This year
This year I push myself.
I've been looking back at my early tattoos and I see my innocence. A man early in his tattoo career, eager to create and learn. The fundamentals were lacking, but the composition and desire was pure.
I came in wanting to do this with my all and make people happy at the same time.
It was noble. It IS noble and my intentions remain the same. But my approach has been different. Time and routine and have strengthened my confidence. Technique and finesse have altered my understanding. I'm now capable of zooming in and collecting my thoughts, then stepping back and understanding how a piece will be seen from a distance.
Mind you, I've a long, long way to go. But I know what I'm capable of. And if I have a handle on that, now seems like a good time to push myself to see what else will come out. Why not? I'm the kid in preschool that argued with the teacher about coloring. The high school junior who got kicked out of a gallery showing because his drawing was too controversial. And I'm the guy that took a girl into a hotel room to draw her naked because my college didn't have nude models. None of this is anything special, but I am an artist. An artist at heart.
And so are you. It's in us. It's in your view; in your take. You've your own stories.
So this year I go back to my story. Back to the artist in me. Not the tattoo artist. The artist who daydreams off into the sky and wonders how planes connect and colors would look if they were different.
It's my own call to recklessly abandon everything and build new. But do so by using and pushing the foundations that exist within tattooing for a reason. I'll create without thinking of "tattoo art" but I'll do so with the tenets in mind: longevity, execution, and content translation. I can push to push. Or I can create just for the hell of it.
I'm not really sure what all of this means. I just know I've felt really good going outside of what I see as comfortable lately. I do know that it's possible to push too far or not push enough. There's always an excess one way or the other. The difference is that I don't mind doing either. I want to see from another angle. I want to discover what will come out of me.
I know this is nothing boundary pushing or spectacularly new. I get that. But for me to change the way this thirty-one year old mind goes about its business... well... that's a new world to me. Now I'm excited to work hard and see what happens.