I've always liked to think that my job doesn't define me, but lately I've been rethinking that. It's pretty much all I have anymore and, really, I'm OK with that.
Before I started working "professionally" my life was chaos, it was drugs, booze, sex, punk rock, violence with some art and music thrown into the mix. All fine in moderation, but moderation was never for me (not for lack of trying!). I rarely had a place to call home and friends came and went in awesome and horrible ways. I never really knew who I was but I had a pretty good Idea of who I wasn't. I really did have to learn most things the hard way and sometimes I think that was how I wanted it to be... other times I distinctly remember otherwise.
Looking back now, at how everything fell into place after I decided to survive life, the one constant has been tattooing, the shop where I work 5 days a week. That's where my family is, it's basically my only real source of healthy human interaction, it's where I have to be creative whether I think I'm in the mood or not. it is structure and freedom at the same time and it does define much of who I am today.
This would be the part where I might say something melodramatic like "I AM A TATTOO ARTIST! Tattooist! Tattooer! Ink Slinger! Tattoo Designer! Aesthetic Epidermal Pigment Insertionist!" or whatever, but that would be completely ass backwards. I don't give a fuck about illusions of title, status, fame or glory. I just love what I get to do and I am thankful.
It might even be fair to say (and I wouldn't be the first) that tattooing saved my life.
Before I started working "professionally" my life was chaos, it was drugs, booze, sex, punk rock, violence with some art and music thrown into the mix. All fine in moderation, but moderation was never for me (not for lack of trying!). I rarely had a place to call home and friends came and went in awesome and horrible ways. I never really knew who I was but I had a pretty good Idea of who I wasn't. I really did have to learn most things the hard way and sometimes I think that was how I wanted it to be... other times I distinctly remember otherwise.
Looking back now, at how everything fell into place after I decided to survive life, the one constant has been tattooing, the shop where I work 5 days a week. That's where my family is, it's basically my only real source of healthy human interaction, it's where I have to be creative whether I think I'm in the mood or not. it is structure and freedom at the same time and it does define much of who I am today.
This would be the part where I might say something melodramatic like "I AM A TATTOO ARTIST! Tattooist! Tattooer! Ink Slinger! Tattoo Designer! Aesthetic Epidermal Pigment Insertionist!" or whatever, but that would be completely ass backwards. I don't give a fuck about illusions of title, status, fame or glory. I just love what I get to do and I am thankful.
It might even be fair to say (and I wouldn't be the first) that tattooing saved my life.
VIEW 4 of 4 COMMENTS
i am begining to think the only way out of pain is to go consciously directly into it.
i could be wrong but escapism doesnt seem to work so well from what ive seen.