Joolz Denby's Blog - Posts Tagged "meditation"
The New Tattoo: A Meditation.
The New Tattoo: A Meditation.
© Joolz Denby
I hate showing non-tattooed people my brand new, just-done-that-day work. They want to see it. Go on, show us, they beg. I refuse but they persist. We want to see, pleeease, they say, breathlessly. I try to explain that it’s not as it will be when it’s healed but they don’t - they can’t - understand that. They can’t really comprehend ‘healed’ because they don’t really understand the process involved. The whole concept of tattooing is so alien to them they imagine I’ll whip off the dressing and a luminously bright, smooth, unscabby, fully finished design will be all present and correct beneath. I imagine they think it might be a bit pink round the edges, but that’s all.
I look at their faces; I resist the desire to explain in long, tedious technical detail the actuality of tattooing, knowing from experience it’s pointless as nothing in their life experience comes close, either physically or psychologically. I cannot - no, I cannot - blame them for that.
So, if I can’t get out of it without looking completely rude and secretive, I resignedly (which is just as bad, to be honest - how grudging, how graceless) re-arrange my clothing, peel back a corner of the cling film wrapping taped to my flesh with stained micropore tape revealing the inky, bloody, Vaselined, serumey, swollen, sore-looking thing beneath. Like the viscous mass of the becoming butterfly roiling liquidised in the carapace of a chrysalis, my new tattoo is in a state of flux, bathed in it’s hot juices, not yet fully formed.
Not unlike a stigmatic revealing her wounds to the world, I try and look patient and calm. Oh, they say, these unmarked people. Sometimes even, urgh, yuk. Occasionally, Jesus. Then they tell me I must be braver than them, or I must be masochistic, or deranged, or a radical feminist man-hater, or have a deep-seated mental problem, or punishingly low self-esteem, or they ask me if I was always a rebel. They trot out what they fondly think are original remarks about self-mutilation or some grossly outrageous exhibitionist they saw displaying themselves on a T.V programme which proves - really - that I too am a screaming attention seeker and possibly, though they don’t say this often, a sexual pervert.
I refrain from remarking it was them who wanted to see the work in this state in the first place. Usually, I don’t say anything at all but let them run on while I cover up, annoyed at the way micropore never wants to stick again after you’ve unpeeled it. Annoyed at myself for giving in and thus subjecting myself to unkind or ignorant remarks. Annoyed at being annoyed. I surreptitiously do some yoga breathing to relax my clenched heart and pull my sleeve down or unroll my trouser leg. I smile, rather tightly, not showing my teeth.
In my youth I reacted more aggressively. I felt the need to justify myself, to cast my desire to be tattooed in terms which would be accepted, if not understood, by the untattooed. I cited ancient cultures, artistic temperament, a love of decoration and jewellery, even spirituality. Wildly I cast about for big reasons, vast excuses, undeniable arguments. I felt the need to crusade, to be the Jeanne D’Arc of tattoo, willing to be burnt at the stake of ignorance rather than give an inch. I berated my adversaries, I harangued them, I was bold, defiant, self-righteous and undoubtedly tiring company.
In those far off days, of course, a tattooed woman was something of a rarity, but I did have the enjoyably baroque excesses of Punk, and then Goth, on my side. I was part of a Youth Movement which to many, excuses a lot in young people. They thought I would grow out of it - the curious outfits, the bizarre hair, the exaggerated make-up. The uncompromising attitude. Somehow, in the broad sweep of their assumptions, was the feeling I’d grow out of my tattoos, too, and in the glowing maturity of my late twenties, with marriage, motherhood and comfortable respectability under my belt, some Greater Power would quietly reward my submission to the norm with a fresh new skin.
Oddly enough, none of those things happened.
Certainly I stopped dying my hair in lurid colours, or backcombing it amid a brain-damaging fog of hair spray to dizzy heights. The outfits were hung at the back of the closet (but not the jewellery) and anything black and stretchy became the ideal. The high-heeled pointy boots were replaced by trainers. The make-up subsided to a lick and a promise. But well, the tattoos stayed. Increased. Multiplied, even. They coiled, crept, enveloped, blossomed, inhabited more and more of my decidedly generous physique and I could no longer claim the dubious protection of a youth cult.
It became painfully obvious to my more conventional acquaintances and co-workers, as the years passed and I entered middle age, that I got tattooed because I wanted to. Worse, I wasn’t going to stop. And even worse still, I wasn’t ashamed or embarrassed. I even go to the swimming pool regularly, in my utilitarian black Speedo, showing acres of skin, as if I was normal. Oh dear.
