Author Archive

I started this 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 will be my conversation starter and a common thread that links them all. Every week I will be sharing one of my favourite findings here on Vancouver Is Awesome. Join me in this Stranger a Day adventure and let me know what you think!

Stranger #211

Location: Commercial Drive sidewalk, just outside Cafe Deux Soleils

Late night strolls with non-political intentions led me to this story (this was found during the election day). It was a bit late, and they were standing outside the Deux Soleils when I ran into them on my way home. I took the opportunity to tell them about the project, and out of the two, she had this one piece, and happily shared it for the project:

“So, the paper clip reminds me to keep my sh*t together,” she said.
“She is very constipated…” he whispered.
“Shut the f*** up!” she replied as we all laughed.

“No, I’m not constipated at all! I got this one when I was 18, in California. It was about my desire to put everything together in my life, and the people and places and experiences that would allow me to do that.

My best friend in the world, Elaine, who lives in Los Angeles has a paper clip tattooed on the back of her arm as well, we got them at the same time with the desire to remind each other to keep everything together. It is a measure of accomplishment after harsh experiences in high school, when we discovered what in our lives keep our lives full, and what we needed to carry that on. As well as to remind us of each other, of course.

You know, a very simple spiral can keep your life in order. The spiral, which is what a paper clip is, is the combination of the forward motion of a line and the cyclical motion of the circle. A reminder that the passage of time brings things and pulls things together. Plus, I like to write to-do lists on my arm. So this is what the tattoo is about…”

“Gosh, you are doing this just to amaze me, right?” Said he. It was pretty impressive, and I loved the simple yet complex meaning of the tattoo. I thanked them both for giving me some of their time to talk, shared the blog address and then we went our separate ways. Good times.

Thank you strangers!

To check out the daily strangers, click here: astrangeraday.com

I started this 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 will be my conversation starter and a common thread that links them all. Every week I will be sharing one of my favourite findings here on Vancouver Is Awesome.

Join me in this Stranger a Day adventure and let me know what you think!

Stranger #206

Location: Prado cafe on the Drive

More reading errands made me encounter this story. I was grabbing a glass of water on my way out when I saw some ink peeking out his jacket. He seemed to be a cool guy (and he was indeed awesome), then I told him about this little thing I do. He offered to sit for a bit and chat about his tattoos. He had many, and like he said, “they were all his favourites, that’s why he got them,” so he took a minute to decide which one to share. At the end, he left it up to me and I HAD TO pick the bike-related one (those that know me would know that my bike has been my longest-standing relationship, and I am still in love with her). Anyways, back to tattoos. He let me photograph this one on his arm and then he shared the story:

“I found it stencilled on a factory I was squatting in, in Toronto. It was a run down factory that had huge huge ceilings and graffiti on every single inch of the walls. This was the one piece of graffiti that stuck out, and as part of getting out of this place and the situation where I was in, addicted to crack cocaine and dealing with crazy things in my life, I needed to start finding projects. One of the projects was photography, another one was biking, and another one was involving myself in the community. So when I got this one, it was as a reminder for me to start being involved. My friends and I started doing bike collectives and stuff like that.

Then one day I was with a friend and I kept showing her this photograph of the stencil. It had been the piece that made me realize that I needed to find focus on something to avoid going backwards. So she said ‘ok, then we are tattooing it on you right now’. So she tattooed it on me on the top floor of my punk house, where everyone was a cyclist, and everyone was involved in that community. It became a huge part of my life to become part of cycling and of that community. That’s why I got it.”

Freaking awesome story!!! I confessed I was extremely biased towards picking the bike-related tattoo, as I had felt too that my bike has (in one way or another) saved my life more times than it has attempted to kill me, haha.

He also told me he had a friend back in Toronto who used to do a similar thing of talking to a stranger every day. She would just focus on starting conversation with someone she would never had talked to if it wasn’t for the project. It was a cool thing to hear, more people should talk to strangers, I believe. It was a great encounter. He was a cool guy. I thanked him for sharing his story with the project and then I went on my way.

Thank you stranger!

To check out the daily strangers, click here: astrangeraday.com

I started this 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 will be my conversation starter and a common thread that links them all. Every week I will be sharing one of my favourite findings here on Vancouver Is Awesome.

Join me in this Stranger a Day adventure and let me know what you think!

Stranger #196

Location: the Drive around Kitchener

God, I just met a super cool group of people! And yup, by group I mean around seven of them. I was walking home after having a coffee on the Drive and skyping w/my dad in Mexico (things that make me happy) when I saw a group of friends hanging out. It seemed like they had just stepped out of some hang-out place and where waiting for something. I decided to go up to them and tell them about the project. A couple of them had stories to share. She shared this one:

“Well, my friend here  has the funny stories (about his tattoos), but mine are a bit different. Like this one on my wrist…”

…when my kid was five he drew this. It is a family portrait of him and me, so I got it tattooed. He’s now eight…”

We all went dawwww. It was a super lovely story. It was also a cool combination and contrast of stories in one single encounter (the guy with the ‘funny stories’ also shared his). It represents nicely the vast range of reasons and meanings behind those marks we make on our bodies, stories to remember!

