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About a year ago I started a project called A Stranger A Day to overcome my shyness and talk to people. The challenge: talk to a stranger a day for a year of my life and try to convince them to let me take a picture and share a story. Since most tattoos have a story behind them, this was my conversation starter and a common thread that linked them all. Every week I have been sharing the story of the week here on Vancouver Is Awesome.

With the year now over and 365+ strangers and their stories documented, I’ll continue to talk to a stranger every once in a while, and post a story weekly here on VIA.

Stranger #370 – weeklyish posts | Location: Lucy’s Eastside Diner on Main

Hello dear readers :) This is the first post of 2012. The story was found last year, just a day or two before I went to Mexico to visit family. I made it my purpose to stay away from the computer and social networks as much as possible while enjoying family time, hence the lateness of the post. It sure felt good, but I also couldn’t wait to share this story with you. After enjoying awhite russian and a delish meal, I gave the leap of faith and asked him for a story. It required a leap of faith because I hadn’t done this in a while and because I’ve noticed, the most visible the tattoos of a collector, odds are said person is asked a lot about them —making the experience a bit uncomfortable.

Hoping not to come across as a tipsy, disrespectful being, I went up to him and explained the project. I’m happy I did, because what followed was a great insight into his life:

“This is my most recent tattoo. The writing says ‘Straight Edge’, I don’t know if you know what that means? No drinking, no drugs, no smoking and no promiscuous sex. It is a lifestyle I choose to live. I have the X’s all over my body, ‘Drug Free’ on my lower knuckles, an X of my throat… this was done just last Thursday.

I believe it is an awesome way to live. I’m heavily involved in hardcore music, which is where it came from. Most of my tattoos are sort of whatever, but I get a lot of Straight Edge tattoos, because it is something I chose to live by for the rest of my life.”

So there you go. I’m glad and always feel honoured when people share. We talked a bit more about tattoos and what not,  and then as usual, I thanked him and went on my way.

All the best for this new year. Take care you all, enjoy your life, respect others and have a blast!

Thanks a bunch stranger!

For all the 365+ stories, click here: astrangeraday.com

About a year ago I started a project called A Stranger A Day to overcome my shyness and talk to people. The challenge: talk to a stranger a day for a year of my life and try to convince them to let me take a picture and share a story. Since most tattoos have a story behind them, this was my conversation starter and a common thread that linked them all. Every week I have been sharing the story of the week here on Vancouver Is Awesome.

With the year now over and 365+ strangers and their stories documented, I’ll continue to talk to a stranger every once in a while, and post a story weekly here on VIA.

Stranger #369 || Location: The Charlatan, on the Drive

You rarely ever think of pubs as places to get soup —they don’t even put it on the menu, but you’d be surprised. Some nights I come to this place to have soup for dinner and read (I know right? No wonder I find little things like this). The place has proven to be good for this, and little by little I came to meet a somewhat regular crowd. They are there when I arrive and are still there when I leave. Tattoos have come into conversation many times, and more than one person has shared a story or two or their views on them with me.

This one story came in one of those nights. I was having soup and reading an article on black holes (the space ones). I had decided to sit not on the bar, but in a candle-lit table on the corner. Halfway through my dinner this gentleman showed up. He was one of those regulars, and we had exchanged a couple of words before. He usually sits at the bar and draws. We got talking about tattoos one time, and this time he came to me because he had a new story. The convo went sort of like this:

I have a bunch of stories, but this is the most recent one. You know I do tattoos, so not long ago I was with a girl. Well, it was sort of a date… not the first one, probably the second one, and she wanted to get a tattoo…—he pulled his cellphone out and showed me a picture of the finished piece, eight or seven stickmen similar to what you see above.

She wanted to get all of this little stickmen, some girls and some boys, to represent her brothers and sisters. I told her I could do that, but to put her at ease and also to prove to myself that I could still do it (I hadn’t done one in a bit), I did this one on my leg first.

I hadn’t seen the tattoo until then. He quickly put it back down. I asked if I could take a shot of it and post it here. He said I could and here you have it. Quite the story. It took me a bit to write (a couple of days), but I also wanted to see how much I remembered after the fact. I did take some notes, but tried not to transcribe it exactly. I liked the change on the approach. Anyways, that’s it. See you on the next post.

