Spilled Ink

Not So Tough

All tattoos are not symbols of heavy memories.
Some just want to make you smile.

When asked how many tattoos she has, Amy Marie Jones comes across like a kid at a fair, guessing how many beans are in a jar: “Eight...no, nine — ten! I have ten!” Luckily the thirty-two-year-old writer and performer hasn’t lost track of the surprisingly uplifting stories behind a couple of her tough-girl tats.

Photo by Sunny Facer

The Barbershop Pinup
(drawn and inked by Matt Ariola, Liberty Tattoo in the U. District)
In 2007 Jones decided to get the barber-pole girl on her right arm when she retired from her job as a hairdresser. It was a jump she had needed to make for a while, she explains: “I worked at Rudy’s Barbershop for seven years, while putting myself through school. It was a creative career that fit my high-energy demeanor, but I love the transition I have made to working full-time in the arts.” It wasn’t a completely clean break; she often gives people makeovers in her head. “Especially people with bad color.”

Hell Yes
(not shown)
On Jones’s left forearm, about halfway between her wrist and her elbow, read the words “Hell Yes,” inked in elaborate black cursive. Jones gained a reputation among friends for giving “hell yes” lectures, in which she encouraged them to embrace opportunities to say “yes” to life, instead of getting waylaid by a “maybe attitude.” “It became this transformative idea,” Jones says. Friends wrote it on their bathroom walls and even encouraged her to compose a related manifesto and Web site, which may be forthcoming.