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Theresa Blackburn

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I was always against tattoos. I felt they were mostly silly, that some were even outrageous, and I had a hard time comprehending why anyone would endure pain in order to put something permanent on their skin.

Enlarge Photo

This is a close-up look at Theresa’s tattoo.

The key word in the above paragraph is was. When I turned 40 I wanted to do something daring, something a little over-the-top, something outrageous.

I'm not good when it comes to heights, so bungee jumping was out of the question; my husband was about to embark on a new career and heading back to school, so buying a Mustang was beyond our budget; and having a mid-life crisis where I went out and found a younger man just sounded like too much work. I had just gotten my man broken in and trained, why would I want to go out and start all over again?

So a little more than a year ago, I trotted off to the Green Eyed Monster Tattoo Parlor. Jody Denny is the artist and owner - a 33-year-old tattoo powerhouse.

She's a talented woman who has been tattooing for nearly five years. Her shop is attached to her home on the Houlton Road in Woodstock.

Having 'virgin' skin, as they say, I didn't know much about tattoos or tattooing. After asking around town, a few of my lady friends sent me to her.

I wasn't interested in a set of falling stars across my torso or a barbed-wire band around my upper arm.

I was looking for something a little more original, meaningful, and beautiful. I knew what I wanted - I just needed someone to get the idea from my head and onto paper.

Jody was great. My idea was a vine of flowers, each flower representing my family members (my husband and three kids).

Each flower would be coloured in their birthstone.

First, Jody spent a bit of time finding out what kinds of flowers offered the colours that I was looking for. She wanted the tattoo to be not only pretty, but authentic - true to what it was supposed to be. Then I spent some time sending her notes about ideas, and pasted photos from the Internet of the kind of tattoo I was looking for. Then she began drawing.

When she sent me the first draft, I was blown away. It was exactly how I had envisioned it. I was beginning to get excited.

Fast forward to the week of my appointment. I arrive and she's got the tattoo printed off on special paper that applies the image to your foot so she's able to trace the tattoo. I look at the image and think - oh my ... it's too big. It would have covered the entire top of my foot ... and I wasn't ready to be that daring.

"No problem!" she says, and resizes the image for me. And after it's made smaller I breathe a sigh of relief.

And then the fun begins. Holding onto a tennis ball I hold my breath as she starts the needling. Really, it wasn't that bad ... but then again, I had nothing to compare it to. It was my first time. I was told my tattoo would hurt more than others because of where I decided the tattoo was going to be, as the top of the foot is a very painful area to tattoo.

But oh, when it was finished, the smile on my face said it all. I was so happy. I had a beautiful piece of art on my foot that represented the people that meant the most to me. I couldn't thank her enough.

She had allowed me to do something a little 'crazy' for my 40th birthday, which made me happy, and it didn't cost nearly as much as a new Mustang, which made my husband happy!

The proof that the tattoo was perfect: the fact that I smile every time I look at the piece of art on my foot.

In picking the place to have a tattoo, Jody Denny says I was smart (my mother would argue with her on that ... she thought me getting a tattoo was an act of stupidity!)

I chose a place where I could see her artwork, and where skin doesn't do much stretching.

Jody says people need to be more cognizant of stretch areas when they're deciding on a tattoo - because the place where the tattoo goes is just as important as the art that goes there.

Take for instance the midriff area ... it is the balloon area of our bodies ... some days it's small, deflated, tight, other days it's big, filled with air, and stretched. Depending on our weight and depending on our life events like pregnancy and appendicitis, a tattoo of, say, a butterfly can turn into a fuzzy set of curtains overnight depending on how much weight is gained.

Think of the cute tattoos that circle the belly button. Do you really want your sweet tattoo of the sun to turn into a super nova that surrounds a black hole? Probably not.

The same goes for the breast area ... men and women alike. This area stretches - and is impacted by gravity, and anything that is small, elongates over time - Tinker Bell can quickly turn into Big Bird if you're not careful where you place your pixie.

Think of all the areas that stretch with weight and just avoid them.

So what about places to get tattooed if you're big? Like me, the foot is a good choice, your wrist, the ball of your shoulder, your ankles, the lower part of your calf and the back of your neck.

You're going to spend a bit of cash on something that's going to be with you for life, you might want to keep it looking like it's supposed to.

My friend Hilary Stockford teases one of her friends about her seahorse tattoo on her pelvis. The joke is that when her friend gets pregnant, she'll be able to ride her seahorse like a circus animal.

Whether weight gain causes big changes or little changes to a tattoo, sometimes it's all about perspective.

Jody Denny says one of her friends has a hummingbird that is on her hip ... and now the poor hummingbird has a stretch mark running through it - a single grey stretch mark that bugs the heck out of her friend.

And while Jody says in this particular case the difference in the actual tattoo is small, her friend's reaction to it is huge. It was her favourite piece of body art and now she considers it ruined.

And the fact that Jody carries a bit of weight herself is a plus for some of her clients - especially the larger ones. Larger clients are more comfortable with her.

She knows her own tattoo limitations - refusing to have anything in her mid-section.

I think that's why I trusted her ... she could counsel me on what was right and 'where' was right because aside from being smart and talented, she walked my walk - and that fact made me more comfortable with my choices.

Theresa Blackburn is a wife, mother and New Brunswick Community College instructor who lives and diets in Woodstock. You can email her at theresa@mybigfatlife.ca, or join her group, Big Fat Life, on Facebook.