Tell Us about Your Tattoos

Tattoos Tattoost e ll us about your

featuring Melissa 'Moe' Brown

CAT: This is actually a portrait of my first pet I got on my own. In 2012, my dad passed away shortly after my 21st birthday and I dealt with it about as well as one could imagine. A few weeks later I was having a bad day and a friend of mine showed me her cat had just had kittens. Amongst a mountain of black and brown fur, one tiny white fluff ball stood out. I had to have her. I got her two months later and she changed my life for the better. So I decided to thank her by permanently keeping her by my side.

SUNFLOWER: This was my first tattoo on my arm. I have always loved sunflowers and in the beginning, my arm was going to be a sleeve of my “favorite things” so Sunflower was an easy start. I had to haggle with the artist because he didn’t think my placement was the best and didn’t love that I wanted it greyscale, but I have been happy with it ever since.

MOOSE: If you know me, you know I love moose. It’s not really an “obsession” - however, I have threatened to abandon city life and run away to Alaska to join a herd. “She died as she lived,” they would say - haha. But on top of that, this tattoo was my reward for quitting smoking.

WOMAN: Three years ago I went hiking with a friend in Shawnee National Park and we decided to take a detour to find some waterfalls. We ended up at one off the beaten path, but there were still a decent amount of people there. We had only been there 10 minutes when something tragic happened. I turned around just in time to see a woman fall over a 40ft cliff. Unfortunately, she passed away, and I, once again, did not deal with death well. I spent a lot of time in solitude, reading books and I stumbled upon a book of poems written by Rupi Kuar, each poem matched with a doodle of hers. This is a drawing from one of the poems that was a big help in me getting better. It simply said “and here you are living, despite it all.” And that’s all I needed. A little reminder that no matter what I’ve gone through in the past, I’m still here. And I’m not going anywhere.