I thanked them all, shared the blog and walked home. :)

Thank you strangers!

To check out the daily strangers, click here: astrangeraday.com

I started this 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 will be my conversation starter and a common thread that links them all. Every week I will be sharing one of my favourite findings here on Vancouver Is Awesome.

Join me in this Stranger a Day adventure and let me know what you think!

Stranger #195

Location: Langara Library

It was on a coffee break during class when I had the chance to collect today’s story. She was sitting by the starbucks when I went up to her and told her about the project. Out of her six tattoos, she shared the ones on her back, with a cool lovely story:

“I got these ones after I finished the first big theatre project I worked on, and for a couple different reasons: I decided to get Thai because a really good friend of mine who got me into doing make up (which I did for years) was Thai, and I thought it was a beautiful language, spoken and written.

The left side is a word that means something like ‘goddess’, but not goddess in the sense we understand it in the western culture, but more of an Earth Mother or a Great Mother. The right side means ‘warrior’ or ‘soldier’. I chose the placement specifically because in the body the left side is often considered feminine and the right is considered masculine. So it is all about balance and duality. That’s a constant for all of my tattoos, I try to keep them very symmetrical…”

She was really cool. I took the picture and then shared the blog. I thanked her for sharing, we introduced ourselves and then I went back to class. :) Awesome stuff.

Thank you stranger!

To check out the daily strangers, click here: astrangeraday.com

I started this 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 will be my conversation starter and a common thread that links them all. Every week I will be sharing one of my favourite findings here on Vancouver Is Awesome.

Join me in this Stranger a Day adventure and let me know what you think!

Stranger #180

Location: JJ Bean yaletown

A break from homework and a bit of decaf. She was around the shop so I randomly decided to approach her and tell her about the project. She shared this one tattoo on her foot.

“It says Carpe Diem and it means ‘seize the day’. It’s been about eight years now and i got it at a time in my life when I felt that that’s what I needed. I wasn’t very happy so I got this to remind me to enjoy every day, to have fun and appreciate it. It is my second tattoo, all of my tattoos are almost like post-it notes to myself to remind me of what’s important in life. I got it done in Brazil, I am from there.”

I told her that I hoped it had worked. “Yes it did! I am way happier now, and it also allows me to spread the message with people, whenever they ask what it means or why I got it, so that’s pretty cool too.” Tattoos as a way of sharing our stories, those that we carry with ourselves. Awesome.

Thank you stranger!

To check out the daily strangers, click here:  astrangeraday.com

I started this 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 will be my conversation starter and a common thread that links them all. Every week I will be sharing one of my favourite findings here on Vancouver Is Awesome.

Join me in this Stranger a Day adventure and let me know what you think!

Stranger #178

Location: Elysian on Ash and Broadway

I was about to finish up some school work when I saw an individual who seemed to have some interesting pieces. His tattoos sure were interestingly-cool and he agreed to share the story for the project:

“In Christian mythology, which is of course an appropriation of a pagan myth, the haron is called the fisher of men. The early christians saw the grace and skill and dexterity with which the heron caught its pray as analogous to the grace and perfection with which god reaped the souls of the righteous up to him. So to me the bird was mythologically significant as the point where the divine and the profane or the mortal interacted.

I make art, and I was interested in the ways in which maybe art functions to something outside of ourselves, although not particularly religious. I was interested in the idea of what it meant to people to become in contact with the divine, whether that be some sort of inspiration or transcended experience, regardless of it being with a god or not. I thought that there was a possibility that art would function to help us look beyond ourselves into something larger and my hope would be to be able to contribute to this kind of experience. The skull in the beak of the heron is there as a representation of what we all have in common…”

He also mentioned that the other bird (which name escapes from my memory) is piercing through the heron’s neck, and it came from a dream that he had where he was taken apart by a flock of birds and assimilated into them, feeling this sort of joy of sacrifice, shaping a life into an example of looking beyond ourselves. “Life is artwork”, I remember him saying, which immediately made me ask what kind of artwork he did. “Painting… performance… but I pretty much figure out what I want to say and then find the best way to do it. I don’t like limiting myself by saying I do one thing or the other…”

It was a pretty cool encounter. I then went to my table to scribble some notes about it. He was a really cool guy, with a story which I find, personally, resonates with me in many many levels. Awesome.

Thank you stranger!

To check out the daily strangers, click here:  astrangeraday.com