12:50 Monday April 11, I'm sitting at the borders book store on 72/dodge in Omaha and I've got to say it's been a pretty alright day so far.
Had a tasty bagel with Sarah before dropping her off at school and heading to my oil change appointment. That in itself ended up a little hassle but I was gouged money wise less then normal and the cars running great so I'll mark it down in the winning column.
Headed to dick blick thinking about grabbing a roll of water color paper to do my color studies on. I'd though maybe that'd be faster then color pencil and a fun change of pace. They didn't have rolls just huge sheets and tablets. I suppose a tablet will work, I havnt any money due to a slow slow week but after wandering every isle day dreaming about having loads of cash to spend I decided next time I'd grab a 18x24 pad. The $15 one not the $97 one, I mean come on. I suck at water color and theyll probably end up in the trash let's not let this get out of hand, haha.
Any how before I headed out the door I thumbed threw a copy of the juxtapose tattoo book and it turned my brain back towards thoughts of my work.
Not the place I work, but what I produce.
The more I get into finally working with others again and really trying to better my work daily, the more I think.
Is this the best tattoo I can do? Is it the best version of what was asked of me? Is it an appropriate amount of challenge for the day? And more and more the growing thought of what will this look like in 5, 10, 35 years?
Watching my own tattoos age as well as seeing how amazing old old Japanese tattoos age has really put this in the front of my brain.
As I walked into borders I some what randomly came across an interview with shige in a magazine were he was talking more about his ideas, morals, and ethic with his work rather then the standard fair of tattoo interview 'conversation'
He touched an separations between fine art and tattooing. While recognizing that it's obviously a medium of art it's so different from anything else. Out side of all the interpersonal aspects and the fact that it's only going to be around until death. In my mind it read as it's got to look good in 30 years. Your medium of skin in context of the life of that person.
Not only that it's going to remain on them but that it will change over time with them. I'm not sure the thoughts are translating into words in a legible understandable way. But hopefully that all makes since.
Any how, it's something I look forward to committing more time into. Especially as I begin this next very large piece I've been working on getting ready for a Freind. I want to see it in 25 years and be just as excited about it then as when it was just completed, if not more to see how well it's aged.
Tattoos are not static, when the tattoo artist is finished the tattoo is not. Hopefully that's not to 'hippy' of a thought line for you, ha.
Any how that's a piece I hope to spurn more blogs from me with. We plan to have at least bi monthly sessions so I hope to post a progress and thought blog after each sitting. Maybe it'll be fun to watch it come along, maybe it'll be a lot of my rambling to myself. Maybe both? Guess we'll see.
Anyhow walking threw borders I was so excited to see so many graffiti and various art books, travel books, photo reference books, books full of photos of artists studios. - I love studio photos if you didn't already know that.
Such a well stocked store in what I actually tend to look for, and not the same 2 books I see everywhere! How have I driven by so many times without stopping in? Way better then the B&N in SXC.
Still killing time I thought I'd sit down and hammer this out before grabbing some 5guys burgers for Sarah and I for lunch and heading to pick her up for our first afternoon using our new zoo pass!
I'm excited :)
8:58 pm
Part two.
So I grabbed our lunch and after getting los.. Urm, misdirected I found my way to Sarah and we headed across town to the zoo.
Super nice out, and with Sarah feeding me fries as I drove I realized being able to just pop into the zoo for an hour or so would be the greatest thing we'd... Ok,she had come up with for a while.
We chowed down in the parking lot, I liked my burger not so much the fries. They were a little different then what I typically get from them. Sarah however loved the fries and the burger not so much. After some thought and experimenting we came to the conclusion that it was the bacon.
Yup, somehow 5guys has figured out how to make something worse by adding bacon. Perverse.
Anyways, a bottle of water in hand we headed in!
As planed we hit the big cat house and watched tigers for a while, I've seen enough "how to draw a tiger" or cat, horse, whatever books to last me the rest of my life. I get it. But what you cant get any way other then just watching them is how they move. Their flow. The mannerisms that make things look correct. If you have a nicely rendered tiger but it's walking all weird down the path you've created then it's still going to look 'wrong'.
Anyways, there were a few sorta active cats as it wasnt to late in the afternoon or warm out. And we found out when they feed the tigers! 2:30 :)
Having checked that off our list we went to see the penguins. They show boated a ridiculous amount for Sarah, I even posted a few videos on YouTube of it. If you'd like to see some penguins, some sharks, and me being a dork as well as video snips from our trip to Portland a few weeks ago you can search for timm95create as all the videos are tagged with that :)
The zoo taken care of we headed home for a little laying around before taking a walk for some ice cream and checking out the little shops and old houses in sarahs neighborhood. It was a nice stroll, im loving this spring weather.
After making it home and looking at garagejournal.com nerding out on work spaces - yeah I even look at the books/ magazines highlighting peoples work spaces from painters to chefs. I decided to find the couch and finish this entry off.
Feeling pretty good and looking forward to grilling, warm weather and a very busy upcoming week.
