the tattoo

Monday, June 15, 2009

Josh has wanted a tattoo for as long as I've known him. I always had the same response, "No way. No tattoos". Every so often, Josh would bring it up again. A few months ago he started talking more seriously about the tattoo he's always wanted. "Veritas Vincit" which is Latin for Truth Conquers. It pretty much encompasses how Josh lives his life and feels that others should live.

One night a few weeks ago Josh was playing around with some fonts in Photoshop trying to find one he liked. I was bored so I said that I would come up with something. I gave him some options and then totally redesigned a specific font he liked. He had me print out different sizes to get an idea of scale. When he finally settled on a size he cut out the letters with an Exacto and made a stencil of the lettering.

Every night for a week we would sit at the kitchen table and I would stencil this "tattoo" on his arm. We'd look at it, talk about it and then he'd wash it off. I knew this was serious.



Josh asked when he could do it and I said I needed some time to adjust to the idea. "Not before August", I told him. He got it at the end of May. And you know what? I actually really like it. It's not enormous, or ugly. It's simple and clean looking. Plus it's pretty cool that I ended up designing it.



The responses to it have really surprised me. His family was pretty chilled out about it. My brother and his two tattoos already paved the way with my folks. I asked Josh what he was going to say to Jasper when Jasper wants a tattoo. Josh said, "If you want the same tattoo for two years and it really means something to you then okay".

Labels: all you need is love

posted by kimberly, 9:40 AM