ReminiScience

To be tattooed is a long and emotional process that without which I would surely go crazy. I’ll compare it to a bartender, although I have to admit I have never tended bar. They listen to the pains, frustrations, and insecurities of everyday people for a living. Tattoos are amazing works of art of which I wonder in amazement at the creation and effect of. They also get people to open up about the most intimate emotional conditions of their lives.

It is a profound thing to learn the details of a strangers life. Like driving while deep in thought when you end up miles further down the road with no memory the trip between, tattooing blocks the conscious interpretation of what I’m being told. When I finish a long day, the emotional burden finally hits like a ton of bricks.

I’ve been told that getting tattooed makes it easy to feel emotions again. I think it’s just that our minds have taken over our bodies and that tattooing relinquishes thought from the feeling of what it is to be alive. I’m intensely interested in how I can be the release of so much pain, and not absorb it myself.

Watching the election on tv is an orgasmic visual information overload. The UI on the interactive touch screens is flawless and beautiful. This is about the most educated thing I can say about what I am watching. It seems as if everyone is stuck on “think”. I don’t want to think about every minute detail. Each new fact, rapidly overstated, never saturates deeply enough to mean anything to me. So why is my breathing not flowing continuously, but quickening to keep up with the breath of the over caffeinated reporter?

I’m not an analyst, and I don’t poor over details searching for the meaning hidden in the exit polls. I wake, breathe and experience my life as it flows effortlessly from one place to another like a wonderful novel unfolding before my eyes. Each coincidence is a blessing and more and more I’m aware enough to notice and appreciate it. I’m dedicating the rest of this year to slow down, and experience the intricate subtleties of my experience. This mouth breathing, heart racing, rush to the finish line has left me winded and I am taking back my attention to focus on living a life of beauty and love.

I stopped by Sedona for a night of camping and de-stressing on my way back to Los Angeles from Phoenix. I’ve never been to Sedona before and was excited to see what it was all about. I camped at the Cave Springs campground in Oak Creek where there were about 20 skunk of all ages rummaging for food all night long. They are very cute critters once you get over the possibility of getting sprayed. I also visited one of the many vortexes and was bummed I couldn’t stay all day and meditate.

I’m patiently waiting for Sunday when I will be relocating to the LA suburb of Thousand Oaks where I will FINALLY have my own private art studio. Thus concludes the transition from my previous career as a web developer to tattooing as a primary medium. Never fear, I will still be taking on lots of different projects building websites, designing graphics, painting, and playing music.

Check out this amazing art!!!!!! (found on Draplin Design Co.)

If you would like to get involved get in touch, I would really like to start collaborating with other artists.

The internet is an easy place to hide behind a bit of anonymity and it’s easy to be far more bold than usual because of it. When I was younger, I led a very public life (as the singer and guitar player in a local rock band), and it had a significant effect on who I was and I how I perceived the world around me. As I got older and found myself spending more time working on the computer designing websites I was able to shed the fear of being held to unrealistic expectations and maintaining control of my “image”.

A few years passed and I happily disappeared into the world as just another occupant, nothing to be ridiculed or harassed about. I was very happy to be off of the radar and out of the way of judgment. It was in this period of my life that I truly discovered what makes me happy and obtained a clear perspective on making my life more positive as well as the lives of the people around me.

Now that I’m tattooing regularly, I’m meeting more people and having a bigger impact than ever before. Typically I am able to influence the people around me in a positive way, including through the internet. So, a long time ago I decided that I would only express myself positively online. And as much as I could humanly manage in real life.

As I come under greater scrutiny, there’s more transparency in my life online and off. I sincerely hope that my intentions are perceived more closely to what they are they what they are not. It is only by my rigid adherence to this philosophy that I can be confident in myself and my art, and continue to progress. If we can stop the spread of negative energies and focus on creating and maintaining positive energies instead, I believe the world around us would be a much better place.

Sorry for the lack of updates. I’m working on a plethora of new websites for my art. New tattoos, paintings, photography, web design, benefits, concerts, music… you name it, it’s been happening. In the mean time, I’m working on setting up a lifestream of some sort to catalog my comings and goings online. For those of you who are wondering what the hell that is, it is a collection of all my account’s RSS feeds from a bunch of different websites. So, when I post a photo to flickr, listen to a song with Last.FM, post to any of my niche sites, update my portfolios, ect…, it will all be archived in one central spot. Less searching, more time creating. I hope everyone had a wonderful summer and is ready to head into the tail of the year. I’ll be moving into a new house and building a new tattoo studio in Thousand Oaks in the next few weeks as well. Now, back to my work, ciao.

These are sketches for some new paintings I am going to be doing. In the one on the left, I followed the pattern inward while in the spiral on the right I tried a more universal design.

While driving from San Diego to Phoenix the other day I thought a few things:

• I want to paint the Arizona sunset using the wind and clouds. There are colors here that are no where else.

• Living on Mission bay means watching fireworks every night at 10.

• It’s a machine. If you’re going to give someone buying advice in janky tattoo supply shops, at least know enough to know that you don’t call it a freakin gun.