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Saskia Edens
Tagged art, body art, photography, videoLiterary Tattoos: I Go Back to May 1937
This awesome tattoo belongs to Molly:
This tattoo was inspired by a trip to Bread Loaf this summer, where I studied poetry with Ellen Bryant Voigt. I have always admired the ways we can re-imagine poems outside of typical lineation, how poems can become sculptures and books can be objects of art with textures and breath. A bit of fortune converged with my desire: I have a dear friend in my MFA program whose husband happens to be a tattoo artist, and that husband just so wanted to spend some time on a letterpress, and I had just acquired a Kelsey platen press. A trade was proposed, and Shawn designed the whole thing with wings in mind, something that would also resemble lungs and breathing and the lift of freedom at the end of Sharon Olds‘ oft-studied “I Go Back to May 1937.” The poem is there, on my arm, in its entirety. Olds is my most beloved living poet, and this poem speaks to me with my own work–taking life experiences and professing: “Do what you are going to do, and I will tell about it.” Olds once said that poetry comes out of her lungs, and now I have this reminder, this collection of gorgeous language, that tells me again and again: don’t forget to breathe, don’t forget who you are.
You can view Molly’s Flickr set for more pictures of the tattoo’s progress.
The tattoo was done by Shawn Hebrank of Identity Tattoo in Maplewood, Minnesota.
I Go Back to May 1937
by Sharon Olds:
I see them standing at the formal gates of their colleges,
I see my father strolling out
under the ochre sandstone arch, the
red tiles glinting like bent
plates of blood behind his head, I
see my mother with a few light books at her hip
standing at the pillar made of tiny bricks with the
wrought-iron gate still open behind her, its
sword-tips black in the May air,
they are about to graduate, they are about to get married,
they are kids, they are dumb, all they know is they are
innocent, they would never hurt anybody.
I want to go up to them and say Stop,
don’t do it–she’s the wrong woman,
he’s the wrong man, you are going to do things
you cannot imagine you would ever do,
you are going to do bad things to children,
you are going to suffer in ways you never heard of,
you are going to want to die. I want to go
up to them there in the late May sunlight and say it,
her hungry pretty blank face turning to me,
her pitiful beautiful untouched body,
his arrogant handsome blind face turning to me,
his pitiful beautiful untouched body,
but I don’t do it. I want to live. I
take them up like the male and female
paper dolls and bang them together
at the hips like chips of flint as if to
strike sparks from them, I say
Do what you are going to do, and I will tell about it.
Amanda Wachob Tattoo Art
Tagged art, body art, tattoos
Tom Waits – Come On Up to the House
via youtube.com
Tom Waits music video directed by Anders Lövgren
Dr. Lakra
Dr. Lakra | Kate MacGarry Gallery | The Saatchi Gallery
Dr Lakra (Jeronimo Lopez Ramirez, born 1972, Mexico) is an artist and tattooist based in Oaxaca, Mexico. Apart from tattooing, his art involves embellishing images and other found objects – for instance, dolls, old medical illustrations, and pictures in 1950s Mexican magazines – with macabre or tattoo-style designs.
Write here, right now
Skin
From the artist’s
website:
Each body becomes an index of passing time. Bones shift, muscles loosen,
freckles and wrinkles form, bruises appear; skin is the forum for these
transitions. It may also evidence sensitivity, embarrassment, discomfort, fear,
excitement, infection, health, attraction, and energy expendedreflecting
vulnerability and conditions we’ve inhabited.
My own skin frequently blushes and swells. I have dermatographia, a condition
in which one’s immune system exhibits hypersensitivity, via skin, that releases
excessive amounts of histamine, causing capillaries to dilate and welts to
appear (lasting about thirty minutes) when the skin’s surface is lightly
scratched. This allows me to painlessly draw patterns and words on my skin,
which I then photograph.
I also make wallpaper with photographs of my skin cut into various designs.
The patterns I use range from adaptations of Greek and Etruscan vases, Medieval
wall coverings, and Renaissance pottery to contemporary clothing and wallpaper
found in domestic spaces. Attached to the wall or onto board, these skin designs
form shifting crimson patterns embellishing the surfaces. Recently I’ve turned
some of the patterns made from photographs of skin into temporary tattoos,
adorning my skin with the translucent designs. These tattoo designs cover me
like clothing, an intimate fashion. They also go on the wall or window after
they’ve made contact with my skin, leaving traces of cells and hair, and holding
a record of skin’s map. I share these designs with my surroundings.
I am investigating where one surface ends and another begins, the bloom of
adornment, and how shifting exteriors reveal as they
conceal.
r3ckon 