thisismyink

"I consider these to be three different tattoos as they were done at separate times and each have their own specific, but interrelated meaning. I have struggled with an eating disorder for 12 years, since I was 14. When I was 22 I went on exchange through my university to Australia. This was the first thing I had ever really attempted to accomplish on my own since I fell ill and I secretly doubted whether I could actually make it through the 5 months without seriously relapsing. Truthfully, I did significantly struggle during the first half of my trip. But I managed to pull myself out of the hole I had fallen into and I ended up having the time of my life and I met some incredible people. This was a huge accomplishment for me and it marked a turning point in my recovery. So as a personal reward, I got the black symbol, which is an eating disorder recovery symbol, tattooed while I was in Australia. I had it done on my thigh to cover some of my self-harm scars. I had always refused to do anything to help my scars heal or to cover them up as I felt like I didn’t deserve to let go of that part of my life yet. I was now ready to change that. When I returned home, I had Australia tattooed on me to further remind me of how influential that experience was for my recovery. The final piece, the quote, was added a few months later. I am no longer ashamed of my scars and they are just part of who I am now. But through these tattoos I was able to turn something I once stigmatized and shamed myself for into something beautiful that serves as a reminder, when I continue to struggle, of just how far I have come." #tattoo #thightattoo #colourtattoo #australia #quotetattoo #eatingdisorderawareness #bluetattoo

"This was my second tattoo, I got it when I was 19 and still somewhat in my teenage rebellious stage, but I continue to love it. The ring is a Claddagh ring which is a traditional Gaelic symbol. It is given to express love. If the tip of the heart is pointing in towards the wearer’s heart it means they are thinking of someone they love or they are in a relationship; if the tip is pointing outwards it means the wearer is single. Being Scottish, I have been given Claddagh rings a few times in my life, the most significant being the one from my Grandad who was the most important person in my life before he passed. The Claddagh ring is a symbol which holds a lot of personal and cultural meaning. The lily is my favourite flower. This was my way of combining two important and meaningful symbols in my life. The ring looks like it’s coming out of the lily as it’s supposed to depict that one is giving rise to or creating the other." #Claddagh #lily #ribtattoo #love #colourtattoo #tattoo

"This one is the only tattoo that I have that I'm not absolutely in love with. I got it when I was going through a bad time with a girlfriend. I was really influenced by street art at the time; I believe it's a Banksy piece, he's so innovative and I really like the messages he sends. This is the tattoo that I had the least amount of thought about- I was like, "I need a tattoo, this is an image I kind of like right now," and I just went ahead and did it. That was the only time I didn't really think a tattoo through." #tattoo #colortattoo #streetart #banksy #butterflysuicide

"This is Radiohead lyrics from 'Nice Dream,' which is one of my favourite songs. I think it's a really sweet sentiment; the thought of someone giving you sunshine is so nice. This is my latest one, it's Björk lyrics from the song "Possibly Maybe." I've kind of been in love with her since I first started listening to music, I even went to Iceland because I had to see where she came from." #tattoo #lyrics #lyrictattoos #radiohead #bjork #sunshine #forearmtattoo #quotetattoo

"This is one of my favorite albums of all time. It's from a band called Microphones, from the album "The Glow Pt 2." It came out when I was in high school, and it was something that my friends weren't really into so I kind of huddled away and smoked a lot of weed and listened to at my parents' house all the time." #tattoo #colourtattoo #microphones #theglowpt2 #armtattoo

"This one was my first tattoo ever. It's from the Radiohead album OK Computer. I had just got back from Australia, a girl that I fell in love with there used to draw it on my arms in the morning." #tattoo #wristtattoo #okcomputer #radiohead #colourtattoo #firsttattoo

