SANDS OF TIME

It's been some time since I've put any depth of thought into this digital medium. What can I say? Life has brought me into a chaotic maze of twists and turns I never could have seen coming. Navigating this labyrinth has been one hell of a ride and if I'm being less than honest it hasn't been easy.

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The truth... Major life changes and losses, paradigm shifts, the everlasting process of becoming a tattooer and artist coupled with putting everything I have into owning and operating my own studio while striving to maintain consistent progress toward fulfilling the desired outcomes I have for this endeavor have been brutal in their impact. My experience has lead me to the edge of the deepest darkest chasms buried within the depths of my psyche. A place where both unrevealed and repressed truths have lain dormant awaiting to be woken, brought to the surface and into the light as they gasp for breath and grasp for life. A few wrong steps on this journey have been near fatal and time again I still find myself teetering between two different paths. One leading onward toward the passage out of this perplexity, the other a literal and figurative dead end. With nothing to light the way it's often too easy to take a wrong turn. I'm searching in the dark, surviving with no survival instinct, navigating an impossible situation.

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This is dangerous territory but there is something to be found here, something more meaningful and powerful than anything which inhabits the conscious realm. And so I've settled into this place with an open mind and a willing heart. Where many would wish to move me through this, I'm choosing instead to stay a while, to surrender, to feel, and to ultimately discover what I believe will be life affirming in ways never known to me before. I honestly have no idea what any of this means. Yet, here I am, sitting at the edge, peering into the depths, encompassed by the blackness of complete void, waiting in open arms to hold these truths as they emerge and await physical embodiment.

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I hope to bring these affirmations into not just my art and tattoo career but into the trajectory of my life and the very essence of my being itself. To embody the pain and suffering, the joy and accomplishment, the ups and downs, wrong turns and dead end dreams, to ride the highs and wallow in the lows, to be honest and vulnerable without shame, the creation and destruction that is life itself. I will not shy away from the discomfort of these discoveries, I will not run to escape from them. I will face them, sit with them for a while and then take them as far as they will go. Wherever this brings me and whatever is on the other side of all this, I'll meet you there.