At A Glance Author Andrea Contact Andrea@bme.anon When Two years ago Artist Dawn Cooke Studio Namebrand Tattoo Location Ann Arbor, Michigan Living in New Orleans, Louisiana can be an exhilarating and dangerous proposition for a variety of reasons, one of which is the threat of hurricanes and tropical storms. When Hurricane Katrina was on its way, my family (boyfriend and mom) almost did not evacuate, but at the last minute, with the television showing historical devastation and the mayor imploring people to leave or expect the absolute worst, we left in the middle of the night and drove straight through to Mammoth Cave, KY. After learning about the flooding and the failed levees a few days later, we decided that since we couldn't go home we would go to my hometown, Ann Arbor, Michigan, until the worst of it was over. This was an incredibly stressful time; we had no idea when, or if we would be able to return home and what we would find once we got there. This may not seem like a tattoo story so far but it is, just wait.
In Ann Arbor we set up a little apartment and got jobs, me, at a coffee shop, my boyfriend at a liquor store and my mom worked her tech support job from a mobile office. At this point I had a few small tattoos but nothing major. What I discovered in Ann Arbor amazed me; some of my closest friends from high school had the most amazing tattoos, big, bright and beautiful. I was suddenly jealous and excited. We reconnected with a few of these cool kids and by the time it was getting close to returning to New Orleans, we were ready to do something major, as a way to remember these three months and as a way to move forward. As it turned out, we all got fairly major tattoos at the same studio, Name Brand tattoos. My boyfriend got a large back piece in green and black, the design off of a carving platter, looking like a cactus, or a tree. My friend got a female hamburglar on her shoulder blade, to match the standard one already present on the other side. And I, I got a half slee ve featuring a scene from the turn of the century comic strip "Little Nemo in Slumberland". After going to the artist, the talented Dawn Cooke, with the image and having her draw it up, I went to the appointment, very excited. One problem, I did not like the way she had drawn the tattoo. Too many elements were left out and I felt that the integrity of the original artwork had been lost. In what was a pretty hard thing for me to do, as I am very shy in nature, I asked her to please redraw the tattoo. Eep! After a long few hours waiting around she had finished her revision, (she had taken the request very graciously by the way) and it was perfect! I was more than happy with the new design and we went to work on the outline. The outline was not too painful except on the backside of my upper arm. I don't deal well with pain by the way! And the pain of tattooing is especially bad for me. Dawn was very nice and supportive and then the outline was done! Yay! She bandaged it up and I went on my way, I had an appointment about two weeks later for the color. I could only hope that the tattoo would be healed enough by then because the appointment was the day before we were to return to New Orleans for good! So the day came and I made excuses to my mom for ducking out on the moving preparations for a few hours and went to the shop. There was some debate about the healing progress that my tattoo had made, but in the end we decided to go through with the color that day, awesome. I was particularly happy about this because I would not be back to Michigan for a while (I had to get back to work in NOLA) and the infrastructure of New Orleans at that time was so bad I doubted that any tattoo artists had returned as of yet, let alone one who would have the skill of Dawn and the willingness to work on another artists tattoo.
The coloring went smoothly and suddenly my arm was full of all manner of strange creatures! A blue rabbit, a pink pig with green eyes, a green kangaroo, a pink monkey and of course Little Nemo himself, riding a brown and white horse, with a yellow bow on his tail, through the night sky. The one big problem with this session was the excruciating pain I felt during the entire thing, from the first touch of the needle to the end. I cried, sobbed, moaned, etc., until I had to ask my friends to leave the room because I did not want them to see me like that. The backside of the arm was the absolute worst and because of my obvious discomfort Dawn applied the colors are sparser and lighter in that area, an effect that I ended up really loving in the end. After the more than four hour session my friends and I went to a Greek Restaurant for a drink, my arm started to bruise and bad! It was swollen more than twice its normal size as well. I still was happy and excited however. We le ft the next day and after a couple of weeks my gorgeous tattoo was all healed up and I have loved it ever since. Now, about four years later, I am looking to add to it and finish the sleeve. I have an appointment tomorrow with Henry Rhodes down here in New Orleans. I will let you all know how it goes! I hope it does Dawn's tattoo justice!