get another tattoo

I was waiting at the tattooist’s last week and overheard him saying to another customer ‘I don’t do portraits.’

WTF?!

I was sitting there with my existing tattoos on full display. The woman he was talking to can’t not have seen them as she left.

It got me thinking.

And then it got me looking out online and asking some hard questions.

I realize, now, I’ve had no cheers on either of the original tattoo entries on this goal. Not one.

I’ve also had a rather ominous silence from most of the inked people I know online.

I have a horrible, horrible feeling I’ve been walking round with crap tattoos for the last…oh God, almost five years…and nobody much telling me, and me not realizing, which makes me feel…well, pretty crappy.

The weird thing is, I’ve had a few compliments on them too. A few. And a few people who recognized who they were meant to be.

I’ve also had some people get it horribly, drastically wrong.

My husband is still telling me they look fine. I’ve bitten the bullet and asked around online. A few people who aren’t inked themselves have told me that from what they’ve seen…they don’t look all that.

The inked people are still ominously silent.

I’ve made tentative enquiries with a couple of other tattooists, but I feel sick at the idea of even baring my arms to them if things are really as bad as I think they might be.

I just feel stupid.

I dropped by at the tattooist’s tonight.

Slight change of plan: after looking at the available space (because there isn’t much, as you may be able to see from the photos), it’s now going to be just lilies. The other stuff may get incorporated further down, if I extend this to full sleeves at some point.

Also, good news! He thought he was fully booked for most of the summer, but he has a slot in late July. So I’ll at least get one side done before I go away.

I progressed about, oh, an inch or so further on this one tonight, and actually rang the tattooist.

He didn’t realize who I was at first when I gave him my name (it’s been a while). So I said ‘Kurt Cobain?’ and he went ‘Oh, you!’ (I guess this is what tattooists remember you by. No doubt other people are filed in his memory under ‘the Koi carp guy’ or ‘the Peterborough FC man’ or ‘the girl with roses all down her side’, but I happen to be ‘the Kurt Cobain woman’. I’ve been called worse things.)

He’s free next week, evenings, and said to me to drop in to discuss ideas. What I don’t yet know is when he can book me in to do it. I hope it’ll be before summer really sets in. I like to stick to the thing about not baring your arms for six weeks, and I don’t want it dragging on to the extent I have to cover up during Bumbershoot, because the end of August in Seattle was hot last year.

Now I need some photos. Lilies (although I think he’s probably done his share of those), and a seahorse, a good one. The one on the All Apologies single, giving birth as he is, isn’t in very good shape for this…

and I think I worked it out.

Sleeves, definitely – short, but with irregular lower edges so it won’t look too odd if I get them extended later. Like I said, think the background of lilies on the back of In Utero.

Then, among the lilies…the baby in the section-through-a-pregnant-woman model (look on the album cover and you’ll see the one I’m talking about), the anatomical torso, the turtle shell…and as I’m aiming to have one image on each side of the main portraits on each arm, that means I needed one more thing, and there’s a slight possibility (slight and a long way in the future) that I might do something elsewhere with the heart-shaped box. So I’m considering a seahorse.

This is of course one of those situations where people familiar with Nirvana and Kurt’s imagery will be nodding sagely and anyone else won’t have a clue what I’m talking about, but what the heck. Major issue is the level of detail involved, but I’m sure if I get with my tattooist we can discuss that.

Just recently, I ended up with an unexpected small windfall. My hubby and I have this agreement that if this happens, the rules are that we’re not allowed to put all of it towards the credit card bill. That wouldn’t be fair. Some of it, sure, but we also each get to spend part of it on stuff we’ve been fancying. And that applies in this case.

It probably won’t be enough to do the backpiece – at least not in one go. Plus, it’s spring, and that backpiece, I think, is best done in sections over a whole winter, when it won’t be exposed. However, I’m thinking of having some fill-in done around the portraits. Make them more sleeve-like. Lilies and things, a la the back of In Utero.

I do have time to have this done before the summer. I can afford it. And in a way I don’t have time to explain here, but which has to do with where the windfall came from, it will be a lovely piece of poetic justice.

is going to be based on this – or one of the similar photos (there were a few like this) from the In Utero tour, I’m not quite decided yet. Won’t be for a while yet because it’s going to be expensive – maybe later in the year.

This was done recently and I have to go back in February and get it touched up (that jawline isn’t quite correct).

This is on my left arm…

I have two already – tops of the arms – the back is going to be the big one, so this needs some thought!