While studding Salvador Dalí, I was struck by his symbolic correlation of ants to decay.  Dalí made this connection from an experience he had as a child of witnessing a swarm of ants slowly taking apart a dead bat.  I love this image so much, I decided to celebrate the passing of each year of life and the milestones within it by tattooing an ant on my body for my birthday.  Throughout the years the ants have slowly lost some of their Daliesque stile and have evolved more and more to look like my own ant sketches.  Other wonderful elements of this project/tradition has been the unintended social sculpture it has become connecting tattoo artists from around the world, as well as the individuals who have chosen to gift the tattoos to me.