"My friend Courtney is a really great musician. I’m a musician too and we went on tour together twice, and then she moved to Scotland for two years now. A few months after she left, I really missed her. Her presence was really important to me, she's a very free-spirited kind of person, and it was always something I wanted. One of her song lyrics is “what do I do when my mind is possessed with grey, I just want my brighter side to radiate, oh yellow.” It’s all about overcoming depression, or overcoming a difficult time in your life, and trying to see the brighter side of life. It was a tattoo I knew a lot of my friends had and I was like, 'okay it’s my turn,' so I went and did it. She only found out about it a year later. She came back this past winter and she played a couple shows here and I went to see her and I was like “oh by the way, I got a tattoo of your song lyrics on my arm” and she freaked out, it was really sweet. I think 8 people have it, as far as I know. But then I’ll run into someone, and they’ll see it, and they’ll be like “oh my god, how do you know Courtney?” And then they’ll show me theirs, and it’s always written differently. It's something that connects a lot of random people together. It’s pretty neat." #blackink #armtattoo #tattoo #quotetattoo #songlyric #ohyellow

"It’s the tree of life. I always laugh when I say it, but it’s my favourite. I was living in Ottawa and I was not myself and I was feeling really shit, so I was like “I’m going to move back to Toronto” and I got this tattoo. I’ve had it for almost 3 years. Its just one of those things… you know, I’ll never regret it. And it looks banging.” #tattoo #blackink #backtattoo #treeoflife

"I had two triangle tattoos on my elbows but I got one covered up, and you can still see the scar. The tattoo was really bad. I moved to this neighbourhood after a really shitty breakup, and I got them done by guys who live in the neighbourhood. When I actually think about it, it was actually kind of stupid. But the meaning- the two triangles mean transform and explore. I felt like that was symbolic and kind of cool. I had this one for maybe four months before I got it covered up. I couldn’t sit with my elbows showing, I would cover them up and wear long sleeve sweaters all the time, I just needed to get it covered up. The two triangles were a big deal I guess, but I should have been more patient instead." #tattoo #elbowtattoo #coverup #flowertattoo #triangletattoo

"I decided I wanted this tat when I was 16 and I was at Improv Camp. I felt this incredible inspiration about the arts and that I could do something like this for my career. I wanted a reminder because I was afraid that someone would convince my older self to leave the arts and make money but I sincerely wanted to make sure my life grew from the foundation of that feeling I had beneath the stars that I'd found my tribe and my way. I had a necklace with little tiles with three words: Create. Dream. Inspire. So I got the idea then to tattoo them on my foot to always walk forwards in my path with that direction in mind. Being a very prudent young person, I decided anything worth having inscribed on my flesh was also worth waiting for. So I vowed to wait 4 years until I got it. Later, I decided it would be a good graduation celebration for myself to get it done in Windsor when I finished my Drama in Education degree and the day after I graduated I got it done!" #foottattoo #blackink #tattoo #artist

"I was 21. My roommates and I were going for a bonding experience, so we went to a tattoo shop and somehow I'm the only one who got a tattoo. I made the mistake of just picking something off the wall, so I got the very stereotypical Chinese symbol for 'happiness'. What I regret is that I'm actually half Japanese, and I could have got my grandmother to write out the word happiness in Japanese. Then I would have a tattoo on me and have it, you know, mean something a little bit more significant that something I picked off of the wall of a tattoo shop in St. Catherine's." #blackink #tattoo #tattoos #chinesesymbol #happiness #bondingexperience #hiptattoo

"I was born and raised on the West Coast, and when I got into grad school in Toronto, there were three things I knew I would miss: the forests, the mountains, and the ocean. So I decided to get this on my arm so I could always have a little bit of BC with me. ...also, I really thought my mom would hate it, but now she might get the same one on her ankle." #tattoo #blackink #westcoast #westcoastbestcoast #linedrawing #minimalist

"I got this tattoo to represent my Nan. Growing up, she was an amazing woman and I really valued the qualities that she had- she was very poised and graceful and I got the tattoo to commemorate that. I got it around the time that she was first diagnosed with dementia; today she’s in the later stages of it and although I love who she is now I'm really so fond of this tattoo because it reminds me of the Nan that she used to be." #tattoo #lilac #colourtattoo #foottattoo