Thanks stranger!

For all the 365+ stories, click here: astrangeraday.com

About a year ago I started a project called A Stranger A Day to overcome my shyness and talk to people. The challenge: talk to a stranger a day for a year of my life and try to convince them to let me take a picture and share a story. Since most tattoos have a story behind them, this was my conversation starter and a common thread that linked them all. Every week I have been sharing the story of the week here on Vancouver Is Awesome.

With the year now over and 365+ strangers and their stories documented, I’ll continue to talk to a stranger every once in a while, and post a story weekly here on VIA.

Stranger #368 [weekly posts] || Location: Prado on the Drive

More from the weekly posts. Going for days without talking to strangers makes you lose momentum, but it’s always very rewarding when you suck the nerves up and do it again, once more. It’s like a good flashback —a flashback that’s real. This time I was done having a coffee and organizing some thoughts when I approached her. She was doing some drawings at a table nearby. Some of her ink was showing, and she had a calm vibe, so I went up to her and explained this weekly phase of the project. It turned out she was a tattoo artist, and shared this one piece for the blog:

“You should get the girl, but make sure you get the tree too (in the photo). This represents taking a risk. I’m a risk taker. She is standing right on the edge, and she is about to jump off and take a risk, a leap of faith.

That represents when I changed my life around. I had a very comfortable job as a teacher, making a good amount of money, etc. I realized it was no longer my passion anymore, and I needed to change my life. I decided to quit my job and take the risk of becoming a tattoo artist. So this is when I got her. She represents me sort of taking a leap of faith and trusting that everything was going to fall into place. I was lucky to find a mentor who apprenticed me for a few years, and it has just been growing. This month, December, has been the busiest month of my whole career…”

It was a really heart-warming story for me —which comes at a time of great leaps of faith and the pursue of newly realized interests. Funny enough, the day went by and towards the end, I crossed paths with another tattooer. This time he approached me and a very interesting conversation (and tattoo story) unfolded. But that will be another post.

Thanks stranger!

For all the 365+ stories, click here: astrangeraday.com

About a year ago I started a project called A Stranger A Day to overcome my shyness and talk to people. The challenge: talk to a stranger a day for a year of my life and try to convince them to let me take a picture and share a story. Since most tattoos have a story behind them, this was my conversation starter and a common thread that linked them all. Every week I have been sharing the story of the week here on Vancouver Is Awesome.

With the year now over and 365+ strangers and their stories documented, I’ll continue to talk to a stranger every once in a while, and post a story weekly here on VIA.

Location: The Elysian

Hi all! I can’t believe it’s been almost a month since the show. Feels like it has been longer than that. Life has been weird since then and I still miss how fun this was. Luckily, I still have the weekly posts to do. One thing I’ve noticed: not doing the strangering for days in a row only causes the encounter to be a lot more full of nerves, but also a bit more rewarding (probably in direct co-relation to the first thing I mentioned).

I came by during a coffee break from work. I remember that one of the baristas (and now friend) had asked a long time ago if I had talked to their baker. I was running out of time then, and although I hadn’t, I let the opportunity pass. I remembered that offer yesterday and went to see if said person was still around. My friend called him to come to the front, but didn’t mention a thing. I then did my pitch.

“I can tell you about my most recent one, this one.”—he turned and showed me the little bag on his arm and let me take the shot.

“Last summer I went traveling. I chased a girl down to Toronto. I went to spend an indefinite amount of time there. I got there and within three days she told me to back away. I had just moved. I had no ticket back or anything. I didn’t know what to do. So I just tossed a bunch of stuff that I had brought with me, and grabbed a bag,  put socks and underwear there and went around traveling on my credit card. I went to Montreal, New York… all around. I spent about a month or more being basically a hobo, haha. It was good and bad. I got the tattoo on my travels, Bedford(?) Ontario.”

He soon had to return to his hide-out at the back, but I was left with a nice picture and story. I thanked him and my friend and went back to my desk. Gosh, I do miss this.

