Jess' Hopi Bear Tattoo

Whereas my younger sister Jessica does not indulge in body art to the extent that I do, she does have one tattoo and a few extra earrings in one of her ears. She's living in Seattle at the moment, and is studying acupuncture and Chinese medicine.

Shown here is Jess' Hopi Bear tattoo. Jess had this to say when I asked her about what it meant: "I got it done because I'd had a bunch of dreams over many years with bears in them and that the bears always seemed to be protecting me and/or keeping me company, so I figured that maybe it was a spirit animal of sorts and decided that I needed it to support me literally in my lower back which is a weak area physically for me."

The photo above gives you a good idea of the size, and you can see it is placed on the small of her back. I think this picture really shows the outstanding dimensionality of the design.

To the left is a detailed closeup where you can really see the detailing.

The design was drawn for her by a Native American artist and the original was just a black and white line drawing. Jess chose to have it colored in a traditional style, as the Hopi would have painted it. The tatttoo was done by Greg Kulz and once again his linework was excellent, as he managed to duplicate the tiny lines and pen and ink speckles in the design.