At A Glance
Author	San
Contact	San@bme.anon
IAM	BlueStar
When	A month ago
Artist	Remi
Studio	Artistic Impressions
Location	Niagara Falls, ON, Canada

This is the story of my backpiece. For a 19 year old, I considered myself fairly tattooed. Before the backpiece I sported two calf pieces, stars on my hips, two small tattoos on my arms (46&2 and M.C. Escher's Impossible Trident) and a dancing pegasus on my shoulder. I was at Artistics one night, probably getting pierced, but I don't really remember why I was there. I was sitting around and Remi was flipping through a book of faeries that he had bought. He came to a certain page and just stopped. I looked at it. It was absolutely goregous. I kept that in mind. I made an appointment with him to work on my sleeve and went home and thought about the faery.

I made the decision. I wanted that faery. So I talked to Remi about it. He said it'd make a great backpiece. I agreed. So, when I showed up for my appointment on my arm, I said I'd rather start the faery. His eyes lit up like Christmas lights and he ran around getting the stencils and such ready. His roommate, Ralph, told me I was nuts, that it was huge. I got that reaction a lot. After about an hour Remi was ready to see if the stencil fit my back. It did, perfectly on the first try. We put up drapes because I was wearing a zip-up hoody backwards. We took it down later, because I stopped giving a shit about it.

I was nervous. I had a corset done on my back and flinched unintentionally for every piercing. Remi started up the tattoo machine and began the outline. We had all day so he told me to tell him when I've had enough. He started at the bottom of my back and the first line calmed me down a lot. It hurt, but it wasn't unbearable. He hit one spot on my back where I flinched, but Remi just laughed and said, ?must be a nerve?. As I flinched I said, ?Shit! Sorry!?

Everybody I know bitched about going over their spines. I found it hurt beside my spine, not over it. But that was only for that session. My spine started to hurt quite a bit after that. Strange. He got the entire outline and some black colouring in on the first session, which lasted about five to six hours. I was sitting in a chair leaning over the side. Sometimes I was sitting up straight. I used Webbers Vitamin E to heal it and it healed very quickly. Remi is very quick, light handed, and when I get tattooed by him, it always heals quickly.

We scheduled an appointment for the next week and it went about the same. He started to colour in the faery. It didn't hurt as badly as it had before but it was annoying and in some parts very intense. Remi got most of the faery coloured in that sesson and most of my lower back done. After that we had multiple sessions to colour the faery and add detail. The most common reaction I got when people walked by was. ?Holy shit, thats huge!?.

Some parts of my back were not fun at all. Over my spine, on my shoulderblades and my lower back. Mid-back wasn't too terribly bad. Some parts I hardly felt. I would hold on as long as I could for each session and we'd use as much time as we could. Some days Remi would let me lay down and other days I would be sitting up straight, or leaning over the chair. I preferred to lay down because I'm lazy and I could drift off. Eventually I just brought my laptop and let Ralph and Mike put in what they felt like watching. (Family Guy and South Park) It helped a lot, it gave me something to do to pass the time, which was a reason why I would call it quits an hour or so before we were scheduled to finish.

One day, I recall vividly, my friend Eric came with me and sat through the entire (8 hour) day with me. Remi made me go get something to eat around the fifth hour and Eric and I walked to a donut shop and I had the worst coconut cream pie ever. It was about -30 (oC)
out and I was wearing a t-shirt with no back and a hoody on backwards, as to keep me warm while getting tattooed, as I have an abnormal sensitivity to the cold. I didn't want anything touching the fresh tattoo, so I walked to the donut shop that way. It took me a while to warm up again. I get cold when I get tattooed.

Remi had commented on how I don't budge while getting tattooed. However, I take lithium and it makes me tremble. My other meds (antipsychotics) made me twitch and sensitive to the cold, so I would be trembling from the lithium and shaking and twitching from the antipsychotics. Not fun. So I stopped taking my meds before getting tattooed. I would usually 'swing up' into hypomania, and I felt I could last longer that way. I didn't have any of the lethargy from my meds.

The second last session went well. I was pumped to have it finished, and so was Remi. He took Sean's camera and took 24 pictures, to realize there was no film in it. (C'mon, everybody's done that at least once) So he put film in it and took a roll of my back, and then ran away to get it developed. I mean, he took off as I was putting my clothes back on normally. The next day I went to Artistics and he said he wanted to add this here and change that there, so I scheduled an appointment.

The last session was the worst session. Not because of pain or anything, Remi was just touching areas up and such, but there was a woman yelling and screaming at Remi and Phil, the other tattoo artist. I was trying to read a book and I could have thrown it at her. She didn't shut up until after I was done for the day. It was a mini session, only two hours. I gave Remi my camera (Canon Rebel 2000 300 SLR) and I was still unfamiliar with it, and I accidentally turned off the flash. All the pics turned out under-exposed, which sucked.

I really should have kept a journal for every session, but that would get redundant. My aftercare was simple Webbers vitamin E, a very light coating, twice a day. I kept it away from water in the shower and didn't scratch it. It itched very little, actually, even after 8 hour sessions. Remi did an excellent job and I'd reccommend him to anyone. I love my backpiece and I've included a picture too. Enjoy!