The Ink Link: Lloyd Solomon

The Ink Link is an ongoing project at CN&CO that showcases tattoos in the workplace, breaking down the stereotype that you can’t be a professional in your field if you have tattoos. If you or anyone you know would like to be featured, please get in contact with us.

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This month I decided to interview my cousin, Lloyd Solomon, who has some awesome tattoos. He specifically said he has a favourite and one that is really close to his heart. Have a read about which one and why.

A little bit about Lloyd

Class of 2010 Trinity House High School. Lloyd has done some epic stuff in his life, from captaining his school’s first rugby team, modelling part time and now educating kids in South Korea.

He holds a BA in sports communication from the University of Johannesburg and post graduate certificate in education, senior/FET (cum laude) from Unisa.

Have your tattoos compromised your career?

My tattoos have never compromised my career. I mean every job I have had they asked about my tattoos and never seemed to have an issue with it. I was a teacher back in South Africa and there was no issue there. I was also communications officer for a JSE-listed company and a model (in many cases they asked for tattooed people). I feel it is more acceptable nowadays and often people see it as a form of self-expression. As I said, I have not had any issues in South Africa with my tattoos. However, upon arriving in Korea, within a week at my new job they have asked me to cover my tattoos with a sleeve. But that’s as far as it has gotten. 

Tattoos in the corporate space?

I feel that it should not make a difference, bearing in mind you hire a person for their abilities and having tattoos do not hinder the fact that they can or can’t do a job. Having a tattoo does not change who the person was when you interviewed them and gauged if they were able to be a part of your team. 

How many do you have?

I have six tattoos: Half a sleeve on my left forearm, back of my arm and foot. 

Do you have any advice you can give to someone getting their first tat?

If you want to get a tattoo just make sure you do it for yourself and that it’s something prominent to you. Don’t do it because it’s the fashion or trend at the time. For me it’s a form of self-expression, so express your ideals and not someone else’s. 

Do you have any others planned? 

Yeah, two more planned. A cedar tree for power and strength and to align with my Lebanese heritage, and a pocket watch with scripture over it.

The piece of poetry below explains why the dove tattoo on Lloyd’s forearm is the one closest to his heart…

Transcendent Love

by Lloyd Solomon

Close your eyes and imagine a life with love so incomprehensible that fairy tales have not yet been written about it. That love and life may be a far-fetched image in all minds, but not mine.

There has been a case of that certain love and a life presented to me, but only in small doses. And yet, the glimpse of what was given has made me addicted.

Not for her, not for me, but for the “outer being” feeling that was pushed out of me. Yes, there was a time where a lost boy stood wondering at a high peak, what was to be the next big thing? And yet what he felt after could only be compared to this love and life he has experienced.

The love of an angel’s wing surrounding him and suffocating all those fears and lack of life out, until they were breathless and dead, taken from him like an exorcism. . .

Left at the end was not an angel, one far from it actually. But instead a white dove, one that he chose to put on him as a reminder that there is love and life beyond what he was experiencing previously. A love sewn to one can be an everlasting transcendent state. . .