coney island queen

“We can stay in bed all summer.”

“Each one of these tattoos on my right arm my son has drawn over the years. The first tattoo is from when he was 4; he is now 11. We add once a year from his drawings. The drawing on the fridge is a sword that he gave me in my Christmas card; that one will probably be added this summer. The only one that is a different size from the original is the robot, which we did last March when he turned 10. The first one was the daisy- I had it tattooed when he was in kindergarten. Then we went back and did his name and the house from when he was 4. When he was 6 we did the seahorse, and 7 was the maple leaf with the C for Canada. 8 was the stained glass, which is one of my favourites; it was his own abstract idea. The 9 year old one we skipped because he wanted to change the drawing a little bit. 

I have had three different artists tattoo these drawings over the years: one in Boulder, Colorado, one in Chatham, and the most recent ones have been in Peterborough with my friend Tedd. Recently, my son was there with me and he did some of the tattooing himself. He loves it. No one I know has ever heard of tattooing original kid art before, and it’s a lot of fun. We will keep going until he doesn’t want to do it anymore. At this pace he is still very excited about it, so we’ll keep going. People ask me what will happen if I run out of space; I guess I’ll just get him to draw smaller pictures.”

Keith Anderson

“A Morning with Keith”

Chance Faulkner Photography

Napkin Notes by Garth Callaghan

Mum draws the faces, daughter draws the bodies.. Lovely blog post about collaborative art here