Steve

This piece was a gift from two incredible people, Dakota Weik from Inked Abroad and Tara Strong from CoCreate. After connecting with Tara to talk about my tattoo journey, and sharing my story of 2 kidney transplants, years of dialysis, the loss of my father to suicide, and my back piece tattoo dedicated to my father, from the overwhelming kindest of her heart, Tara reached out to Dakota with an idea to make my dream tattoo come true. They then took me on a trip of a life time across the globe for a life changing piece from a dream artist I had followed for a very long time, Sandry Riffard! In collaboration with his lady, Claudine Taillandier who is an amazing photographer and even more talented digital artist, they created a piece that represents the challenges I have overcome in life, and created my own version of paradise with the fire and flames life gave me. After years of everyone having extreme reactions to my scars from dialysis and countless surgeries, now no one ever even notices my scars, they only tell me this piece is the most insane and best tattoo they have ever seen! To have this change in my life is truly indescribable and has over filled my heart from just generosity and kindness shown to me from Dakota Weik, Tara Strong, Michael Corman, Sandry Riffard, and Claudine Taillandier. From the entirety of my heart.... THANK YOU ALL! PS. I can't wait to return soon to finish the rest of my arm sleeve with Sandry's ridiculous stained glass style!

This piece shows the story of my life, and is base on the Japanese’s painting, “The Wave”. The dragon represents my own bad luck, and being in the ocean show the dragon’s strength. But the waves crash against a cliff with my father’s initials carved into it, as my father is my rock and savior who gave me my first transplant and saved my life. The cherry blossom tree represents my mother, watching over me and protection me.