But none of this is to say I’m not aware of the consequences of what I’ve done to my body; or that I don’t have regrets. In my youth, I would never have admitted to regrets, that would have seemed like a surrender. But with age comes a certain inevitable elasticity of mind, and with longevity, experience. I have, as a little child I know told me, ‘seen stuff’. I have a different understanding of society than I did at twenty, or thirty, or even forty. I have the thoughts I have now, at this time; they sparkle, some sharply, some faintly, in my mind, like an infinity star field. Some of them are beautiful, all of them are points of fire. They are much more outrageous, and dangerous, than my frocks ever were.
So regret, the most touchy subject in tattoo world. It’s what taxi drivers always say to you:
‘Doncha regret ‘em, then, the tatts? Eh? A nice-lookin’ gell like you?’
We always, us tattooed people, say no, we don’t. I’d say it too, and often do. But it’s not true, for me. Or rather, to be more accurate, I regret society’s attitudes towards me, as a tattooee. I regret the damage my body art choices have done to my career, for example, and I regret the way some people react to me. But you can’t say that to a taxi driver, or a nurse, or a policeman, or a doctor, or a prospective employer, or a potential lover, all of whom repeat that phrase in terms appropriate to their culture and class. You can’t explain, at length, about prejudice because people never consider themselves prejudiced. They consider themselves right. So it’s easier to say no, no regrets. And really, what’s done is done, isn’t it? I certainly wouldn’t remove my tattoos, because I like them, they satisfy something in me, they are me, so that leaves only one option. Deal with them, and the reactions they bring. Take responsibility for my skin.
Does that sound a little ‘love me, love my tattoos’? Yes, I suppose so, and many people do, I’m pleased to note. There are always people out there just waiting to surprise you: the elderly lady at the pool who tells you how she’d love to have a rose on her hip, if - annoyingly - she wasn’t due for a hip replacement operation. The man who finds great pleasure in gently, with permission, tracing your art with his fingertip. The masseuse who tells you how much more pleasant it is to massage your illustrated skin, than plain old boring skins; nothing there to look at while you work. The sporty aerobicised gym girl who asks for your artist’s address so she can have a Pegasus on her back; winged, like her flying feet.
Fascinated people, wistful people, envious people, attracted people, people summoning up the courage to change. People who want to memorialise personal events on their skin, subsume memories into their living body, who want to honour love. Men who want their child’s name etched on their back; my daughter, my son, I’m so proud. Women who want to say they understand freedom at last; it’s in the mind, they know that now and they want to modify themselves without regard to the opinions of a damnable society whose criteria are solely in the marketplace. Because they’re worth it.
Sentimental people, fierce people, kind people, spiritual people, melancholics and artists, comics and high wire walkers. We go under the needles because we know that we’ll die one day; we know that we can live with what we do because we won’t live forever and beauty - well, it’s definitely skin deep.
But doesn’t it hurt? I get asked that at least once a week. And it does hurt; variably, but it hurts. We’re so scared of pain in the West, aren’t we? I am; the first twinge of a headache and I’m heading for the ibuprofen. But tattoo-pain is different; I choose, I submit, I tame my discomfort, I endure. For some, the pain is an offering, a transition, a metamorphosis from one part of life to another. For others, it’s an inconvenience to be borne, for some the bearing of such pain in public is a re-affirmation of pride and strength. Skinny little women bear it better quite often than musclemen. Some boys faint when they feel the actuality of what they screwed up all their hormone-whipped courage for; some girls remark it’s no worse than a Brazilian wax. Some talk all through the needle’s bite, the swabbing and the blood; some, silent, fix their eyes on distant horizons; some pray in their heads and remember as the name they can never forget blossoms from the mess. We are all blessed. We are a kind of family: An illustrated family.
So the new tattoo - it scabs, it itches abominably, it peels, it becomes splendid and it is no-one’s business but my own. Look, I’m not asking much - aside from world domination, calorie free Haagen Datz and eternal youth - but I’m asking you, yes, you reading this, if you’re not tattooed and you see a tattooed person, and that old urge comes over you to make a remark or ask a question; stop. Think about what you’re going to say and wonder - how do I look to them? Is my remark/question/observation useful and not offensive? Would I like it if they said it to me? And - gulp - have they heard the same thing a trillion times before? Think of it as an exercise for your mind; think of it as mind-expanding. Expand your mind to accept what’s different to you and remember, you’re incredibly different to some folk’s eyes.
There’s an old saying in the tattoo world: Tattooed People Don’t Care If You Don’t Have A Tattoo. There are variations, but that’s the gist of it. We don’t care if you haven’t got a tattoo - because, why would we?
So come on, celebrate with us; join in the human carnival, the fireworks, the candy-floss, the bright, whirling, brilliance of it.
