3 posts tagged “ink”
I adore Tara McPherson's forms and clean, clean lines. So many of her images - like this one and this one and this one - need to be tattooed on my body.
Okay, fine, I admit it: the real reason why I obsessively watch Maimi Ink is because I'm in love with Kat Von D. Beautiful, sweet, funny, and so damn talented. She's living art: covered with tats from head to toe. Seriously, if I'd had the money throughout my 20s, I'd be covered like her by now.
Another reason the show appeals to me is because it's kinda always been my secret dream to be a tattoo artist. In my late teens, I seriously considered getting a degree in fine arts or illustration* and then learn tattoos. Now, even without any formal degree, I have enough artistic chops and education to do it, but would probably have to train unpaid for a year or two - and I can't financially afford it. (Reason number eleventy billion why I need that sugar daddy). Plus, I can't help but think I'm too old for it at this point.
*One of the reasons I didn't major in arts is because too many visual artists are grand egoists. Except me. I'm awesome.
Ina Saltz has written a book about the words and messages people get tattooed on their body, Body Type: Intimate Messages Etched in Flesh.
There are several more tattoos I want to get (including sunflowers on my right chest, shoulder, and arm) and a few are phrases. "This too shall pass" has been my personal mantra for several years, and I'm thinking of it in large, bold letters across my lower back. Also, parts of my favorite poem by my favorite poet, "The Road and the End" by Carl Sandburg: either "The dust of the traveled road shall touch my hands and face" or "I shall foot it down the roadway in the dusk, where shapes of hunger wander and the fugitives of pain go by" on the inside of my left forearm near the elbow. Also, somewhere auribus teneo lupum (i.e. "I hold a wolf by the ears"). Finally (!!!) thinking of "Wise Up" because of the song by Aimee Mann. As you can tell, I think about the tat alot before deciding whether or not to get them, and usually have three or four or more on the table.
Then there's Shelley Jackson's Skin project, which I've applied to and would love to participate in.
Goal #1: get job that pays more than the federal poverty level. Goal #2: Cover self in tattoos.
