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Oh, blog! I've neglected you so badly. But hey - life happens.
My back was mostly finished during my last session (#14 on Oct 23rd), save some touch-ups that will happen in the next month or so. Pictures will happen when they happen...
Check out this excellent interview with my amazing friend Marisa, who's working on "one really big one." She is an inspiration, in so many ways. Hooray for brazen painted ladies!
Frisky Q&A: An Interview With
Tattooed Lady, Lawyer, Author And
Blogger Marisa Kakoulas
10/10/09
All healed up from the past two sessions! Just a few tiny spots in the top row that lost black.
The fresh work from Saturday is the blue in the bottom of the tail - from the last leaves downward. The previous session (#12) was the blue just above that part. We're taking it more slowly to keep my skin happy. Even so, there's only one more appointment scheduled!Usually I take it easy the day after getting inked, but yesterday I, uh, cleaned out my attic. Feels good.
Oh, why did I have to say "healing's been going well?" Because then, all of a sudden, it wasn't. About a week after the last round, the black spots on my beautiful snake started scabbing up for no apparent reason.
Which, really, is par for the course with my titchy skin. It's doing better now, as I heal from a short session this past Saturday. Am so grateful to have such a patient artist! Pictures will come when it's less scabalicious.
Ooh - and most exciting to me: I'm wearing a bra today for the first time in 2.5 weeks!! If that ain't progress, I don't know what is.
9/4/09
Ahh, blue! Nothing much to report... healing's been going well + now the snake's getting its back turned beautiful shades of blue with black accents.
Probably 3 more sessions, not 1. Which is good news for me, 'cause I'll be sad when it's done! Strange, I know.
It's been such an incredible experience for me to witness the transformation of my back from bare skin to work of art. Never knowing how my own skin will look from appointment to appointment, but trusting in the end result.
I was gifted with Margot Mifflin's excellent book Bodies of Subversion: A Secret History of Women and Tattoo on my birthday last week, and I tore through it yesterday + today. A really compelling read. From the description:The first history of women's tattoo art, Bodies of Subversion: A Secret History of Women and Tattoo is a fascinating excursion into a subculture that dates back to the 19th century. It includes many never-before-seen photos of tattooed women from the last hundred years. Miflin notes that women's interest in tattoo surged in the suffragist '20s and the feminist '70s.
"In this provocative work full of intriguing female characters from tattoo history, Margot Mifflin makes a persuasive case for the tattooed woman as an emblem of female self-expression. A woman getting a tattoo is the opposite of a woman undergoing cosmetic surgery: one carves into her skin her own idiosyncratic identity, the other erases all signs of the self in submission to a commercial 'identity.'" - Susan Faludi
Mifflin also recently wrote The Blue Tattoo: The Life of Olive Oatman, which I want to read next... after I get through my current stack of books!
8/8/09
Well, the magic was fun while it lasted! Last session's red didn't hold as well as it should have, so back we went to the regular machines to redo that section + the rest of the snake's belly... all the way down to the tip of the tail.
I'll miss being able to simultaneously think and talk while being tattooed, but obviously it'll be worth it. Am really loving the way it's coming together, with the brilliant red + gnarly tree branch. Can't believe I have only (only!) 2 appointments left.
So after a few hours of controlled breathing, I got to spend some time with the amazing Madeline von Foerster at her nearby studio. She's an incredible painter (and one of the nicest people I've had the pleasure of meeting), whose Waldkammer ("Forest Cabinet") series may be inspiring some new ink. Check her out... you won't be sorry!
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