You’re welcome.
© Joolz Denby
I hate showing non-tattooed people my brand new, just-done-that-day work. They want to see it. Go on, show us, they beg. I refuse but they persist. We want to see, pleeease, they say, breathlessly. I try to explain that it’s not as it will be when it’s healed but they don’t - they can’t - understand that. They can’t really comprehend ‘healed’ because they don’t really understand the process involved. The whole concept of tattooing is so alien to them they imagine I’ll whip off the dressing and a luminously bright, smooth, unscabby, fully finished design will be all present and correct beneath. I imagine they think it might be a bit pink round the edges, but that’s all.
I look at their faces; I resist the desire to explain in long, tedious technical detail the actuality of tattooing, knowing from experience it’s pointless as nothing in their life experience comes close, either physically or psychologically. I cannot - no, I cannot - blame them for that.
So, if I can’t get out of it without looking completely rude and secretive, I resignedly (which is just as bad, to be honest - how grudging, how graceless) re-arrange my clothing, peel back a corner of the cling film wrapping taped to my flesh with stained micropore tape revealing the inky, bloody, Vaselined, serumey, swollen, sore-looking thing beneath. Like the viscous mass of the becoming butterfly roiling liquidised in the carapace of a chrysalis, my new tattoo is in a state of flux, bathed in it’s hot juices, not yet fully formed.
Not unlike a stigmatic revealing her wounds to the world, I try and look patient and calm. Oh, they say, these unmarked people. Sometimes even, urgh, yuk. Occasionally, Jesus. Then they tell me I must be braver than them, or I must be masochistic, or deranged, or a radical feminist man-hater, or have a deep-seated mental problem, or punishingly low self-esteem, or they ask me if I was always a rebel. They trot out what they fondly think are original remarks about self-mutilation or some grossly outrageous exhibitionist they saw displaying themselves on a T.V programme which proves - really - that I too am a screaming attention seeker and possibly, though they don’t say this often, a sexual pervert.
I refrain from remarking it was them who wanted to see the work in this state in the first place. Usually, I don’t say anything at all but let them run on while I cover up, annoyed at the way micropore never wants to stick again after you’ve unpeeled it. Annoyed at myself for giving in and thus subjecting myself to unkind or ignorant remarks. Annoyed at being annoyed. I surreptitiously do some yoga breathing to relax my clenched heart and pull my sleeve down or unroll my trouser leg. I smile, rather tightly, not showing my teeth.
In my youth I reacted more aggressively. I felt the need to justify myself, to cast my desire to be tattooed in terms which would be accepted, if not understood, by the untattooed. I cited ancient cultures, artistic temperament, a love of decoration and jewellery, even spirituality. Wildly I cast about for big reasons, vast excuses, undeniable arguments. I felt the need to crusade, to be the Jeanne D’Arc of tattoo, willing to be burnt at the stake of ignorance rather than give an inch. I berated my adversaries, I harangued them, I was bold, defiant, self-righteous and undoubtedly tiring company.
In those far off days, of course, a tattooed woman was something of a rarity, but I did have the enjoyably baroque excesses of Punk, and then Goth, on my side. I was part of a Youth Movement which to many, excuses a lot in young people. They thought I would grow out of it - the curious outfits, the bizarre hair, the exaggerated make-up. The uncompromising attitude. Somehow, in the broad sweep of their assumptions, was the feeling I’d grow out of my tattoos, too, and in the glowing maturity of my late twenties, with marriage, motherhood and comfortable respectability under my belt, some Greater Power would quietly reward my submission to the norm with a fresh new skin.
Oddly enough, none of those things happened.
Certainly I stopped dying my hair in lurid colours, or backcombing it amid a brain-damaging fog of hair spray to dizzy heights. The outfits were hung at the back of the closet (but not the jewellery) and anything black and stretchy became the ideal. The high-heeled pointy boots were replaced by trainers. The make-up subsided to a lick and a promise. But well, the tattoos stayed. Increased. Multiplied, even. They coiled, crept, enveloped, blossomed, inhabited more and more of my decidedly generous physique and I could no longer claim the dubious protection of a youth cult.
It became painfully obvious to my more conventional acquaintances and co-workers, as the years passed and I entered middle age, that I got tattooed because I wanted to. Worse, I wasn’t going to stop. And even worse still, I wasn’t ashamed or embarrassed. I even go to the swimming pool regularly, in my utilitarian black Speedo, showing acres of skin, as if I was normal. Oh dear.
