Turning the Tables

The most embarrassing part of working on Tattoos and Permanence was confessing my unmarked skin to those I interviewed. It gave my project an Arbusian element of outsider fascination that seemed more and more annoying and hypocritical as the project progressed. What held me back from adorning my skin that did not seem to affect the vast majority of those in my generational position? I knew there would be no better way to finish this section of my project than by getting a tattoo of my own.

Now, it would be really funny if I fully sent this. Got a massive forehead tattoo, or something like that. Talk about commitment to one’s artistic practice. But anticlimactically, I got something small and insignificant, yet not easily regrettable– taking notes from those I interviewed. I reached out to my favorite tattoo artist that I follow on Instagram, Elena Aurelia Gonzalez, @abysskiss3, to ask for a small four-leaf clover on my arm. She very kindly accommodated my weird request since it was my first tattoo, modifying a clover band from her flash to a simple, small clover token.

I met her in her shared studio @dollfacebrooklyn in Ridgewood, where we decided on the size, and chatted a bit about my project. She asked if I was nervous, and honestly, I had completely forgotten about the pain element up until that point. I told her I wasn’t, and the needle went in my arm, and after a short ten minutes that felt like a sunburn, the second skin was on. Looking in the mirror was strangely unfazing, probably because my tattoo was so small. It felt like I had a cool, new, special freckle, but that was it.

After all the theorizing that had gone into the why of this project, I learned that things only matter as much as you let them. A rose is a rose is a rose just as a tattoo is a tattoo is a tattoo. And I think that attitude, not of nihilism, but of realism, is a staple of our generation.