Yesterday I learned how to use carbon transfer paper. I also learned that it does not work on grapefruit, so I could not use the design I wanted. So here's a crab.
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The first thing people ask me when they find out I have tattoos is what they mean. Like most tattooed people, this question annoys the crap outta me. People get really personal about tattoos, as if they're an invitation for intrusive questions about your life. They're understandable questions, but if strangers don't expect an answer to, "Tell me about what you like to do when you have sex" they shouldn't expect to hear the stories behind tattoos. My tattoos do not have beautiful stories or gratuitous symbolism. The reasons I got them are simple.
I got my first tattoo during my sophomore year of college, when I was 19. I had watched my younger friend get her second tattoo, some bats I had designed for her side, a month or two beforehand. Cactus Tattoo was having a sale on Halloween-related pieces. It was the first time I had ever set foot in a tattoo parlor. By that point, I had never really wanted a tattoo, but I was curious about the process. For the month that followed, I spent a lot of time doodling various self-portraits of myself with a star in the center of my left palm. Research told me that tattoos in the hand were extremely painful and prone to fading, so I decided to rethink the position. The one-inch star design moved up my arm and grew an extra two inches until I decided I was ready for my first tattoo. My tattooed friend took me with her to Cactus, where she was getting her bats touched up, and I made an appointment with any artist that was available the next week. Rob Foster has done every one of my tattoos so far. It hurt. It took about an hour. It cost around $150. I've said those three sentences at least fifty times. My reasoning for this tattoo? I'm left-handed. After the first one, I thought I was done. I thought I'd be a one-tattoo kind of bro. But then I got a lip ring. And then I didn't want the lip ring. But I didn't feel cool enough without some other modification. So I started working on a second tattoo. The blue band around my right wrist is probably my favorite - at first glance, it doesn't look like a tattoo, and when I tell people it doesn't have a meaning, I get the most hilarious judging stares. The "story" behind it is simple: I used to watch a lot of anime. One of the most beautiful anime in existence, Samurai Champloo, features a main character with blue rings around his wrists and ankles, and I thought those were pretty sweet. I read somewhere that bands like these were actually considered adequate punishment for criminals in Japan until the 1800s - one band for each crime. I don't really think about that when I look at this tattoo, though. And I spend a lot of time doing that, considering I've been using it to tell right from left for about two years now. The dandelion on the back of my right arm was just done a few months ago. After watching two of my very dear friends get their first tattoos, I decided it was time for another one. I had considered a dandelion tattoo the previous spring when I first regained the ability to smell flowers (I have had allergies since I was little), but the idea faded once winter came. Remember when you were a kid and you picked a bouquet of dandelions for your mom or your teacher or your bus driver, and you thought you were being super sweet and nice, and then your mom/teacher/bus driver told you, "Those are weeds, not flowers" and didn't take them? Way to stomp on a child's innocent heart, mom/teacher/bus driver. That's like pulling a flower off a tree and saying, "That's not a flower, that's a tree," or saying, "That's not a person, that's a negro." Bunch o' bigoted jerks is what we got right here. Also, have you smelled a dandelion lately? It's awesome. "I'm left-handed," "I used to watch a lot of anime," and "Dandelions are awesome" are not good enough reasons for most people. When I give people these one-sentence explanations for my tattoos, they either give me a reproachful look or say, "Oh, that's all?" These people have most likely never been tattooed. No tattooed person I've ever met has had a long, drawn-out explanation for their tattoos. In fact, many of them just really liked the image. No symbolism whatsoever. That leads people to ask dumb questions. When they told you "there are no dumb questions," they were wrong. "Won't you regret that?" is a dumb question. To be completely honest, I might regret these tattoos. But on a list of the things I could possibly regret in life, the art I adorn my body with is extremely low (especially when "children," "manslaughter," "marriage," and "sleeping with someone icky" are also on that list, and I've gotten over the last one). I, at some point in my life, loved something enough to embroider it on my skin. I'm proud that I can feel and express that love through art. Especially if that love is for tattoos. |
AuthorJade E. Cakes lives with a cat and a wheelchair in a place with far too much snow. She spends her days playing with art supplies, staring at video games, and trying to cram thousands of things into one building. Archives
May 2016
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