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This picture comes from James Lane's Facebook page |
James Lane, known as Jimmy, was important to my decision to
do the Tattoo Project and was on account of him that I wanted to call it More
Than Skin Deep. Jimmy is basically
a walking memorial to his late mother who was murdered in her home when he was
only nine. He got his first
tattoo, with her birth and death dates, when he was fourteen and has
accumulated a body's worth since.
Many of them are based on his own drawings. I was really struck by the contrast between the
vulnerability in his eyes and the swagger of his ink. His is a story of profound loss and the struggle to continue
to "never give up" as one of his pieces reminds him. I think that was when I became
convinced of the autobiographical nature of a lot of tattooing. This is a culture more about people or
subjects and less about bodies or objects. That is also why I wanted Ned Pratt to be the photographer
on the project because I knew from first hand experience that he has the
sensitivity and the technical ability to capture and communicate that with a
camera.
Oddly enough, I has seen very few instances of tribal styled
tattoos in St. John's. Three so
far: one from Montreal as a pair
of sleeves; one locally produced on a Corrections Officer who told it was based
on his own drawings; and one outstanding example of shoulder work. The shoulder work had unusual authority
and reminded me very much of Maori carved masks. The red headed basketball player who owned them explained to
me that he acquired them in Singapore but yes the tattooist had been Maori.
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Apparently the Canadian edition shows more breast that the American edition. |
All things tattoo has crept into my "leisure
reading" as well.
I am
currently reading John Irving's Until I Find You, which follows the
narrative of a second-generation tattoo artist and her son.
It is a typically huge Irving saga of
several hundred pages.
The details
drawn from tattoo studios in a number of countries are interesting.
Expressions like "sleeping among
the needles" to indicate sleeping in the studio as the young Alice does
are interesting.
And one example
of a Scots apprentice being given a piece of flounder to work on is
curious.
I was also reminded of a
kind of tattoo I have not seen since I was a child.
I remember meeting one man with my father in the ports in
Montreal.
He was an old sailor and
he had a carp that would appear to swim when he flexed his muscles.
You really never know what you will see
once you start looking.
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Thanks to Susan Lee Stephan for sending this image |
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