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In Ink Spot, Amy Price stops strangers in Dallas to shoot, and learn about, their body art.
While knocking back fireball shots at Swallow Lounge in Deep Ellum I notice the bartendress, 24-year-old Nathalie Lauren, sports some of the best artwork I have seen around Dallas. Let's take a look. Note: One of the images below is possibly NSFW, if your W is pretty conservative.
On Lauren's left arm, surrounded by her favorite flowers, a bright red fox leaps from the sunflowers. For Lauren the fox represents a childhood memory of watching her favorite movie, The Adventures of Milo and Otis. "It reminds me of the part in the movie where the fox swimming in water singing 'da da do duh do' and it still cracks me up to this day...and well, because I'm a fox" she explains. The sunflowers remind her of her home back in El Paso, where they grew in abundance in her backyard.
Lauren's sidepiece was her first tattoo. "It started as three hearts and it was just something fun but now at age 24 I'm finally in the middle of getting re-done." Most of her artwork was created by the infamous Oliver Peck at Elm Street Tattoo.
Following the outline of Lauren's collarbone is the word "lust." I had to ask. She said that it is meant to represent struggles in her past which she calls her "most deadly sin."
On the comical spectrum Lauren said her favorites are the steak and cheese on her calf and the $1,000,000 on her pinky, which was also her most painful tattoo.
Lauren's next tattoo endeavor will be for her cat Pappy, and for their tenth anniversary coming up. "Is it lame that I'm like married to my cat?" asks Lauren not realizing I have my cat tattooed directly on my prominent forearm. Lauren said she does not mind people asking her about her tattoos, but they must obey the laws of tattoo etiquette. "They can look, but not touch."
