It started, as so many of my interactions with people out in the world do, with my tattoos. Specifically with my heart-tree tattoo:
(man my hair was long when I got that- although to be fair it's getting there again...)Nate and I were at Whole Paycheck- er, I mean, Foods- picking up some fish for dinner (although again, in the interest of fairness, the reason we get our fish there is because it's actually less expensive than other places we've been known to frequent, so perhaps the ol' "paycheck" moniker isn't entirely appropriate). Anyway, as we were checking out the girl bagging our stuff said something I didn't hear and gestured to my tattoo, so I put on my "interacting with people who want to talk about my ink" face (ie, a smile) and nodded and gave the ubiquitous "Thanks!" (because usually what they are saying is a compliment). And then her eyes narrowed and I got my first, "Wait, I know you from the internet..." interaction. Because apparently my design is one that pops up for people looking to design tree tattoos (which I'm sure can be directly linked to my interaction with the lovely Erika Moen at Stumptown Comics Fest in '07, and her subsequent Flickr post.) So that's pretty flattering that my design has such a powerful resonance for so many people. And a good sign for my pipe-dream career as a tattoo artist.
::sigh:: Someday.
But perhaps you'd like to hear the story behind that tattoo? In my experience random strangers often do, so hopefully it is not too conceited of me to think that those few of you who read this would, as well. Generally I tell those random strangers that it has to do with internal and external validation for self and ego, respectively (as well as where we've been and where we're going and family and friends, etc etc) but the truth is I only worked those things out after the fact. The real truth is that my heart-tree tattoo didn't start out as any of those things.
Do you know how sometimes you get a song stuck in your head? Well, when you're an artist sometimes you get a doodle stuck in your head. That's what happened to me back in 2007. I started drawing sprouting hearts, all sorts of variations of sprouting hearts, including flowers and eventually trees. I drew that damn heat-tree over and over again in my sketchbooks, on work documents, and even myself.
But wait- further digression time.
Once upon a time I was a cutter. I know, I know- what female amongst us was not? I'm not saying this to be all, "Oh, shocking and unique reveal!" but rather to explain that once upon a time I, like so many other emotionally unhealthy people have done, would inflict physical pain on myself in an attempt to dull the psychic pain I was experiencing. This was primarily in high-school, with the occasional relapse in college. Thanks to various factors and people, I got to a point where I no longer did that- but that did not erase the urge to do it. And so as a way to deal with the urge, I began drawing on myself instead. That way I still got the intense focus of making marks, but I was creating something beautiful instead of hurting myself.
So. That night in 2007- I had that urge to cut myself, but I did not. Instead I started tracing the veins on the inside of my arm with a sharpie. And then I thought to myself, "Huh, that looks like my little tree design," so I turned it into that. And I stared at it and I thought, "That's really just... perfect." And the depression sort of evaporated and was replaced with the excitement of having found my Next Tattoo.
And do you know? I haven't had the urge to cut since.
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