March 25, 2006
Tattoofest
Generally, I'm afraid of crowds, loud events, confusion and trusting myself with new people when in the previously mentioned situations. So, what did I do last night? I went to Tampa's 7th annual Tattoofest with my newly hired rockin' assistant of one week. Was it crowded? Oh yeah, it was wall to wall tattoo people. Was it loud? You bet, it was a rockin' kick ass tattoofest! It was everything that I normally wouldn't do, which is one very big reason why I decided that I had to go. I'm really trying to push the envelope on things that would usually freak me out. Of course, I didn't go just for the experience and the really hot gothed out tattoo girls (though they never hurt). I went to get my second and most ambitious tattoo...
I've had the idea for this tattoo for awhile, but the level of detail required a really good artist. If this tattoo went bad, it would be REALLY bad. So, I figured Tattoofest would be a good place to find someone who could handle it. It, it, "what the fuck is it, man?" some are probably asking... It's an image from Tori Amos' Spark video. Aside from the disturbingly beautiful visual imagery, I totally dig the metaphor behind the video. After a miscarriage, Tori battled an incredibly dark period of depression, but eventually realized that if she was ever going to feel better, she would have to dig her way out of the hole herself. She saw that nobody could "make" her feel better, that only she could fix her situation. So, the video depicts Tori blindfolded with her wrists bound behind her back, running through the woods, fleeing the wrecked vehicle of her kidnapper. My tattoo is an image from the video in which she's swimming across a little stream, just before freeing herself from the blindfold. It's an awesome video and a very cool metaphor. I don't get tattoos just because they look cool, I like something with a good story/metaphor behind it.
Here's the scene from the video.
Here's the actual tattoo.
The whole process took about 3 hours, but I'm really happy with how it turned out. Pam, the tattoo artist, said right from the start that she could pull it off and she totally did. I'll post more pictures later.
Posted by Mike at March 25, 2006 01:00 AM