Bang Bang - Bang Bang: my life in ink

I met Bang Bang because about ten years ago I used to hang out downtown, by the tattoo shop where he worked. I would usually just roam around the streets, but one night I went into the shop and started looking around at nipple rings, and asking all kinds of questions about tattoos.

Tupac was playing loud, and Bang Bang was just sitting there, looking at mewith this face onthinking, this girl isnt going to buy shit. I could tell! He was like, this girl would never get a piercing... she would never get a tattoo.

I remember thinking, this guy is gangsta as fuck. He doesnt give a fuck about mehe doesnt know who I am and that is brilliant. So thats why I wanted him to do my tattoo. I knew he wasnt going to try any funny shit or act crazy; he was just going to do my tattoo.

When he showed me the Freddy Krueger tattoo he did on his boss at the time, it was all over.

And thats the day I got my first Bang Bang tattoo!

I love tattoos because I think theyre another way of expressing myself artistically. Theyre another outlet for art, and I love art. Each one of my tattoos means something to me, and theyre not going anywheretheyre here for life. I love that.

When I first got a tattoo I was seventeen years old and I was in Japan. They needed consent from a guardian, so I called my mom and she was surprisingly into it. That one was just behind my ear. I went to Australia from there, and got two music notes on my ankle, which Bang Bang later covered with my falcon. And then I came to New York....

My favorite tattoo is still the first one Bang didthe Sanskrit on my hip.

Eventually, I want to be covered. Im going to keep my skin pretty as long as possible, but the minute that starts to go southBang Bang can just knock me out and Ill wake up a week later, covered in tattoos. Maybe when Im fifty.

Tattoos arent something I want to be patient about. When I want one, I want it that moment. If youre lucky enough to find a really great artist, youre going to get it. Most of my work has been done in New York, by Bang Bang. But if not in NYC, in a hotel room, or my house, or wherever I am.

I was surprised when he wouldnt put my first tattoo where I wanted it to goup the back of my legbut I was so shocked that I was actually open to his idea of moving it, and Im glad I did. I was still early on in my tattoo game, so I trusted him as an expert more than I trusted myself because I didnt know.

When youre well known, it can be hard knowing who to trust, but I trusted Bang Bang from the first time he tattooed me. Im a very observant person, even when it might not seem like it. I may not say much, but Im definitely taking it all in. When I figure out enough about who you are, that determines how close Ill allow you to get to me.

The thing I value most about Bang Bang is his honesty. He will never tattoo a bad idealike EVER. That is the best thing about himhe has shut down so many of my crazy ideas. Or hell correct them, tweak them, and turn them into something great. Like my gun tattooI was sure I wanted two of them on my collarbones, but he talked me out of it and Im so glad. Bang is invested in his artits not about the money. Thats really rare and very special.

I love you, Bang Bang!

When I was eighteen years old, I ordered a tattoo kit online. The moment it arrived, I sat down at the kitchen table and got to work. I sat for hours on end, day after day, delivering permanent mistakes to my cousins, friends, and anywhere my right hand could reach on my own body.

Twelve years later, and Ive tattooed Rihanna poolside in the Dominican Republic, worked on Justin Bieber at forty thousand feet in the air on board a private plane, inked Katy Perry after the halftime show at Super Bowl XLIX, and etched a globally iconic lion tattoo on Cara Delevingnes index finger while hanging out in Rihannas hotel room in the middle of the night.

Ive been told my life is the American dream. I didnt grow up with much, and against all odds I made it. It didnt come easy, and I worked my fingers to the bone to get here, but not a day goes by when I dont take a minute to appreciate how amazing my life is and how lucky I am to live it.

My name is Bang Bang.

I hope you enjoy my story.

I was conceived on top of a weight bench in my grandmothers attic on Valentines Day, 1985, and was born nine months later on Thanksgiving.

Most people dont know the specifics of their conception, and believe me, I wish I didnt know mine. For one thing, Valentines Day will always feel oddly compromised.

My mother, Susan, was a seventeen-year-old high school dropout, who was working at Dominos Pizza when I came into the world. My dad was able to stay in high schooland later went on to collegebut the two of them were never an official couple after that magical night on the weight bench, so he wasnt around much when I was very young.

For the first couple years of my life, my mom and I lived in Pennsylvania with my great-grandmother Edith, about an hour outside of Philadelphia in a town called Pottstown, where I was born. Nobody talked about it at the time, but I think Edith was a lesbian in a town and era where being gay was frowned upon. Though she lived with her partner, we never witnessed any sign of affection between the two of them. Until a lightbulb went off sometime in my late teens, I figured they were just friends and roommates. Edith was a toymaker who made porcelain dolls. When my mom was pregnant, she made a doll in my presumed likeness, and its one of the only artifacts left from that time in my life.