Be Our Tattooed Guest: Rachelle + A Winged Mind

Welcome to Be Our Tattooed Guest, an original feature here on Beauty and the Bookshelf! This feature is all about tattoos of the literary, poetic, and bookish variety, and people showing them off! To learn more about Be Our Tattooed Guest, please go here.

Today's guest has a tattoo that may give you wings (and no, it's not Red Bull)...

Rachelle E. Morrison

Website | Twitter

Artist: Andrew @ Slave to the Needle in Seattle, WA (Ballard location)

Design: The Mind is Winged.

Story: There's a quote by ancient Greek writer/playwright Aristophanes that has stuck with me ever since I heard it many years ago. He said "By words the mind is winged."

And as a writer, I couldn't agree more. In fact, it spoke to my heart so much that I had to tattoo it on my body.

I wanted a piece for a long time that encompassed my love of writing and the written word. I knew Aristophanes quote was going to be the main crux of it and that the piece would be simple in color scheme, but I didn't want only the words. It had to have something more. I thought on it for months, trying to figure out the missing element that really represented how I felt about the quote.

It came to be one day, just like an idea for a shiny new story. A quill. I mean, how simple is that? It was almost a "duh" moment. I thought, what if the tip of the quill looked as if it had just finished writing the last word, and to take it a step further, what if the tip of the quill and the words were one in the same?

When I took the idea to Andrew at Slave to the Needle, he was incredibly excited. He told me it was a unique idea that he hadn't done before and loved the meaning behind it. I gave him free rein to sketch the idea and what he came up with was equal part romantic and whimsical and I LOVED it.

The finished product was gorgeous and I'm incredibly happy with it. The piece serves as my personal mantra. No matter if I'm stuck in a difficult place in a manuscript, or chasing too many plot bunnies, or arduously editing, I can look down as remind myself why I chose to become a writer.

There's nothing more beautiful to me than imagination come to life in a book.

Thanks for sharing your tattoo and being our tattooed guest, Rachelle!

Do you have a tattoo of the bookish, literary, or poetic variety? (Basically, if it has anything whatsoever to do with books, it works!) Would you like to be our tattooed guest? We'd love to have you! All you have to do is fill out this form and then you're on the guest list!