Peyton Vesneski, a second-year student at the University of Rhode Island, has over 20 tattoos. Vesneski is a marine affairs major at URI and started his tattoo journey in his senior year of high school.
When asked how many tattoos he had, Vesneski didn’t know the answer off the top of his head. However, he knew exactly where a majority of them were born: a college dorm room.
The tattoo pictured is an abstract twin faces tattoo given to Veseski by his friend Marcos Narbonne in his Ellery Hall dorm room. At the beginning of his freshman year, Vesneski bought a tattoo gun off of Amazon and it became a trend in his friend group to get dorm tattoos. He got the twin faces tattoo in his first year at URI.
Despite having no previous tattooing experience, Vesneski trusted Narbonne to give him this large tattoo on his forearm.
The tattoo took over four hours, according to Narbonne. Having recently gotten a large chest tattoo, he was no stranger to the pain, but trusting Narbonne to successfully recreate such a large tattoo was more challenging.
After finishing the tattoo, Vesneski faced some skepticism from his friends. Narbonne did a remarkably good job, especially with the shape. In some spots it was clear the needle did not go deep enough into the skin or it was too deep, but overall the tattoo was impressive.
Vesneski got his inspiration for this tattoo off of Pinterest. Pinterest is a popular social media platform in the tattoo community. People regularly share their tattoos and gain inspiration from each other.
With an Amazon tattoo gun and an inexperienced tattoo artist, Vesneski said the original tattoo came out “a little questionable.”
“Over the summer when I was getting a new tattoo, my tattoo artist from home went over it again and it looks better now,” Vesneski said.
Having a professional tattoo artist go over the original “Marcos tattoo” made it look more cohesive.
“I just thought it was cool,” Vesneski said when asked about the meaning behind this tattoo.
After he got it, his friend Teagan asked him if he was a Gemini because this tattoo is the “Gemini tattoo.” The symbol behind the Gemini zodiac sign is the twins associated with Castor and Pollux from Greek mythology.
It turned out to be a happy coincidence that Vesneski is, in fact, a Gemini. His choice to get this tattoo had nothing to do with him being a Gemini, and he did not really care about its meaning, but it’s a fun story surrounding his tattoo.
“Most of my tattoos don’t really have any meaning,” Vesneski said.
He has a matching Star Wars tattoo with his dad, but other than that, Vesneski mainly gets what he thinks looks cool and can afford.
The interesting story behind this tattoo and its unique origins is part of the beauty behind tattoos; every one has its own story.
