If you can't tell by the picture above and the license to the right, I used to work in a tattoo parlor owned by my biological father, Chris Borge. The name of the parlor is Electric Ink Tattoo and it is located in East Providence, RI. It's a bit of a family gig where my mom (Jane Parent - Chris's sister - she adopted me) is an artist and various other family members have worked there, mostly at the desk position. When I worked there I mostly did desk work, made needles, drew up designs for customers, and a lot of other stuff. But I only tattooed on and off during the two years I was licensed, and never for money.

When you tattoo, you don't have an eraser. I am a firm believer that if you are not a committed professional, you can't do this well. I realized that I couldn't do this as a hobby while going to college full time, so I apprenticed to get my license out of the way and left the decision to pursue tattooing until after I got my degree.

While in college, I stayed very involved in the internet tattoo scene. Most notably contributing to the newsgroup rec.arts.bodyart, adding to their FAQ and winning three Lydias for humorous postings I made. I also contributed to some of the earlier articles on the Body Modification Ezine (BME) and wrote an article about the how the internet was educating the masses about tattoos (Internet Archive cache) for the now defunct magazine Internet Underground. The ultimate commitment to the community of tattooing I feel I made was my Interdisciplinary Qualifying Project I wrote at college on tattoo removal. While I wrote it long ago (please ignore my hideous Popeye animation) I still get emails about it and have even been mentioned in Yahoo! Internet Life on one of their lists.

After finishing college, I realized I really wanted to pursue a career associated with my degree (go figure). So I hung up my tattoo machines and headed West and never really turned back. I still am getting inked from time to time when a design presents itself, but I am no longer the involved member of the bodyart community I once was. I truly miss those days working late nights and listening to weird mixes of CDs in the turntable (Black Sabbath, Steely Dan, and Black Flag) and the different people that would come in and out. Especially the cool guys I got to work with like John Moniz and Skott Greene (may he rest in peace). But there is something to be said for being a Web professional nowadays, as well.

That is not to say that I am not conscious of my roots. Chris and I still discuss issues about Electric Ink's Web site and we recently collaborated to design, build, and deploy the world's first (that we know of) tattoo flash search engine. I would show a version of what it looks like but there is quite a bit of intellectual property involved in it and you wouldn't really get the full effect unless there was actual tattoo flash to show (which has its own set of copyright headaches). The application is hosted internally at the Electric Ink Tattoo Studio in East Providence, RI.

Tattoos that I have:
Japanese Demon - left arm
Neil Gaiman's Sandman characters - right arm
Scene of demons - left thigh
Jester - left shoulder blade
Jester - right shoulder blade
Small dragon - right back (ribs)
Tribal wedding tattoo - lower back
Tribal crop circle - left calf
Tribal ankle band - left ankle
Celtic cross - right calf