inkaphobia explained

i think i figured out the psychology behind my recent break with getting tattooed, and it’s kinda two fold.

my last work was completion of a piece that started about a decade before it was finished, and to my recollection was done in september of 2023. if i’m right, it’s in the photo archives from that month, so let’s check my accuracy real quick…

okay, i was close…it was finished in late october of 2023, but for some reason never uploaded to this site, so we’ll remedy that now:

so, after that, october 26th of 2023, no mas. i think it’s a combo of the shop drama that rearranged my job dramatically (august 2024) but moreover the budnik factor. shortly after this i started planning a mixed format budnik piece with an artist, who rather than cash, asked me to procure her a firearm in trade. it was bittersweet because while i could tell his health was on the decline, i really wanted him to see his face on his dad before he passed. i went on the lookout for what she wanted, found one, and started the process of getting it set up, but in the middle of doing so (at the point where i couldn’t back out of things) she left atomic and wasn’t sure if her new boss would be okay with doing the work in trade.

while all the shuffling was going about with that, and no art was even done, budnik passed.

i quietly sold the gun, blew the money on something else, and tattoo needle hasn’t hit my skin since.

but thru the supply gig, i reconnected with kristian, the guy who did my tattoo work back in the 90’s. we’d been friends back then, and just kinda lost touch with each other. we planned a design of significance in the tattoo world, with a little hint of our history, and in the course of the our chats more parallels started to come to light, so we set the appointment on my 55th birthday and we’ll restart it all again then.

stay tuned…