Tattoo Update

I was looking back over old posts, and I realized I haven't blogged about my tattoo plans for a while. Since then, my plans have become a little more concrete, so I thought I'd go over them again.

First of all, I wrote that I wanted to end up with a tribal piece on one upper arm and kanji on the other. I've decided against the kanji - I've read too much about people who were tattooed with words that didn't mean what they thought they meant, and I certainly don't read Japanese myself. I told myself I would get kanji if I could learn to read Japanese, but I don't think that's going to happen. Instead, I came up with another beautiful design: a thin tribal spiral, reminiscent of DNA, surrounded by a wider spiral and swirling dots, meant to be cosmically reminiscent, and butterflies fluttering around the whole thing, to represent metamorphosis, fragility, and the cycle of life. Altogether, the whole thing symbolizes the unity of the universe for me. I've been working on the design for months, perfecting it, and I've picked the left arm for it.

On the other arm, I have indeed decided on a tribal piece, as I wrote before; but more specifically, on a tribal wyvern that I want my mother to design. I don't know if I can get her to do it. A wyvern is a cousin of the dragon; dragons have four legs and two wings, wyverns have two legs, and their wings are clawed and derived from their forelimbs (like the wings of bats are). I chose a wyvern partly because I like their shape more for a tattoo, and partly because my dad always liked to say his sign was the dragon, and I sort of think of him like that. I guess I think that would make me a wyvern somehow. Both creatures represent strength, ferocity, independence, and cunning. This tattoo will be on my upper right arm.

The symbolism of these two arm tattoos must seem to be somewhat at odds, but the way I see it, the former is endowed with feminine energy and the latter with masculine energy, so I think they balance each other out perfectly in a yin-yang way. I've even chosen which arms they go on with this system; I associate the left side with a more creative path and the right with a more analytical one. They do say that left-handed people are supposed to be more creative, and right-handed ones more analytical.

On my back, I am still planning wings with the phrase "contra mundum". Before, I wrote that I wanted "abstract" wings; I'm not sure what I meant by abstract, but probably not what I want anymore. I'm not entirely sure what kind of wings I want, but I'm thinking I want fey-esque wings, tri-sectioned, laying at rest, black, somewhat ragged, with skulls subtly blended in as pale spots. I thought I was unsure, but after typing all that detail, it just became apparent to me that I'm pretty sure what I want. Anywhoodle. I want fey wings because they are neutral - they do not represent either good or evil, as almost any other type of wing does. I want them tri-sectioned because traditionally three pairs of wings represent glory, honor, and dignity (and I also don't want to look too much like a butterfly). The raggedness and subtle skulls are to counteract the "sweetness" of the fey wings, because things that seem sweet and innocent are not always so. Sometimes they are jaded and worn down, but strong. And I want them black just because I love black.

Onward, to the phrase "contra mundum". I'm going to have this phrase tattooed vertically down the back of my neck, downward until it meets the wings. It is Latin, meaning "against society" "against the world" or "against everybody". I've also seen "against all organized beliefs". I know it's not my native language, but I've decided I want it anyway. It's a simple phrase, and I've never heard of any confusion about its meaning, and all the sources I've found agree on its interpretation. I know it could be interpreted negatively - people might think I hate everybody - but to me it's always stood for a certain independence of thought. That's why I'm pairing it with the wings to represent my independent spirit and mental androgyny. I bring mental androgyny into this to tie it to the two previous tattoos and their meanings. I said that one was feminine and the other masculine, so it makes sense that the one in the middle would be neutral. The one in the middle is where the yin-yang occurs, the plan where the anima and the animus are perfectly balanced. All in all, the first tattoo is my body/heart, the second one is my mind, and the third one is my spirit.

As you can see, I've put a lot of thought into this, and there's a complete system of personal symbolism involved in these tattoos, and if I ever make any changes in my plans, I will definitely incorporate more symbolism.

The Many Personas of *I*

I've always loved masks, but I've never really done any research on them or looked into their history. Today I decided to do some. Here's what I found.

There are different types of masks, apparently. I did not know this, but here are all the types of masquerade masks (which are really Venetian masks, because is there really any other kind of masquerade mask?). As far as I can tell from what I read, they're all made out of papier mache and then painted and decorated to look exotic and exciting:

Bauta: a whole face mask which was originally used for concealment. It has a sharp chin line, no mouth, and is typically very gilded. It's also usually white. Picture here.

