About My Leg: Putting Our Story in Someone Else's Hands

June 3, 2022

About My Leg: Putting Our Story in Someone Else’s Hands

St. James

Here is the other tattoo story I told you I would get to. It’s about my leg. Well, my leg is where it landed, the tattoo was happening regardless. This tattoo idea actually started way back in the early 2000s. If you are a Louisville native, then you probably have heard of the St. James Art Show. I used to go every day, every year.

The Chins

I stopped to see works by an artist Ric Chin. Ric was born in Hong Kong and grew up in New York City. When I spoke with him, he was living in Greensboro, North Carolina. I’m sad to report that since this article was originally written, Ric has also left this world.

Now, when I would go to the local art festival, I would stop into his tent, which he occupied with his wife on more than one occasion for years. He specialized in oriental pieces, mostly watercolors. Every chance I could until he and his wife stopped coming, I would visit Ric. He and I had many conversations about his life and life in general. He was a very talented and interesting man.

The Idea About My Leg

kanji names in traditional chinese. about my leg tattoo

One year, he had made small prints of several paintings, and was writing names on them with a paint pen for a price. He explained to me that there were no kanji symbols equal to names in traditional Chinese. Kanji has phonetics, and therefore the symbols he wrote were to be sounded out, but he guaranteed his work. We also talked at length about tattoos. He loved the art, which gave us plenty to talk about. Tattooing was already a huge part of our lives. Eric had been tattooing since he was 18, and after we married, we opened our own studio, Liquid Graphics. He tattooed, I pierced, and for 13 years the industry and the people in it were a huge part of who we were.

Ric was also a consultant. In Greensboro especially, tattoo studios would send him in English what a client wanted written, and Ric would send it back in traditional Chinese for a fee. So I asked him to write mine, Eric’s, and Emily’s names.

I hung them in the hallway of our house for many years, along with other artwork I had purchased from Ric. When we moved in 2019, I didn’t hang much on the walls, so everything remained stored. Once I returned and found them, I knew I wanted mine and Eric’s names tattooed on me with his cremains mixed in. Now to find an artist.

An Artist for My Leg

I knew the exact person for the job. My friend Kaitlin Fox, formerly down at Sacred Art Tattoo & Piercing in New Port Richey, Florida. I met Kaitlin at Tattoo 42 while visiting Oregon in the early 2010s. She was a piercer like me, then learned to tattoo. She knew Eric, she knew our history, and she understood what trusting someone else with this tattoo meant to me. I hit her up and, lucky for me, she was excited to do it.

Editor’s note: Since I originally wrote this, Kaitlin has opened her own studio, Elevated Art Tattoo and Piercing, in Hudson, Florida.

This would be Kaitlin’s first time working with cremains, so about 48 hours of heavy research went into the process. Eric had worked with cremains before and, from what I knew, it wasn’t as straightforward as it might seem. Once we both understood the ink mixing process, it was time to get started.

Strange Events

The whole tattoo took less than an hour, I believe. A strange thing happened when I opened the urn. An electricity spun up out of the urn and traveled through the air. The air became light and almost took on a different hue. That feeling surrounded us and stayed with us until the end. Then it was suddenly gone as quickly as it arrived. We both noticed it. We both felt it.

Reflections

I’m so excited to wear this tattoo, and my lower thigh was the perfect spot. Kaitlin did a stellar job making Ric’s brush strokes look exact. I couldn’t be more pleased. I’m so proud of it and it’s so original. I smile every single time I look at it.

So that’s it. That’s my story. While a few other unexplained, strange phenomena happened in the studio that day, I’m going to leave you here. If you want to know, you may ask, but you must keep an open mind. It’s not for the faint of heart. Thank you Kaitlin, thank you Ric, and thank you for reading. xxooC

Destinations, Uncategorized

#adventure, #blacktattoo, #bluewidow, #findingpeace, #florida, #grief, #kanjitattoo, #legtattoo, #newtattoo, #peace, #roadtrip, #sacredarttattoo, #tattoo, #travel, #wanderlust, #widow, #widowchronicles

One response to “About My Leg: Putting Our Story in Someone Else’s Hands”

marianallen

June 5, 2022 at 1:42 pm

I want to know!

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About The Blue Widow Chronicles and Me

The Blue Widow Chronicles began after my husband, Eric, died suddenly in 2020. I became a widow overnight, and the writing became the place I went to make sense of a life that no longer made sense.

What began as writing through grief has grown with me.

Over the years, I’ve written my way through widowhood, PTSD and trauma, solo travel, love after loss, losing Greg to suicide, starting over, complicated relationships, and the ongoing work of figuring out who I am when the life I once knew no longer exists.

This isn’t a blog about having grief figured out. I write from wherever I actually am—sometimes healing, sometimes questioning, sometimes rebuilding, and sometimes admitting I have no idea what comes next.

Odin and Freija frequently find their way into these pages too, along with the people, places, memories, and ordinary moments that remind me life continues even when it looks nothing like the one I expected.

What You’ll Find Here

The Chronicles are personal essays about grief, trauma, identity, love, relationships, travel, rebuilding, and life after loss. Some were written from inside the experience. Others look back years later with a perspective I couldn’t have had when everything was happening.

There are more than five years of stories here. You don’t need to read them in order. Start wherever something speaks to you.

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