When I was a young woman, tattoos were a much bigger deal. For one thing, they hadn’t yet perfected the tattoo removal process. For another, though tats were (secretly) growing in popularity among young women, the general public still associated body art with biker gangs and ex-cons, so there was an element of shame to them. But even among the quietly growing fan base, there was still a lot of panic around picking the right subject. Getting a tattoo felt like marriage, only more permanent. Sure, to a teenager, a unicorn seemed like a great idea (in my case, I wanted Mr. Bill), but even in our giddy, hormone-fueled fug, we recognized that we didn’t want to wake up at 30 (the beginning of old age to an 18-year-old) with something childish permanently scribbled on our bodies. So instead of getting poorly-though-out art, I waffled and discussed and obsessively weighed my options. And mostly didn’t get art.

I have exactly three tattoos. The first, an ill-conceived tribal sun, was so poorly executed, I had to get it covered up by a somewhat better sun a couple of years later. (While the art may have been half-hearted, I stand by my choice of symbol. 35 years later, I continue to be entirely solar powered.) My third tattoo was much better researched and thought out, and I still kind of love it. It’s a dragonfly woodcut taken from the cover of a children’s book that my grandmother used to read to my mother – and eventually, to me. However, while it still means something to me, I got it before the term “tramp stamp” was a thing, sooooo… Regrets. I have a few.

Anyway, I have recently seen a trend toward tattoos I don’t think you’d grow out of – architecture! So here, without further blah, blah, blah, are some gorgeous architectural body art pieces that have my tat engine revving all over again.