Love/Hate Tattoos

I love tattoos. A simple statement, but one which I have to qualify quite a bit. I love tattoos on other people, I love seeing them, and hearing their stories, I even love thinking about getting a tattoo myself. However, I also really hate tattoos because so many are SO BAD! Without fail, whenever I see someone rocking a tattoo whose design I've been daydreaming about, I'm struck by how awful it looks when wrought in flesh. This picture really sums up all of my issues with tattooing.

I have always loved Robert Frost, I love the poem 'Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening', and its definitely something that I have fantasized about getting tattooed. I even love the idea of using handwriting....but seeing it on this persons forearm it just looks silly and big and amateurish...imagine having to look at that on your 80th birthday!

However, by that same token I do have to show you a tattoo I think is done beautifully and uniquely and which I am kind of lusting over:

How amazing would it be to have Klimt's 'The Kiss' on your ribcage. This tattoo is beautiful, and most importantly placed wonderfully and done at a perfect scale. Sigh....this seems like the type of tattoo you have to wait a year for a great artist to do, the kind of piece you can show off forever....

Alright and now I'm conflicted all over again!