Karen's Ink Balances the Physical and the Intellectual

Monday was a good tattoo day. I met Karen on Sixth Avenue in the 20's after her right ankle caught my attention and we chatted for a bit about tattoos.

The piece above is about 10 years old and is based on Northwestern Native American art. Karen studied art history in college and felt that this style of art is "smarter" and speaks in "more intelligent visual dialects" than other art forms.

This tattoo is based on "the dance of the wolf hunter". The following piece is similar in design.
It represents the physical aspect of her self.

Around 10 years ago, Karen finished college and drove up to Valdez, Alaska. She had no immediate purpose to go there, but she was just exploring, seeing that part of the country.

It was there, in a town so small that the grocery store often ran out of bread, that she found an amazing tattoo artist working out of a place called, appropriately, Valdez Tattoo. She didn't remember the artist but could recall that he was Hawaiian, which struck her as remarkable.

A quick call to the number listed on the net for Valdez Tattoo was a wrong number and the person who answered the phone wasn't aware of any tattoo shop nearby. So finding a link met with a dead end.

On the other hand foot, the physical aspect of the wolf tattoo seems, in her opinion, to balance the intellectual qualities of her other tattoo (on her left foot), which was inked somewhere in Chicago over 10 years ago.
Karen explains that the moon represents the feminine, and that the symbol within the moon is the astrological sign for Jupiter, which stands for knowledge and expansion of the mind.

Thanks to Karen for sharing her ink with us here on Tattoosday!