I keep a book of personal ready-to-tattoo drawings for clients that aren’t sure what they want to get done. Here’s a recent addition that I’d really love to do, contact me if you want it.

Mega Man on the wrist! Done in December 2011.

dreaming in parables.

I was a curator in an old, forgotten art gallery in my dreams last night. This upside-down painting of a girl caught my attention. I can’t tell whether it was her charm or the fact that the piece was upturned that made it so particularly striking but whatever the case was, I aimed to correct its presentation. As I pulled it off the wall, the girl jumped out of the painting. She lunged at me, whispering in a harsh urgent, tone. “There’s nothing wrong with this painting! It is not upside-down, I am. I hide in the painting because art is the only place I can live without being turned over.”

My client wanted an elephant and music so this is what I came up with. Done in December 2011.

The End of The World for People Who Never Finish Anything

Paintings in progress…started these today.

Took my meditation out on my front door.

Itty bitty tattoos keep my precision sharp.

A client of mine wanted a fairy without wings, this is what I came up with. She loves the drawing, can’t wait to do it next week. Happy she let me incorporate conceptual elements, I love the idea of a constellation as a tattoo. Hoping to do more stuff like this in the future…

I wouldn’t mind my body looking like this. Artwork by Stasia Burrington.

done by marcelina urbanska

(Source: tattoosforpassionnotfashion)

I’ve compiled drawings I’ve done in my spare time to make a “Wish Book” for folks who aren’t sure what they want to as a tattoo. Feel free to send ideas or stop by the shop to take a peek.

Metaphorical imagery makes for better memorial tattoos than portraits and names, in my opinion. This was for his grandmother. Rising sun & bird done in 1.5 hours, December 2011.

Done in less than an hour. December 2011.

the golden-plated rule.

In our youth, while our minds are still spry with umbilical juice and our behavioral patterns have yet to endure the repetitive conditioning of anything close to a decade, we are urged to abide by one principle, the ethic of reciprocity: treat others they way you want to be treated. Do unto others as you would want done to you.

If moral codes were home furnishings, the golden rule would be a vintage lighted mirror. An idealistic centerpiece, demanding self-sabotaging levels of self-awareness, glamorizing all that is unnatural and muting all that is carnal, accompanied by a wardrobe you will never be able to afford and is perpetually dusty. 

As we age, we discover how easily surfaces get scratched, the horror of objects lying still, how our personal need for frivolous enjoyment can so easily supersede anyone else’s holocaustal agony, karma’s willingness to forgive the bad guy, how Santa is really a slave to the Federal Reserve, the pointlessness of politeness, how most of the things we can buy on food stamps don’t have any nutrients, and it becomes more & more glaringly obvious that all that glitters is not gold and in 75% of all cases, (75% being the most believable number used in fictional statistics) may not even be glitter.

We cannot treat others the way we want to be treated because we don’t know who we are, have yet to negotiate what we deserve and are hardly cognizant of the transformational impact that our puny, mortal, ten-fingered treatment could possibly deliver.

In the dim-controlled lighted room of our morality, behind our embellished mirror of starry-eyed youth, we find that the golden rule is no more of a rule than it is golden. It is an hopeless idea, a kamikaze suggestion, a curled-lip expression from an under-aged, sexually ambiguous girl.

Treating people the way we want to be treated in our young age is a distraction to discover our individualized desires and come to terms with our worth. In our adulthood, explore the golden-plated rule: we treat others the way we have been treated.

Hurt people hurt people. The humbled, humble. The falsely inflated, falsely inflate. Those who find themselves broken, find everything broken. Boring people bore. The fulfilled find a way to fill whatever isn’t full. We are the meaning makers, equal parts creators and created.

It is never too late to look in the mirror and have a happy childhood.

Mreeuh Chang