Tattoo Tuesday V.50

Name/blog name: Hey, I’m Nova. My blog’s name is “Might as Rella” because I thought it kinda sounded like “Might as well”, and my internet fake last name is “Rella”… yeah, I know it’s kind of a stretch. You can find me at novarella.blogspot.com.

Age: 28

Occupation: tattoo shop manager … basically I do the dirty work like sterilizing the equipment, booking appointments and mopping the floors, but it’s a super fun job. Here’s the shop website: www.tattoozoo.net … we are a busy little shop with some of the best clients you can ask for.

Age of first tattoo: 21, and I had no idea what I wanted. I ended up getting like half my back tattooed, and now I think I want to cover it. I kind of wish I had started smaller. All I knew was I wanted to have a lot of tattoos and I wanted it right away, and I didn’t really put much thought into what I was actually getting.

Favorite tattoo: I don’t know…I love them all! Usually my favorite one is my newest one; it changes all the time. Right now I really love all my thigh tattoos like the cat-spider (featured below), a Mexican girl dressed as a Zapatista, and a cute bird and flowers that says “Sei Freundlich” (be friendly) by my German friend Roberto.

Featured tattoo/location: Cat-spider on my thigh.

Artist/shop/location of feature tattoo: This was done at Tattoo Zoo in Victoria B.C. (where I work!) around a year ago by Colin Wiley. It’s on my left thigh, from just above my knee to my… bathing-suit area. ;)

1) Tell us about your featured tattoo-

Basically when I come up with ideas for tattoos I usually just think of something I like and get it. I love kitties and I kind of feel like spiders are underrated and over-hated. What if they were combined into one cute, terrifying animal? This is what would happen.

I got this one during my last semester of a B.A. in Hispanic studies. I usually end up getting large tattoos during stressful periods of my life and let me tell you, writing term-papers in Spanish is not easy!

Sorry for the weird angle and lighting. It turns out it’s hard to take pictures of your own thigh.

I chose to share this particular tattoo because it’s one of my favorites I have and I’m a fairly modest dresser so it rarely sees the light of day. Nobody knows I have it except the people I work and live with.

2) Do you have any other tattoos? If so, what do you have and where?

Yeah I have like a million. Actually, I know that I have twenty one tattoos because clients ask me all the time at work and one day I decided to just count them so I would know. (A lot of people don't get how tough of a question that is to answer sometimes...does a tattoo that took eight sessions count as one? How about two that you got at the same time? What if one of them is unfinished?) I have around a hundred hours-ish..everything from a sleeve of a mummy having a tea party with a my little pony to a collection of black and grey optical illusion tattoos.

I feel a little weird putting them on the internet…but whatever. If you copy my tattoos you are an unimaginative loser. There, I said it. (editor's note: I love you/this. haha!)

Here are a few photos.

3) Do you plan on getting more?

Yes. I want to look like Betty Broadbent eventually.

I want to be COVERED in tattoos. I think it looks so beautiful and interesting and yes, feminine. My big plans for the near future include a chest piece with bees in it somehow, rib panels…stomach, the rest of my thighs, cover my backpiece with something bigger and blacker maybe…everything, haha. I also have a pretty long list of tattooers I want to be tattooed by from all over the world.

I still have a lot of room left...yay!

4) How do your family and friends feel about your tattoo(s)? Have you run into any adversity or negativity because of them? Do you have a significant other? Does he/she have tattoos?

My family doesn’t really seem to care much about my tattoos. At first my mom was kind of shocked, I guess, but now when I go home she shows me off to all her friends. Her and my sister even came to visit me a couple years ago and got foot tattoos at my work!

This summer I went to my grandma’s seventieth birthday party and was worried about my clothing choice because it was really hot out but all my grandma’s friends were going to be there. I ended up just saying “Ah what the heck” and wearing a sleeveless, knee-length dress. I was worried I would embarrass her in front of her friends, but nobody except for my weird uncle even commented negatively on my appearance at all. One lady told me her daughter probably “had me beat” in the number of tattoos I have. It was really cute.

That being said, yes, I experience negativity all the time based on my appearance. It’s usually men or ladies around my parents’ age who say things, either to me or just within earshot so I’m bound to overhear…ladies call me disgusting, ugly, and ask aloud why I would do that to myself.

A man at the bus stop a few months ago literally said to me that it’s fine to look that way now but what about when I want to start a family? As though I would never “catch a man” looking the way I do. ( Just FYI, I am in a forever-type relationship with a lovely man who has two kids…I’m set.) Usually I just try and ignore small-minded idiots, but this guy and I actually ended up shouting at each other in the street.

You can read about it here: http://novarella.blogspot.com/2010/06/buthow-will-i-ever-catch-husband.html. Caution, much swearing and bitterness in this post.

I just cannot believe how rude people are on a regular basis to me, because of the way I look.

Being heavily tattooed is a weird thing. People think they can just come up to you and touch you and talk to you about your skin no matter where you are or what you’re doing. And seriously it is so tiresome in the summer months, wearing shorts and t-shirts and having to talk about your limbs constantly with strangers. Sometimes I just want to read my book, people. I’m a very private, shy person, so I don’t enjoy all the attention. I get tattoos because I like tattoos, not because I like talking to random people in the street. After seven years it gets pretty old.

My boyfriend is also heavily tattooed; arms, legs, feet, chest…

He is in the midst of getting a Japanese back piece of a tiger and dragon. For those of you who don’t know, that means the tattoo goes from the back of his knees to his neck. It’s quite the endeavor.

This is a picture of him like a quarter way through the initial outline. OUCH!

He seems to get a much more positive response with his tattoos. I don’t know if it’s a girl vs. boy thing or if it’s because he’s much more outgoing than I am and has a better outlook on all the attention he gets for being so colorful. He recently took his kids swimming though and said he had an awkward time being stared at in the change room, haha.

5) Any advice for those interested in getting tattooed but haven't gotten one yet?

Yes. So much advice it’s not even funny. I have an entire section on my blog about tattoo shop etiquette and all the FAQs and do’s and don’ts…http://novarella.blogspot.com/p/tattoo-faq.html

Getting your first tattoo is scary, exciting and fun. You don’t know what to expect, and tattoo shops can be intimidating places. I say just do it if you want to. It’s not as big a deal as people make it out to be, and if you’re ready for it then it doesn’t matter what anybody else says. Know what you want, where you want it and have reference to bring along with you so the tattooer can get into your head a little bit. Be flexible with your ideas, be polite and be excited! Getting tattooed is as fun and interesting as it is painful. Good luck!