The Hearts in My Sleeves…
I’ve been addicted to ink in way or another for most of my life. If it wasn’t reading, writing, or poetry, it was body ink. I started journey with tattooing at age seventeen. I was a very indoctrinated, religious type back then. The first piece that I got was a Jesus piece on my upper left arm. It was comprised of a set of praying hands, on top of a Bible. The name “Mike” was under it, in Old English, and it had light coming from behind it. The artist should’ve never done it to begin with, being that I was already enlisted in the military at the time. That tattoo accompanied me to boot camp, where I was my division’s RPO. It’s also where all hell broke loose in my life and I changed forever, but that is another story.
The next piece I got was a cross with the head of Jesus in the center, on my right shoulder. I got it on New Year’s Eve of 1998. It still survives to this day. I wouldn’t feel the pierce of that gently humming needle again until the Summer of 2004. That piece was a birthday present to me, in the wake of the death of a friend and mentor. It was a tribute to him. The person that purchased it is no longer in my life. She damn near ruined it. But I digress. It was the first piece I got that broke my initial rules for placement. It sits on the inside of my right forearm and runs it’s length. I conceptualized and drew it. It says “Agony and Artistry.” I feel that is a true representation of life. We are all born into agony without rhyme or reason. Artistry is what can come out of it. It is bottomed out with the Star of David intertwined with the treble clef.
In the winter of 2008 through an old co-worker, I made the acquaintance of a man named Loran Smith. We would soon begin an evolutionary journey together that would span just over nine years, countless dollars, and hours. We started a sleeve together on my right arm. We began creating little more than an idea. The idea began with a painting of his. It was of a hand holding a grenade. It ended up being a red and black fist, holding that green grenade. In the background was a tribal that bottoms out with four blades and blue tipped flames around my right wrist. Scattered among the tribal is random binary code and not so random words. These words have resounded in me for years and will continue to. the words consist of revolution, truth, life, death, dishonor, justice, freedom, and1984 (not my birth year, I’m a seventies baby). Also scattered among the tribal and binary code are some not so random numerical sequences. Think the matrix. These numerical sequences are commemorating the lives, deaths, and events from throughout history that have helped change my worldview. They consist of the dates that Tupac Shakur, Che Guevara, Martin Luther King, El-Hajj Milik Shabazz, Huey Newton and John Lennon were taken from us. The date that Assata Shakur escaped from jail and the day that Angela Davis was born are included as well. Finally the dates of the Tiananmen Square massacre, and the date the Tommie Smith and Juan Carlos protested at the 1968 Olympics are included. The symbol for anarchy dons the pit of my right arm. The underside of the upper arm states “Nosce te ipsum, and Carpe Diem. I had already started planning the idea for my left arm before this arm was even finished.
In between the two arms was when I had decided that I wanted to draw out my entire poetic identity on my right side. Those were the most painful sessions that I’ve ever endured. It begins just under my right armpit. the top of this piece is a spotlight (progress downward), followed by a microphone, leafed out and curled paper, a fountain pen that is leaking ink, and an ink well.
The left arm began with a meditating samurai. His sword is unsheathed and in his lap. His arms are tattooed as well. I think my mom was more mad about the samurai covering my original Jesus piece than anything that I’ve ever gotten. In the scene is a custom mandala, the head of Buddha shrouded in another mandala, a Japanese temple, the Oni, a torii, the Om symbol, a cherry tree, and finally a Koi in a river, coming from under a bridge, and a dragon of the same colors (there is a lesson in this too).
Based on the events of my life, I have dealt with the idea of death and suicide for most of it. I didn’t know this when I started, but tattooing is one of the most significant things that helped save my life. It gave me a place to show the looker every scar that cannot be seen. It also gave me a method by which to make what I once thought was so ugly, beautiful. I’m a Cancer cusped with Leo. It is said that Cancers wear our hearts on our sleeves. I guess I took that literally.
I once had a middle aged woman at the jazz and blues club that I, at that time bounced at, ask me “What kind of person in their right mind would do that to themselves?” I was seriously offended by this question at the time. Her answer ended up being tactful that day. The real answer is that the type of person that would do this to themselves is the type of person that has a story to tell. That is all of us. We have all been through this thing called life. These images are my hieroglyphics. They are the light through my darkest days. They gave me a place to put my pain and anguish and make it beautiful. I am so grateful to have met Loran Smith when I did. He helped save my life when for most of the amount of time that I’ve known him I did not want to exist. He gave the idea of who I am, life. He gave life to an idea.
There are a couple of pieces that I have that I’m choosing to not to tell you about at this time. There is also a part of this evolution that has not started yet. I’ll be getting married next summer so my soon to be wife will have the power of deciding when and if it gets completed. I am no longer responsible for just myself. I started off saying that I would never tattoo below my short sleeve line. That rule got broken many moons ago. I will never tattoo above my collar line and nor will I get anything else below my long sleeve line. On the inside of my left palm is a semi colon, and on my left ring finger is one of my wedding rings. There will only ever be one more of those in all of existence.
Please never judge a book by its cover. Just know that an idea behind that cover exists and that idea is relevant as are the person/s and mind/s that came up with the idea itself. Ideas can change the world. So whether or not you are tattooed at all, some, or heavily isn’t relevant. What is, is the judgement that is cast. Just don’t. Every one of us has a story and experience to tell of. Never be afraid to let your scars show. They make us all beautiful. Fin; and BE…
Sincerely: Beautifully Ugly
