The Tree of Life.

Hey – have fun celebrating today!  Have a safe and fun St. Pat’s Day!

The ancient pre-Celtic people are referred to as Picts, whose name was a derogatory reference meaning “Painted” used by the Romans for their tattooed enemies.  The Gaelic Celts used the term “Curithnii”, meaning “the People of the Designs”… and hey now – I’d say that’s more like it.  The Picts were not simply painted but indeed tattooed, using sharp iron tools and a natural plant-based blue ink called Woad.

While not much is definitively known about the Picts (who began to merge with the Gaelic people by the 10th Century), there are Roman accounts of fierce warriors with “wild hair” (apparently lime paste was used to stand hair straight on end) who were “painted blue”.  So, for some of us not much has changed I guess.

Here are a few images of how the Picts may have appeared, and a piece of Pictish stone art that I recently had the opportunity to render!

Here you go!

I have an addiction to podcasts.  Hey, what better than public radio without commercials (or even worse, depressing news) *and* on my own timeline.  It’s all that and a bag of chips.  So the other day I caught a rebroadcast of Radio Lab entitled, “Placebo”.  Great episode, check it out.  One theory their guest Dr. Daniel Carr suggests is that pain is dependent upon context, which got me to thinking.  I’m constantly asked “Do tattoos hurt?”  And my response is always the same, “The experience is different for everyone”.  But why?

It’s about context.  Speaking for myself, I have an attitude problem when it comes to going to the doctor.  I’m not a happy patient.  Yet I have a high pain tolerance and a stoic nature.  Nine years ago I nearly lost two finger tips in a power tool accident and I was one hurtin’ unit over the next four hours in the ER.  Yet, I’ve enthusiastically endured multiple eight hour sessions of tattooing, and have participated in ritualistic piercing.

The pain we feel isn’t about the pain.  It’s about the story that comes with the pain.  Our stories are filtering the pain even before it’s felt, for better or worse.  Consider the context of “What am I losing with this pain?”  …As compared with, “What have I to gain from this pain?”

In the context of tattooing, when you believe (or know) that something good is coming of your pain, that this is your story being born on your skin… that this is your healing in order to move forward… then the story you have woven for yourself makes all the difference in your ability to process and sit with the level of discomfort you physically and psychologically feel.

“Scientists currently view our entire identity as something we construct from one second to the next. You are the unfolding of an ongoing narrative.  Not just a narrative in words, but touch… odor…  We use all of these inputs to generate the next frame from the last frame in our story.”
~ Dr. Daniel Carr

Read more about Mehndi.

Anyway, the Henna paste is left to dry for several hours and then removed. The intricate and elaborate stained designs that remain last for weeks. As this form of body art has gained popularity in the west, I’ve received requests to replicate this Henna look in the medium of permanent tattoo. While certain aspects of Mehndi and Henna body art lend themselves nicely to tattooing, the translation from Henna to the medium of tattooing has its limitations. For example, intricate detailing applied temporarily to the surface of the skin can be rendered more finely than intricate permanent detailing within the skin due primarily to how skin changes over time. The piece highlighted here took some strategizing in terms of balancing size with detail as well as use of color, and hey – it turned out pretty sweet!

]]> http://www.artwithapoint.com/2010/02/henna-styled-ink/feed/ 0 http://www.artwithapoint.com/2010/02/do-it-your-way/ http://www.artwithapoint.com/2010/02/do-it-your-way/#comments Sat, 13 Feb 2010 23:45:55 +0000 admin http://www.artwithapoint.com/?p=514 Hey, it’s Valentines Day, but don’t despair!  Let’s face it, like other holidays commercialism has tainted that which at its core is meaningful.  And that can leave us with, well, a sour taste.

I for one prefer sweet and salty to sour, so why not put a new spin on Valentines Day and celebrate the love and gratitude in your life in your own way?  In this case this simple and symbolic heart represents a Mother’s unconditional love for her twin boys.  Nice, huh?

So just walk on by the pink and red zone at your local store, take the opportunity to run to the kitchen for a snack when the diamond commercials tell you that only a diamond is forever, and instead take a moment to give props to those important to you in your own way.

Heimdall uses his horn to summon the Gods. Go Heimdall!