I've been getting tattoos for a few years now, initially getting tattoos that had meaning to me, and then thinking of ideas that were unique or esthetically pleasing as opposed to having a back story. And that is where this story starts off.
At A Glance Author MLK IAM MLK When Three months ago Artist Adrian Studio Living Colour Location Ottawa, Ontario, Canada I was having a conversation with a friend about how much I love pork. All forms of pork. Bacon, pork chops, pork medallions, ham steaks, honey ham, breakfast sausages, keilbasa, schnitzel; you name it I love it. She made the joke "if you love it so much, why dont you just marry it?" and while I dont think I could live out my days married to a chunk of meat, a similarly long term comitment was something I could really get behind.
So I started thinking about how the heck I could set up a pork lovers tattoo. What would it entail? How big would it be? What style should I do it in, like did I want there to be bacon strips and if so should they look real or cartoon-ish?
It was actually when my boyfriend was getting tattooed by Adrian at Living Colour in downtown Ottawa that I finally found the man who was meant to make this pork pipe dream a reality. He had some hilarious custom tattoo drawings up in his booth so I pitched my idea to him. He looked at me like I was nuts, cause come on, pork? But he seemed pretty psyched to do it. After my man was all done with his appointment, I sat aside with Adrian and banged out what I thought the design should look like.
As my Christmas present, Chris paid to book me and I was told to come back on December 20th to start on my tattoo. I did just that, and when I laid eyes on the design my heart skipped a beat because it was exactly what I had envisioned.
The design I had come up with was two pork chops (boneless, of course) facing each other to make the shape of a heart. They would be held together by an arrow, and there was a bacon strip banner running across them with "Mmmm" written on it. As it was going to be an old school design, we made the pork chop heart a sacred heart of sorts and the plan was to have the flame searing the meat it touched. Genius!
So Adrian went to his booth, set everything up, and called me in. He asked me where I wanted it, and I said on my ribs so I could refer to them as my pork ribs. He laid out the flash, and while I would have liked it a little lower, we discussed it and in the end it would have looked warped or awkward where I had thought to put it.
I had to take off my bra and roll up my shirt to just under my boobs so it looked like a sports bra. I was taking deep breaths thinking I could be cool about it, but as soon as the needles hit my skin I knew I was toast. This tattoo hurt more than any of my other ones. But, for love, I pressed on. I managed to sit for 2 hours, after which I tapped out because I was too sore.
We set up another appointment for two weeks later but finances kept me away until the end of February! At that time I wisened up a bit and slathered my skin with Emla. What a difference! For the first 30 minutes I couldnt feel anything it was awesome. But then the bite came back and it was pretty damn painful again. I had only to sit for an hour in total this time, which was amazing because I dont think I could have taken much more.
When I saw the end result I was a bit dissapointed with it. The pork chops look more raw like beef steaks, but the overall effect is pretty damn amazing. I really liked the shading, the placement, and how the design had turned out.
Aftercare for this tattoo was very difficult. I didnt experience any pain or swelling at all, but there was a great deal of itching even after the scabs had fallen off. I was concerned that it was due to the red dye, but turns out it was just winter drying out my skin. It was hard to reach to and apply lotion to. And to optimise the healing I decided not to wear a bra for the first week. All that hard work paid off though because both times within a week there were no more scabs and the tattoo is healed beautifully.
Both Chris and I have had very pleasant experiences with Adrian, and are extremely satisfied with his work. He is my new go-to guy, and I intend to see him again as he is both tattooist and an artist.