Tattoos
I have been thinking a lot about tattoos lately. Not getting one myself but just the concept of them.
I am honoured to have recently been asked by two friends to design them tattoos. I am working on it with pride. Upon me mentioning this on Facebook it prompted a good friend of mine to re-discuss a point he had raised earlier this year.
Felix is from Camden and moved to Taunton in 2007 to study BA Fine Art at Somerset College (the same course I did). One of his observations is that everyone in Taunton seems to have the goal of getting a tattoo. He recently summarised the priorities of Taunton's young adults's as "Get a car, get a tattoo, get drunk".
Now what prompted me to write this blog was that just a few minutes ago a mate posted some images of his new tattoo on his MySpace profile. I looked at it and thought "That's a bit shit" but didn't consider for one moment voicing my opinion. I would never write a comment, I would never criticise the piece outloud in public, and I think I am typical in thinking this way. These people choose pieces of art to be permanently applied to their bodies for the rest of their life and everyone knows that they're permanent. The nature of our society (including myself) is to tell a little white lie and let that person live in ignorant bliss rather than risk upsetting them by voicing your opinion. Is this right or wrong? Would you ever tell someone that you think their tattoo looks rubbish or is inapropriate?
By this logic a tattoo is void from critique. Whereas you could easily have a quiet word in a friend's ear and tell them that his new shirt doesn't fit right or that the fragrance he's wearing is similar to a badger fart his tattoos will always go unquestioned. They receive nothing but compliments. Everyone who is shown them seems obliged to say something positive. By getting a tattoo you are literally forcing people to pay you compliments. And maybe this is why they have grown in popularity and become so addictive, especially among those lacking self confidence.
I guess the way to guage success is to listen carefully to how people compliment your tats. If they reach forward and give a full hearted gasp of excitement and say "Woooow that's beautiful" then I imagine you can be pretty sure they are impressed. But if they remain calm and formal about the situation and say "Yeah that's nice" then be suspicious that they might not like it. I personally like to ask the meaning behind each part of a tattoo and I love to hear people tell me the related stories. This of course gets embarrassing for both parties if there are no reasons.
Thinking historically, it is the permanence of the tattoo that makes it such a powerful medium. I picture Maori tribesman adorned in symbolic lines and shapes or South American gangsters covering their bodies with picture books of their lives, never wanting to forget the hardships and blows that life has dealt them but more importantly being able to keep the images with them in a world where material positions can get taken by man or nature at any time. But when that permanence is situated in an ethnically undiverse, largely middle class county town in Britain it just creates false politeness and empty compliments.
To summarise: What I have just said applies only to shit tattoos and/or tattoos without appropriate meaning or relevance. The moral of the story is do not get a shit tattoo. Like most things in life the medium is perfect, it's how people apply it that decides success.
( Comments please. )
Shop Windows project looking shaky
9 North Street, one of the many empty shops in Taunton
By this point in time I was hoping to be spreading the word, creating a hype and telling people exact locations of my forthcoming exhibition that is planned to coincide with exhibitions by my fellow members of Kingston Studios Art Group. But this is not the case. Instead we are less than 20 days from the advertised opening date of 18th September and not a single location has been confirmed.
Let me bullet point the project so far...
- All across the nation towns are reinvigorating their town centres by letting local artists exhibit work in the many empty shops created by the recession.
- Kingston Studios Art Group, prompted by Taunton Deane Borough Council decide to do the same.
- An advert is placed in the Somerset Arts Week catalogue publicising the exhibits with a launch date of 18th September.
- The three exhibiting artists set about producing the work.
- We send formal letters with project details to 6 different letting agents, who together control all 10 of the suitable empty properties on North Street, Fore street, High Street and Station Road.
- The majority of agents did not reply. A few explained reasons why properties were unavailable. But one said something that suddenly threw things into perspective. He simply wrote a single line response saying "I have passed the details onto my client".
And that is the key point of why this project has not succeeded. The letting agents are middlemen. Formal figures required to act in accordance with their role. There is little room for creativity on their part or they risk losing the trust of their client, the landlords.
The people who can swing this and give the go ahead for such projects seem to be the property owners. So as the time runs out on my project I offer this bit of advice to artists running similar projects around the country... When you prepare your proposals and formal letters, try and get them passed by the agents and onto the property owners. Address the letter to both the agent and the landlord. Do the obvious business bit of stressing the benefits to them that your project would bring and hopefully this will result in a phone call from the client to the agent saying "YES! Give these artists the go ahead and let them use my shop. I'd rather see some life in there than have it sit empty".
Additional Note: You may wonder why I sound so casual about this project when the exhibition is in such jeopardy. Well the truth is the work that I have produced will not go to waste, even if a shop window cannot be organised. I plan to go ahead anyway with a gorilla exhibit of the video. So either way, my video work will be shown in Taunton town centre, at sunset on the 18th September 2009.
Finished shooting Darlingtons Music Video today
I managed to do with the Darlingtons what I never achieved with the Luscious Rickys
I have completed shooting a music video for local band The Darlingtons. With just one weekend between now and the EP launch night I have to edit it and burn to DVD ready to be show at the Perfect 5th Wednesday 2nd September. Here's a sneak peek video...
What can you tell by a man’s book shelf?
I spent a couple of hours knocking up some more recycled wood furniture today. A book shelf...
Bag for life recylced – Video blog
Ed visited the studio yesterday and played cameraman while I filmed this short video blog. Thanks Ed!
Repainting the Open Mic A-board
Open Mic A-board Being Repainted
I finally got round to making some proper progress with the repainting of the Open Mic A-board today. Had a lot of website jobs to do during the past couple of weeks but I'm going to make a real effort to press on and finish this for next Sunday.