime with her character, seeing Michaels mask grow old with time and seeing him come back time and time again, never knowing quite when he’ll strike actually became part of my own healing.
I akin having my eating disorder to Michael Meyers running around in my head, going dormant and popping back up. Over time that metaphor was what saved me. I wanted to be Jamie Lee Curtis, I wanted to Lori Strode, I wanted to survive and ironically I also wanted to be a little bit of Michael, so strong and fearless that he comes back time and time again.
I took the parts of his and Lori’s strength and created my own inner warrior who has kept me safe, sane and in some level of functional recovery that is sustainable and life giving. Here’s the thing…as serious as this may seem some of it has been hilarious over the years. My sense of humor was shaped by dark puns and cheesy Halloween jump scares you see coming from a mile away. So it felt fitting to make Michael a little funny, a little sexy and a lot scary serial killer. So here he is Michael Meyers the sexy pin-up serial killer.
Those Who Don’t Believe In Magic Will Never Find It
Tattoo by Hailey Wheeler of The Wolf Den Custom Tattoos & Gallery Denver, CO March 2022
I decided for my 35th birthday all I wanted was to see my BFF. She lives in Denver, CO and my partner and I had never been so we started to plan what we wanted this to look like. I wanted to create experiences that celebrated friendship, love, still being here. As a queer person still being here, being decently successful, being happy, those are things many of us never get and I certainly didn’t think I’d make it to 30 let alone 35.
When I began to think of how I made it to 35 I began to think of all the things I had faced to get here and how many of those traumas and losses became a beacon for my life’s work. If I had never had an eating disorder, faced abuse or medical trauma what would I be doing? And that’s when it hit me, the magic I so often speak of, that I believe lives innately in others, that is mine. So that was it, I needed to do something that would embrace my belief that magic: queer, matriarchy based, dance in the woods under the full moon, collecting moon water and seeing the souls of others magic was mine and in me and apart of me and frankly the part of me that has keep my heart beating when it felt it’s most broken.
So then the search was who could create a small technicolor magic dream to embrace my acceptance of my magic and the the part of my body that always received the least of it, my belly. I took recommendations from other tattooers and eventually connected with Wolf Den. They kindly hooked me with Hailey who created the most perfect tattoo. If you asked me which tattoo could describe me best it would be this one. Hailey was just the most magical, cheerful, Lisa Frank, Rainbow Brite human and her energy and the shops energy was incredibly welcoming, calming and safe. Safe has become the most important thing to me when getting tattooed. As I’ve come out and transformed I’ve realized how often queer bodies are weaponized and diminished. Being in a space where I could literally let me belly hang out roll and all and feel not one ounce of self-consciousness was beautiful.
Hailey reminded me that there are other magical beings in the world. Others who hold the innate ability to exude empathy, to see the beauty in others, to embrace the child-like wonderment we admonish and belittle in adults, she reminded me so much of why I do what I do and why I fought to stay, in this body, on this planet, in this life. The magic I have to offer if great, and it is powerful, and it is messy and queer and confusing and it is mine. I am a magical being just like how I see each of you as magical beings. I could think of no greater way to celebrate 35 than to be permanently reminded that I am Magical.
Death To The Patriarchy!
Tattoos by Nikki of Foxden Tattoos in Wallingford, CT February 2022
In January I helped out with an event to raise money for the Naugatuck High School’s GSA. A group of us baked and sold jewelry and the magical humans at Foxden did a full flash event with all the proceeds going to the queer kiddos. We raised over 3000$ and I got to see some stellar tattoos and meet the most incredible people.
While there, Nicky had these two hilarious flash tattoos that also felt deeply meaningful. Gender roles and the patriarchy are deeply connected to all of us wether we like it or not and I like so many were once so entrenched in it that now on the other side I cant imagine how I ever breathed before.
When I saw these I knew I had to have them and felt like a place on my body that cold hold the hilarity and be hidden when I wanted so I went for the one spot that I thought I’d never tattoo, my arm pits! It wasn’t half as painful as I thought and now everyday when I put on deodorant I can have an extra giggle.
Belly Of The Beast
Tattoo by Sabrina of Integrity Ink Tattoos in Wallingford, CT February 2022
Super lower belly tattoo to the rescue! Part of my journey to self-acceptance has been tattooing body parts that I once deemed unattractive, unworthy, ugly, and that I sought to get rid of. Now when I look at those parts of my body I feel such intense joy and release.
I asked Sabrina to create a skull and dead flowers to fill in my lower lower belly. It’s a spot on my body that I’ve always hated. I used to look at it and see this disgusting pocket of fat that felt so shameful. I’ve learned that this pocket of fat isn’t something to be disgusted by or ashamed of, it just is. It’s my body, apart of my body and without it I would be worse off. Decorating it with this gorgeous tattoo has only affirmed for me how perfectly imperfect this part of my body is and how much it deserves love and beauty.
It’s So Cute I Want To Bite It!
Tattoo by Snowflake of The Beauty Mark Tattooing, Waterbury CT February 2022
I realize I really am a weird person (it’s a good thing!). And there are 2 things on this planet that I truly love more than anything…zombies and bunnies. I love gore and disgusting messes of body parts in movies and equally love the littlest, cutest, fluffiest bunnies. I want to boop their noses and threaten to eat them…hence Gerard the Zombie Bunny!
Snowflake was incredible! Super funny and relaxed, had an equal appreciation for cute disgusting things and served as a great reminder that lots of new people can be safe and comfortable, that, that is still out there if you let it in.
We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea, whether it is to sail or to watch – we are going back from whence we came…
Tattoo by Becky of Show-off Ink Artistry New Haven, CT January 2022
My connection to the ocean is deep on a molecular level. The minute I hear it or smell it I instantly feel a sense of inner peace and calm that I genuinely can’t seem to find anywhere else. As a kid I would whisper to Poseidon for waves and imagine the sun being a gift from Apollo himself. This deep mythological and spiritual connection continues to be a healing experience. Becky finished my lower ocean leg with these fluid and rolling waves, little hidden images of water and magic.
Having both lower legs finished feels like some kind of accomplishment, like my body became a little more magical with the experience.
The Universe Send Us Messages In The Most Curious Ways
Tattoo by Gretta Ingraham of Dragons Den Tattoos Manchester, CT December 2021
Let’s start with how adorable this tattoo is! If my arm wasn’t sore I’d pinch those little turkey cheeks and boop that little bunny nose! In my life there have been a few animals that pop up at unexpected times, in season you usually wouldn’t see them, in moments where I feel lost or without grounding. I have my honey bee, butterfly, beluga whale, mice, snake, fox and now a baby bunny and baby turkey.
We have a wild turkey and bunny family in our backyard and they seem to show up at the most interesting times. Sometimes the baby turkeys will cross the road when I feel the most rushed and overwhelmed. They remind me the slowdown, to think, to witness the world around me. Whenever I go for walks the bunnies will just show up, hoping across the road, chewing dandelion greens and sometimes letting me get so close I can almost touch them.
I wanted someone who tattooed like they were illustrating not just the animals but the feelings that I feel when I see them. In my search I found Gretta and fell in love with her style and knew I wanted her to do these. The studio and Art Gallery Gretta works in was beautiful and inviting and very relaxed. And Gretta was incredibly kind and funny and made this tattoo super easy to get. I appreciate any personality that responds to things with sarcasm and dark humor and appreciates the humor of butt tattoos. It’s not often that a tattoo flies by, that the pain is unnoticeable at times because the conversation is so wonderfully distracting. Here is to more tattoos with beautifully distracting conversation and connection.
