Z'boss and I attended the Tattoo and Body Art Expo at the Reliant Center in Houston on Saturday. Yes, you read that right. Why did we go? We were curious to see if anybody had some lunar ink. We found a few. We also found a guy being suspended from five hooks in his back. But I digress. Today's blog is part one of a two-part blog on our experience at the tat expo as told by Stephanie.

Our introduction to the world of tats and body art was through Michael “Zeo” Woods...an incredibly articulate Houston-born-and-bred tattoo artist of Studio 8 Tattoo. He promptly burst our bubble...yes, he’s done space stuff, but not much. A few solar systems, the Cats-Eye Nebula, some comets, and mostly on women. We headed to the podium to ask if an announcement could be made to invite folks with any space related art – preference for the Moon, of course – to come and talk to us. The MC made the announcement saying that NASA was here...no really, NASA...and we wanted to talk with them if they had space or solar system or lunar or anything above the atmosphere tattoo’ed on their bodies. And so we met Amanda, Susan, and Harold.

Amanda is adding to her cosmic collection one planet and star at a time. The work – note Jupiter’s bands and red spot – was done by Southern Boys Tattoos. Amanda is a fan of all things space and got her ideas from space science shows on the History channel and other stations. Susan has an entire galaxy on her leg – in the shape of an “S” for Susan. This galaxy is her world – it represents her ability to control her space and her future. The artist is Clint of CMFL/Article 91 (texasfriedcmfl.com). Harold asked if his tat fit the bill, showing the alien tattooed on his back by Southern Boys Tattoos. He informed us he was waiting for “them” to return to Earth to retrieve him. Happily, we discovered he was joking. WFTM: Waiting for the Mothership. Yeah. Harold and is son are interested in aliens and, like most of “The Inked” we interviewed, he is a watcher of science TV. The flames are a tribute to his son’s friend, who is in the military and details autos with flames. Our next step was to track down the artists...

Come back next week as Stephanie "reveals" more about our adventure to the Houston Tattoo and Body Art Expo. By the way, if you want to see pics, go to the MyMoon LunrFlick gallery.

by: Andy S.

Monday May-24-2010