Emily Fu’s mandala tattoo is not quite what it appears to be at first glance. A closer look reveals that it is a representation of the infinite library found in the story, “The Library of Babel,” by Jorge Luis Borges. [If you’ve never read that story, it’s a great one you can find here.] Her […]

Poe’s tattoo is an original design that she and her tattoo artist, Peter Toatley of Providence Tattoo, collaborated on to capture the meaning of a passage from Rainer Maria Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet #8. Macro photographs of tattoos capture small portions of tattoos, like portraits, so the design as a whole is obscured […]

Sondra’s Rose and Compass tattoo was done by Mike Johnston at Blackstone Tattoo Co., Pawtucket, RI. We did the shoot at the Makers and Merchants Sale on Wickenden St. in Providence. Sondra explains the meaning this tattoo has for her: This tattoo came to me during the greatest transition of my young adult so far. […]

My newest tattoo of Johannes Kepler’s Platonic Solids design was done by Dennis at Providence Tattoo. The Platonic Solids have a significant metaphysical status. In Plato’s Timaeus, they are the basic elements forming the material universe. Their special status is sustained in the alchemical and early modern astronomical traditions. I specialize in Ancient Greek philosophy […]