We got to a show at the Hideout way too early and ran into Cinnamon Cooper who had made the same mistake about the show time that we had. But it was a lucky break for CFT because I got to ask her about her forearm tattoo.
CFT: So your tattoo has a Chicago star. I assume that's a New Orleans fleur-de-lis, because that's the New Orleans water meter cover on a frying pan and I have your cast iron cooking cookbook, so this is a lot of assumptions here...
Nope, you're all right on.
CFT: Are you from New Orleans?
No, and I'm not from Chicago either. However, I moved to Chicago sixteen years ago, fell in love with the city and felt like I'd found home after moving around my entire life. And then we went to New Orleans for vacation and then I felt like I'd found where my soul belonged. So it's sort of this difference between where everything fits and where everything feels free. After I wrote the cookbook I'd been trying to come up with a way to combine New Orleans and Chicago and food all in one thing. And I couldn't figure out how to do it. And then after I wrote the cast iron cookbook and we were on vacation in New Orleans and I saw the water meter and I was like, yeah, I really like that symbol, too. And I came back and talked to a friend and she's like, "just put that on a skillet." Why didn't I think of that? So I found a tattoo artist here named Serena Landers and contacted her and said these are the images that I'm thinking about combining, here's like twenty fleur-de-lis, here are several different Chicagoish images that I'm interested in, and a skillet. And so she came up with it. It wasn't at all what I had in my mind, but as soon as I saw how she combined it, it just made more sense than what I had pictured.
CFT: How long have you had it?
I've had it not quite a year and a half. And I'm sort of trying to figure out what else to put around it. I also do a lot of sewing, crafting stuff.
CFT: So it is one that could sort of have an orbit of other images.
I've pictured it being the nucleus to my universe of tattoos.
Cool story behind your tat, Cinnamon! Love the layers of meaning.