Cool Kat

What does a renowned tattoo artist and television star who’s dating a heavy-metal icon do for an encore? Why, she writes a book, of course. Kat Von D, star of the wildly popular TLC series Miami Ink and its even more popular follow-up, LA Ink, has, er, inked High Voltage Tattoo, a book tracing her career as an artist from childhood to the present.

Von D (born Katherine Von Drachenberg) features her own designs in the image-heavy book, but the skin artist has also assembled a deep homage to the culture and process of tattooing. Tools, pigments, and Von D’s own influences share space with a history of the tattoo in what is ultimately an homage to body art. The book’s foreword was written by, of course, the author’s beau, Nikki Sixx of Mötley Crüe fame.