The one form of art I love the best though would be tattoos. I'm not a fan of needles, in fact I hate them. However the art that comes out of the designs created by the artists simply stun me.
Below you can see a design of the Cheshire cat. The nuances within this design causes me to stop and examine every detail within the picture.
People may fall over within dance or even the worse case fall off the stage but most injuries can be fixed. It's the same with singing and getting the notes wrong but you can soon sort yourself out and carry on. With tattoos they are permanent. People do go through regret and often question as to why they have got it, maybe the cause was to annoy someone or having a little alcohol.
So why get it or do it?
I think like any other art the stimulus has to have a true meaning to you, whether it's an action, a saying, a song or even an memory.
If I get a tattoo - that my mother would probably hate/despise - I would choose something that would remind me of my Grandma. It would mean a lot to me and remind me that she is always with me. I would probably pick a butterfly. The butterfly would be a symbol of freedom and being in control of my own wings. This would show that I'm able to reach things that I want by simply setting my mind to it, or in the butterflies case fly to it. The butterfly would be an outline of white and shaded using a variety of baby pinks. The colours are linked in with a nickname my grandma used to call me.
To this tattoo I would link in different things that remind me of my other family members. A vibrant coloured flower behind the butterfly for one of my grandads, he spent most of his hours in the garden caring for the flowers like they were small individual babies. A small steam engine would be another way to symbolise my other Grandad, as he loved them so much. My mother and aunties used to be taken along to small fairs full with engines and apparently he was fascinated by them.
Obviously, I would take the time to think about the perfect design and debate whether I should or not get it. If I did I would have to look at a variety of different designs that would hopefully be created by tattoo artists because my drawings can be a bit terrible at times... I would also need to think about the needles. If I don't get a tattoo, I would definitely want a large painting dedicated to them, it would be original hopefully to show each of them as the unique individuals that they were.
People have different opinions on tattoos and that is mine. What's your opinion, should they have a deeper meaning than what they are? Or should the art paint thousands of words in your head and be interpreted that way?
~ Soph.
