There is something about the process of getting a tattoo that fascinates me. Most of my ink has been done where I can watch the tattoo as it happens. At every opportunity I chronicle the event in video and photograph - a self portrait, if you will. The tattoo in this picture does not allow for that. I look at these pictures with some of the same detachment that you will, a new vision of the event beyond the sensation I experienced under the needle.

The first sting of the needle is my favorite. A shiver of anticipation, then the bite of the needle before settling in for the tracing pain that injects art into my skin. It feels more like the burning slice of a razor than the piercing of a needle. The outline work hurts more than the color, and the upper part of my chest was especially sensitive to this (but it was not as bad as the ink work around my nipple).

Under the needle, I find a place where I feel the ink becoming part of me. It an interesting journey for the body to experience, yet even more so one of the mind. Bracing for the pain, or more accurately embracing the pain is not something that lends itself to a written chronicle, but it is addictive - at least for me. The transformation continues. The colors build, one upon the other. Somewhere in that time I am changed, and the ink is a reminder of that transformation.

Funny, I am not quite healed from the latest and would gladly start the next. Instead, I will wait a couple of weeks for my tattooist to get his new shop open before working on the next stage of the journey - anticipation sweetens the fix.

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