Where it all began... the introduction.

Around about twenty years ago I was on the brink of what some people like to call adulthood, which is to say, I'd become old enough to no longer have an excuse for any subsequent delinquent behavior. The standard age at which adulthood actually starts seems to slip further and further back with each new generation of humans. On average, it would seem human babies are about the least prepared, most ill-equipped babies of the entire animal kingdom. What other animal takes 18 years to percolate under the tutelage of its elders before being deemed mentally capable of making decisions for itself? The only near equivalent would be some really slack elephants and a few home-schooled orangutans that just can't seem to get off the tit.

But not me. I was born ready or at least I'd always thought so.

I was not the brightest nor the dullest of teenagers though I fancied myself the philosophical type. I could've been a great thinker had I ever applied myself. Instead I fell more into the category of those that whimsically ponder but lack the self-discipline to develop any sort of expertise. This, I more than made up for with an incorrigible spirit of curiosity and experimentation. I flung myself head on into whatever interested me at the time. At this point it had been mostly music, art and psychedelics drugs.

I was not a bad kid. I loved my Mema. I never got into fights. I was well liked by most people but, even before embarking into a career on the fringes of society, my childhood was bohemian to say the least. I was never required to live up to anyone else's standards. For as long as I can remember, I've been encouraged to be me. So, while my education had it's ups and downs, even the public school system was no match for my... personality.

I wanted to leave a mark... which is possibly the second earliest human motivation.

First, survive.

Second, leave a mark letting others know you survived.

Even sexual reproduction is just a manifestation of the desire to leave a mark on the world, something that might live on after us. Most people do this by having children. Artists, on the other hand, are the magnificent masturbators of creation. The first cave paintings were just one little creator's desire to inseminate the walls of his domicile with his own creative spunk. Artists, like little gods, are essentially a bunch of Johnny Appleseeds spreading our love beans, willy nilly, with no regard for how they grow.

The only thing that matters is that we know we did that shit. We made something. We marked the space and the time we were in it.

As we moved out of the caves and the population increased, making things was no longer enough for some artists. Some artists thought their work had to mean something. As if the cave painters weren't self absorbed enough, along come these narcissistic assholes. They felt that in order for their art to survive it had to stand out and in order for it to stand out it had to have a social impact. Some would disagree with me, but I believe this is what made artists competitive. It was no longer enough to leave a mark for its own sake or for the joy experienced in the making, suddenly that mark had to mean something. It had to stand out among the other marks with a message to convey.

Some dummies even decided to go so far as to make art their sole source of income. Those lazy bastards must've heard that tired old adage that doing what you love for a living means you'll never have to work a day in your life.

But that's not true.

Everything takes work.

Especially the things you love.

So tattooing was both the best and the worst thing that I could've decided to do with my life.

Best, because ...what else was I going to do? I'm terrible at math and sports. I was raised by a camp of communal gypsy ragamuffins. So college was not something we anticipated or saved up for.

Worst, because it led me down the path to becoming one of those lazy bastards who basically masturbates for a living. 

So let's reign it back in, shall we? What I plan to do here, over the next few weeks or months, is recount the tale of how all the cosmic energies aligned in specific accordance, creating a miasma of conditions that I trudged through amicably in order to become the Grand Narcissistic Masturbater* that stands before you now.

*by that I mean a tattoo artist...


This will not be a story for the faint of heart. You've been warned.

To be Continued...

Portrait of the Artist in her early 30's.