Thank you all, and thanks stranger!

For all the 365+ stories, click here: astrangeraday.com

About a year ago I started a project called A Stranger A Day to overcome my shyness and talk to people. The challenge: talk to a stranger a day for a year of my life and try to convince them to let me take a picture and share a story. Since most tattoos have a story behind them, this was my conversation starter and a common thread that linked them all. Every week I have been sharing the story of the week here on Vancouver Is Awesome.

With the year now over and 365+ strangers and their stories documented, I’ll continue to talk to a stranger every once in a while, and post a story weekly here on VIA.

Stranger #366 <—- yup!

Location: The Charlatan on the Drive

Wow is a good word to start this post, as I still can’t believe this happened. I came across this story last Monday. It had been a good two weeks since I had set the project aside to take a breather and try to catch up in school (not fun). After a day that involved work, me at a clinic, and final projects, I came to my good ol’ Monday hangout spot. I was half way through a bowl of soup when a lady came to me and asked if I was who I was (the one behind this project). I said I was indeed that person. She said she had recognized me and wanted to tell me about this very special tattoo she had. She started telling me the story, describing the tattoo before I had even seen it. Still dazzled by this, I asked her to give me a second to set the voice recorder on my phone. A Stranger had come TO ME to tell me her own story. That was not happening.

“About 9 years ago my dad was dying of cancer. He was a scientist. He actually worked at the Cancer Agency, doing cancer research —the deadly irony of it all. Anyway, I got a couple of tattoos in his honour, and one of them is my ‘cancer-fighting molecule’. I just made it up. It looks like a molecule and it’s supposed to fight cancer, but it doesn’t work… ‘cos you know, he died. And I miss him every single day. That’s why I don’t cover it up, because even though it is super dorky and I don’t really like how it looks, I love my dad. A lot of time I just wish I had him give me a hug, or give me shit or just… be my dad, you know?”

I felt goosebumps. I asked her then if I could take the picture. I was very curious as how she had recognized me, as that place has your average pub/late night place lighting. “I saw you on CBC some time ago. I thought it was a very interesting project, and I wanted to find you and tell you about this one.”  We kept on talking for a bit and told her my own parent-related story. I agreed with her when she told me this random sharing could be quite cathartic. Out of nowhere, and after hard days, this project made my day again. I still can’t believe this happened.

Thank you stranger!

For all the 365+ stories, click here: astrangeraday.com

About a year ago I started a project called A Stranger A Day to overcome my shyness and talk to people. The challenge: talk to a stranger a day for a year of my life and try to convince them to let me take a picture and share a story. Since most tattoos have a story behind them, this was my conversation starter and a common thread that linked them all. Every week I have been sharing the story of the week here on Vancouver Is Awesome.

With the year now over and 365+ strangers and their stories documented (and a beautiful show where a bunch of people came to check all of the stories in one place), I’ll continue to talk to a stranger every once in a while, and post a story weekly here.

This is another story collected during the 365 journey. It’s a beautiful coincidence: the project relied heavily on the coffee shop culture in Vancouver, so finding this was perfect.

Location: Our Town Coffee

After a productive day, I ended up at Our Town. After meetings were done and having a few minutes to kill before the next meeting, the perfect opportunity to collect a story presented itself. It was random, but it gave the chance for a really cool story to come to the blog. She told me the deal behind this one:

“I always wanted to get a tattoo with the word… well, ‘flaneur’ is a French word for someone who hangs out at a coffee shop and watches the world go by. It’s from the 20s, but there is no such thing as a ‘flaneuse’, the female version. It is a male word only. I guess it is a grammatical thing only, so I thought it would be funny if I got ‘flaneuse’, because I’m a girl who hangs out at a coffee shop. The logo is a mug, but I put the logo of the coffee shop I worked at for about ten years in there…”

Wow. I did not know of the existence of this word! I thanked her a bunch, scribbled the blog down on a piece of paper and carried on with my night. Very cool/enlightening stories were found towards the end of this project.

Thanks stranger!

To check out the entire project and for updates on future shows and releases, go to: astrangeraday.com Thank you all!