Alec Ilstrup
Prof. Karasick – The Artist Book
12/6/21
Final Book Essay
At the beginning of the pandemic we all found ourselves with more time on our hands than usual. We had to find alternatives to any of our hobbies that include interacting socially with other humans. My number one favorite way to spend time with other people is to make art with them. Whether it’s making pictures together, painting, drawing, cooking, or getting tattooed. There are a number of ways to be intimate with someone you care about and it certainly doesn’t have to be intimacy of the romantic kind. Allowing someone to cook for you is an exchange of care, of intimacy. Painting, drawing or photographing with another person can be very vulnerable. Exchanging art with another person is like sharing a part of your soul. Tattooing might be the most intimate form of art there is. Allowing someone to inscribe something underneath your skin to remain there for the rest of your life is the definition of vulnerability. A lot of care goes into every single tattoo applied to human skin. You have to trust your artist and your artist should trust you in order to make a tattoo both parties are happy with.
With my new found free time at the beginning of this mess I chose to take up tattooing as I had always wanted to learn but always felt as though it was an inaccessible art form to me. I bought a hand poke tattoo kit with my girlfriend off of Amazon and she gave me a small smiley face on my thigh the first day we had it. This exchange of permanency had me addicted ever since my first tattoo at age eighteen. I remember thinking to myself as I sat for my first tattoo that I would like to learn to do this someday. I went on to collect a lot more tattoos after moving to New York City in 2017, but every artist I talked to spoke about tattooing as if the only way to become an artist was to get an apprenticeship under some old white guy who has been doing traditional tattoos since before I was born. Only in 2020 did I realize that I can do whatever I want. I feel as though the pandemic proved that our lives are fragile and could change at any second. I don’t feel as though I’ve wasted time in my life so far, because everything I’ve done has brought me to where I am today and I am generally happy with the outcome. My only goal in life is to make myself happy and pursue the activities I enjoy doing and do those as much as possible. The temporality of life is something constantly on my mind. I think that is why I am drawn to image making and tattooing; they are two of the most permanent art forms there are. Something about human nature makes us want to leave our mark on the world; whether it’s with social change and activism or an artistic mark.
As I’ve made progress on my thesis this year I have been thinking a lot about mark making. From marks on a page that become literate languages to marks on our skin, the non-tangible marks you leave on other people during your life, marks on a piece of photosensitive material. These are all ways we leave marks on the world around us every day.
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