"It’s twenty-one twelve, the 1976 Rush album. The album is based off of an Ayn Rand book and while I’m not personally a big fan of Ayn Rand, the book has a really important message, about the individual versus an oppressive society, an individual recognizing that they don’t belong and everything that they love about the society turns against them, and they find music as an outlet. When I was growing up in Israel, there was lots of terrorism and violence and bombs going off, and I found that a lot of my society used their anguish against Arabs, so a lot of racism grew out of that. This was around age 13, and right around this time I discovered this album, and I really identified with what it’s like to be an individual in a society standing out, when all your society believes in something you don’t believe in. Me and my friends all really got into the album too, and when I was in grade 8 and 9, we would all listen to Rush all the time, and that was kind of our escape from the war. So when I turned 18 I was living in Boston and I really missed my friends and I was thinking about what kind of tattoo I could get that would be meaningful to me and represent something that I never want to forget, I decided that this would be a cool thing to forever embody. It’s the memory of how friendship got me through a war, memory of how music got me through the war, and a memory of always remembering to be an individual no matter what." -And what are your thoughts on Rush now? Are they still a band your really connect with? "I own all of their albums on CD, I own most of them on vinyl, I own all of their live CDs, and I’ve seen them 4 times lives. And while they’re not the band I listen to the most, and I can’t even define them as my favourite band, they are more like a part of who I am, whom I revisit from time to time. It’s kind of like that old friend, who you may not see for a few years, but when you do see them, it’s like you recognize that they were with you through these really dark times, and that is invaluable and unquantifiable, and that’s what Rush is to me." #tattoo #2112 #rush #shouldertattoo #colourtattoo #aynrand

"My parents divorced when I was three, and I have my dad's last name. My whole life my mom kind of wanted me to have her last name, but I couldn’t change my name as an adult because it would hurt my dad’s side of the family, and one I’ll get married and probably change my name anyways. But I really wanted to do something to show her how much I appreciated her and how she raised me as a single mother. So I decided to get her last name tattooed on my ankle. I think everyone has something they collect, and she collects dragonfly things- like lawn ornaments, and little figurine things. Every time I see a dragonfly it reminds me of my mom, so I figured I could get something that remind me of her, and how much she put us first instead of herself and stuff like that. It’s kind of how I want to raise my children, I like it. Funny story though, the tattoo artist was showing me the drawing for the tattoo, I was looking it over and I was thinking to myself, “that a looks really weird…” so I asked him, “is this an a?” and he’s like “no, that’s an o.” “like… honey?” “It’s not supposed to be like that??” “No, HANEY, h-a-n-e-y” and he’s like “oh god, you know what, I kind of draw you up a bumblebee just in case you were confused.”" #tattoos #foottattoo #inked #dragonfly #lastname #ankletattoo

Since putting this project aside for almost an entire year, I've been busy moving across the country and starting grad school. But keep your 👀s peeled over the next few weeks for thisismyink: Toronto edition (COMING SOON) #thisismyink #comingsoon #tattoos

"It’s the Ukrainian flag, and then the flag of the Ukrainian Partisan Army, and their motto, which mean “Glory to Ukraine, Glory to our Heroes.” Unfortunately, it’s flag is usually confused with another group- a lot of people confuse it with the Organization of the Ukrainian Nationalists and the couple of villages that disappeared there. These days though, it’s come to mean more of an anti-Russian slogan and symbol. The unfortunate thing is that in Eastern Ukraine now, the Russian militias have started removing tattoos like this from people. There’s a lot of it amongst the youth these days- one guy had his arm chopped off, another one had it scraped off with a broken bottle. My family is Ukrainian, both sides of my family are from there. I got it because of the war- unfortunately the constitution so far doesn’t allow foreign fighters. They’ve kind of looked the other way for some of the volunteer battalions, but they only accept those with previous experience."