But none of this is to say I’m not aware of the consequences of what I’ve done to my body; or that I don’t have regrets. In my youth, I would never have admitted to regrets, that would have seemed like a surrender. But with age comes a certain inevitable elasticity of mind, and with longevity, experience. I have, as a little child I know told me, ‘seen stuff’. I have a different understanding of society than I did at twenty, or thirty, or even forty. I have the thoughts I have now, at this time; they sparkle, some sharply, some faintly, in my mind, like an infinity star field. Some of them are beautiful, all of them are points of fire. They are much more outrageous, and dangerous, than my frocks ever were.
So regret, the most touchy subject in tattoo world. It’s what taxi drivers always say to you:
‘Doncha regret ‘em, then, the tatts? Eh? A nice-lookin’ gell like you?’
We always, us tattooed people, say no, we don’t. I’d say it too, and often do. But it’s not true, for me. Or rather, to be more accurate, I regret society’s attitudes towards me, as a tattooee. I regret the damage my body art choices have done to my career, for example, and I regret the way some people react to me. But you can’t say that to a taxi driver, or a nurse, or a policeman, or a doctor, or a prospective employer, or a potential lover, all of whom repeat that phrase in terms appropriate to their culture and class. You can’t explain, at length, about prejudice because people never consider themselves prejudiced. They consider themselves right. So it’s easier to say no, no regrets. And really, what’s done is done, isn’t it? I certainly wouldn’t remove my tattoos, because I like them, they satisfy something in me, they are me, so that leaves only one option. Deal with them, and the reactions they bring. Take responsibility for my skin.
Does that sound a little ‘love me, love my tattoos’? Yes, I suppose so, and many people do, I’m pleased to note. There are always people out there just waiting to surprise you: the elderly lady at the pool who tells you how she’d love to have a rose on her hip, if - annoyingly - she wasn’t due for a hip replacement operation. The man who finds great pleasure in gently, with permission, tracing your art with his fingertip. The masseuse who tells you how much more pleasant it is to massage your illustrated skin, than plain old boring skins; nothing there to look at while you work. The sporty aerobicised gym girl who asks for your artist’s address so she can have a Pegasus on her back; winged, like her flying feet.
Fascinated people, wistful people, envious people, attracted people, people summoning up the courage to change. People who want to memorialise personal events on their skin, subsume memories into their living body, who want to honour love. Men who want their child’s name etched on their back; my daughter, my son, I’m so proud. Women who want to say they understand freedom at last; it’s in the mind, they know that now and they want to modify themselves without regard to the opinions of a damnable society whose criteria are solely in the marketplace. Because they’re worth it.
Sentimental people, fierce people, kind people, spiritual people, melancholics and artists, comics and high wire walkers. We go under the needles because we know that we’ll die one day; we know that we can live with what we do because we won’t live forever and beauty - well, it’s definitely skin deep.
But doesn’t it hurt? I get asked that at least once a week. And it does hurt; variably, but it hurts. We’re so scared of pain in the West, aren’t we? I am; the first twinge of a headache and I’m heading for the ibuprofen. But tattoo-pain is different; I choose, I submit, I tame my discomfort, I endure. For some, the pain is an offering, a transition, a metamorphosis from one part of life to another. For others, it’s an inconvenience to be borne, for some the bearing of such pain in public is a re-affirmation of pride and strength. Skinny little women bear it better quite often than musclemen. Some boys faint when they feel the actuality of what they screwed up all their hormone-whipped courage for; some girls remark it’s no worse than a Brazilian wax. Some talk all through the needle’s bite, the swabbing and the blood; some, silent, fix their eyes on distant horizons; some pray in their heads and remember as the name they can never forget blossoms from the mess. We are all blessed. We are a kind of family: An illustrated family.
So the new tattoo - it scabs, it itches abominably, it peels, it becomes splendid and it is no-one’s business but my own. Look, I’m not asking much - aside from world domination, calorie free Haagen Datz and eternal youth - but I’m asking you, yes, you reading this, if you’re not tattooed and you see a tattooed person, and that old urge comes over you to make a remark or ask a question; stop. Think about what you’re going to say and wonder - how do I look to them? Is my remark/question/observation useful and not offensive? Would I like it if they said it to me? And - gulp - have they heard the same thing a trillion times before? Think of it as an exercise for your mind; think of it as mind-expanding. Expand your mind to accept what’s different to you and remember, you’re incredibly different to some folk’s eyes.
There’s an old saying in the tattoo world: Tattooed People Don’t Care If You Don’t Have A Tattoo. There are variations, but that’s the gist of it. We don’t care if you haven’t got a tattoo - because, why would we?
So come on, celebrate with us; join in the human carnival, the fireworks, the candy-floss, the bright, whirling, brilliance of it.
You’re welcome.