Moretta: a black, usually velvet, oval-shaped face mask that used to come with a veil (I don't know if it still does). It was held onto the face by a button held in the teeth so that the wearer did not have to talk, but these days it come with a ribbon for tying it on. It was worn by women, and later by men, to hide their identity. Picture here.

Mattacino: a clown type mask which was worn by Italian jesters. Picture here.

Medico Della Peste (The Plague Doctor): masks with long noses that look like beaks. They were developed during the plague for doctors. The nose held a filter of herbs and salts, and there were crystal discs over the eyes. Now the herbs and discs are gone, and the masks are more decorative, sometimes resembling birds or beaked creatures. Picture here.

Columbina: a half mask that is held up by a baton or ribbon. Supposedly it was inspired by an actress who did not want to cover her entire face for a play. I think these are the most common and decorative types of masks. Picture here.

Volto (Larva): similar to the Bauta, this mask is a full-face mask which is typically white. Unlike the Bauta, however, this mask has a rounded chin line and a mouth so that the wearer could talk and eat while still concealing who they were. Larva means ghost. Picture here.

So there you have it: the various types of Venetian masquerade masks and their names. The reason this came up was because I was planning to post pictures of a mask I made and I didn't what to call it. I wasn't even sure it could be called a Venetian mask. Now I can call it a harlequin columbina mask (harlequin just means that it has a pattern of different colored diamonds). It's hard to tell from the pictures, but the white diamonds have piano music on them.

And here's a link to the history of Venetian masks, if you care to read it. 

Note: I do not own any of the pictures, except for the pictures of my mask (the green and white harlequin mask with the feathers).

Finished First Attempt

Remember that mask I mentioned? The one I was tatting? I finished it last week. Today I finally spread it out and took some pictures. There's a piece of wire in the middle for fitting around the nose that I had to flatten out for the pictures.

It didn't come out quite like I had anticipated. I think that all three medallions (those are the round pieces on either side and in the middle) are too large, because they keep getting folded up. And the mask isn't stiff enough. In one of the pictures of me wearing it, you can see that the top piece with the beads keeps flopping over. Also, I wanted it a bit more tightly woven. For example, it keeps bunching up over the nose because the tatting isn't all quite attached.

I'm going to try tatting another mask, this time without instructions. I'll figure it out as I go. I found a simple pattern that I think can be manipulated to go around the eyes.

To Freak Obsessions

As part of my societal stick-outedness (I'll think of a better word for that later, I'm sure), I pick up some unusal hobbies. Unusual for my generation, I mean. My generation doesn't seem to be very artistic, but hey, that's part of what makes me such a freak (hoorah). My newest fascination/obsession/hobby is tatting, an old-fashioned way of making lace. It can be used to make some awesome things. Like black lace accessories.

tat-ting
–noun
1. the act or process of making a kind of knotted lace of cotton or linen thread with a shuttle.
2. such lace.

I became interested in tatting when I went onto instructables.com and saw a featured article for how to make a tatted mask. I love masks, and this mask was quite lovely. It was made of a kind of heavy lace with wide spaces and was intricately designed. It swirled around the face and even reminded me a bit of a spiderweb, if a spiderweb could be built with swirls and glittering beads around the edges. I was enticed. I looked at the article. It was complicated, and the listed skill level was "advanced". 
 
I was very interested. If such a beautiful mask could be made out of thread, what other possibilities could this combination of thread and secret skill have? The artist had several other intructables listed - one was Learn Needle Tatting With My Flower Pendant! I checked it out, it didn't look too hard, and the best part was I already owned a big needle. So I gave it a shot. The flower didn't come out too well, but it didn't come out too badly either, so I tried the next instructable - Needle Tatting A Necklace. This one came out much better; in fact, it actually looked like it was supposed to look, with everything in the right place and the right length.
 
I then became ambitious and acquired some black thread for myself. I had previously been using purple and white thread that I didn't think was very appealing. Anyway, I love black. I'm now attempting the mask, with black thread and red beads, and I must say it's coming along very nicely. I'll post a picture of it when it's done.

The completely amazing woman who posted the original instructable has her own blog, and she's awesome. Go check it out: Needle Tatting and other Nonsense: The Musings of a Tattooed Needle Tatter