Okay...so a few years ago I decided to put up a page of my tattoo work, mostly
just plan to show off, but also because on occasion someone asks me what
they are supposed to be, as the pictures of me don't show the work all that
well. However, having found out how pervasive copying tattoos really is (okay,
I
knew,
but thought for some reason no one would copy MINE) when someone I know copied
one of mine and was "inspired" by another, I have decided not to continue
to feed the problem even wider and have removed close ups. Deal with only
having descriptions.
I had wanted to be tattooed for as long as I remembered and several times during my twenties I came close but I never committed. I'm very glad about that now, because the designs that had meaning for me then , like the pentacle have none now. But I do not see it likely that the Celtic and Pictish designs I have now are exactly a fad for me. Even the crow, one of the ones I did come close to getting, would have been a horrible mistake....the one I almost got way back then had been a rather poor piece of wall flash. Also the person that I had intended to go to turned out to do some horrible stuff on friends of mine. Now I have a crow, by the most excellent artist Pat Fish (see bottom of page). I do not believe that one should get a tattoo with any notion of cover up or removal....they are for life, and making sure the design is right and that the artist is good is vital.
While I was early in my Celtic Studies I had been discussing Celtic and especially Pictish artwork with a woman I knew had been a tattoo artist, although she wasn't working at the time. However, A Geisha had become intrigued with the artwork of the Picts and when I mentioned I wanted to get a knotwork armband with a Pictish spiral she was game. I found the knotwork among some pieces of art that my late High Priestess had had. The spiral is from George Bain's Celtic Art. This spiral spoke to me as something I could use to dedicate to The Morrígan.
This was my first piece, rather larger than most of the first ones friends of mine had gotten, and as we began, after a couple of false starts getting the transfer to work, I heard those words no one wants to hear from their tattoo artist "oh, sh*t, you're going to kill me." In trying to get the transfer to finally take, she had put it sideways (you can see which way it's "supposed to go" from the background) and didn't notice until she got a line drawn in. I just looked at it and then the picture, and realized that somehow it seemed more "correct" for me the way she had put it. Sometimes accidents aren't.
Originally we were going for the legendary "woad" look, but weren't actually sure what color that would be nor could we find out. Woad is MUCH darker, like new jeans (it's the same pigment as Indigo, only it takes more work to get that color from woad than it does Indigo but it's the came chemical make up when you do). I later experimented with woad and found that it would not be a good tattoo agent, it doesn't stay in the skin. And I came across some research that there was blue-green pigment on one of the Lindow Bog bodies that was from a copper based stone. This WOULD be tattooable......so now I believe this was the blue pigment that was used by the Celts and Picts, rather than woad. The term "vitrum" used by Caesar which now translates as "woad" actually originally translated as a blue-green glass. Woad may also not have arrived in Britain until the Saxons. I am continuing research on this. (I.M. Stead, J.B. Bourke, and D. Brothwell. Lindow Man: The Body in the Bog and R.C. Turner and R.G. Scaife Bog Bodies: New Discoveries and New Perspectives) In an email conversation I discovered that tattoo artist Pat Fish also has come to believe that it was copper for the blue....great minds think alike! (Both woad and copper are toxic, btw, so I'll just stick to modern pigments thanks) ****I now have a page dicussing the woad issue at The Problem of the Woad****
I got my second one from A. a few months after I returned from a trip to Scotland. This Wolfstone in Aberdeenshire (Newbigging Leslie, Leith Hall) was one of the stones I had visited and I had felt a strong connection to it. On the way there from Aberdeen I had seen a Red Deer stag on a hill and as I got off the bus I was greeted by the site of a weasel chasing something in and out of the bushes. Then I had this powerful feeling from this stone that I can't exactly describe. And a short distance away in the woods, I made contact with Otherworldly beings. This was one of two such encounters I had, the only one connected to the proximity of a Pictish stone. The Wolf is also a very special animal to me, and some of the speculation on the Wolfstones note that they might be hounds, this one in particular (as it has a more tucked up belly than the others).
My next one was sort of a graduation gift and is a Crescent and V rod, a common Pictish symbol of debated meaning. This particular design felt right to me, although it was a bit too detailed for the size we went with...but I'm fine with the potential smudge. This particular one actually is on a stone that has a hunt scene with hounds, which may be the basis for a future back piece. It won't be an exact replica of the Hilton of Cadholl Stone, but similar, based on my own "mythology" as it were.
It was years before my next one. Things never worked out with getting together with A. for more work and I was reluctant to find about other artists. A friend of mine, Gwynllead, who had gotten her first tattoo from A. shortly after mine had gotten an apprentiship and moved on to working on her own in Maryland. I decided that a trip down to visit her and her family and get some work might be in order. As I had recently lost my horses and decided that I wanted a tattoo to commemorate them, as the loss was tragic. I didn't want to see it, so I decided on the back of my shoulder. This design is from the Inverurie 4 stone (also called the Pony Stone or the Horse Stone) and was also the basis for the well known triple horse design of Bain's.
Having gotten that one, I still had some money left over towards art work and my husband had opted out of getting his first yet (he decided he'd get inked AFTER we got home but hasn't yet, at this point his only modification is a nipple piercing he recently had redone ....the first time it was done by someone who lied about his supposed training and really botched it, didn't even put it in the right place at all). Gwynllead was reluctant to work on my scalp at ahat time, which I really want done, so I opted for a knotwork snake on my leg. She did the design up herself, with me looking over her shoulder annoyingly suggesting changes. SOMEDAY this will be filled in (and I'll get MORE work from her).
I
just got a "Pictish Hooded Crow" (done with a double disk and Z-rod) from
Pat Fish at
Mad Hatter's Tea
Party Feb. 2001! At the left you can see the artist's magic working
hands applying it. It is beautiful, a design that is a collaboration
of my ideas and Aaron and Pat Fish's talented work. I will put a pic of the
actual tattoo up here eventually, but frankly am not anxious to have it copied.
All my tattoos are prayers and dedications to my Matron the Morrígan,
but this is perhaps the most obvious as it is the animal most associated
with her. I was not sure about getting tattooed at this time for various
reasons but felt pushed to get a Crow NOW! The day before the event
we had a crow come to our "Crow altar" for the first time since Fall (we
hadn't been here at the exact right time to keep them around and feeding
here for the winter, just a bit too late although we had been leaving stuff
earlier before we moved).
I will be getting a lot more work done. I still want to get my scalp done, and am making plans for it with Gwynllead who now lives nearer us. Aaron and I also have a small design we wish to have done to mark our wedding which we now plan to August 2005 on our 9th wedding anniversary (the artist couldn't make it for the wedding). And, of course, there is the back piece! And a couple of smaller ones. I once thought I'd stop an 9, but now it doesn't look so likely.
Tattoos by A. Geisha and Gwynllead. Photos by Kenn
Baum Except last, tattoo by Pat Fish photo by Aaron
Miller...please keep in mind that a tattoo is a PERSONAL expression and while
inspiration may be sought from others' tattoos it is bad Karma to copy designs.
Most of my work is interpretations of Pictish stones...if you wish
the design from these stones it would be better to take pictures of the stones
to your artist. ***These are now not displayed...deal with it***
Background modified by Kym from Pictish spiral (as featured in George
Bain's Celtic Art)