A Tattoo

When I was 20 years old, I got a tattoo of a triple moon on my lower back, with a triskele in the center moon. While I never regretted the design, I do regret my choice of tattooist, since they used too large a needle and scarred me.

To celebrate a big life moment in four years when I turn 50, I hope to get a larger design mapped into my skin at my shoulders and upper arms. Before I do that, I needed to find out with more confidence if the experience I had at 20 was because of the tattooist, or because I was prone to keloids. I’ve had injuries scar me, and other injuries heal perfectly fine.

So I had to get another tattoo, smaller, to test things out.

I decided to get a sigil I had made up for Adley (my Wendy Froud troll) and I etched into the back of my neck. And if I was going to do that, I wanted to pair it with a piece of Brian’s work as well, a celebration of their partnership of wonder and magic.

I looked through photos online of Froudian tattoos, I looked through my (substantially sized) Pinterest board of Brian, Toby, and Wendy’s work, and nothing seemed like the right fit.

Sometimes, I self-soothe by searching online for Froudian images, since each one is like coming home. And I decided to start reading through my books again, in a random order. The second one I chose to look through was World of Faerie, and right there in front on the dedication page, I found my faerie. She practically jumped off the page at me.

I was hopeful that the sketchy pencil-line design would be easier to duplicate with authenticity on my skin. And I loved that it was on a page where Brian declared his love for Wendy. I contacted them for their approval of the design, and contacted a tattooist in Columbus. But our schedules never quite were meshing.

One day I was on a video call with Alessandra, and I told her that I just felt really strongly that I wanted to get my tattoo in Portland, since Oregon was such a heart space for me. She cried “ooh! hold on,” and went off screen to grab a scrap of paper. She had been out somewhere and she and a stranger had started remarking on each other’s tattoos. The other person had given her that scrap of paper with the Instagram handle of their artist.

So…I scheduled with @kingbytradeink for the last full day of my husband and my Oregon vacation, and on Monday October 19th I laid my head down on a tattoo bench and got a tattoo!

She’s healing nicely. Although I need to go back for touch ups (I am reassured by friends this is quite common with fine line tattoos), I’m thrilled with how the Froudian energy comes through in the piece. Adley loves it too.

Oh and the tattoo I got when I was 20? I’m hoping I can get another to cover it.