Lip and Eyelid Sewing Ritual

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iam:Godzilla Riots recently experienced an eye and lip sewing by Pierre Rogers at Lucky Monkey in Ann Arbor, Michigan, which must have been quite intense. They write,

The sewing ritual helped me come to terms with the fact that events in my life are not always within my control, and that sometimes I am subject to the uncontrollable forces of the world. After understanding and accepting my own lack of control — and that it’s okay — I realized my ability to overcome my own fears and physical pain by focusing my mind and its thoughts. Intense concentration on my mental processes, I learned, endows me with an ability through which my mental conceptions and ideas are manifested outside my mind and into the physical world — my fear and pain are not real, expressing and personifying these thoughts only hold me back. Through mental concentration I may conquer any limitations and constraints that I create and perpetuate in my life.

Many more photos continue after the break.

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Surface Bar X-Ray

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It’s taking me a bit longer than expected to get today’s update posted (early evening probably) but the good news is that I’ve just about doubled the size of the keyword database, so there are a ton of new tattoo galleries that’ll be getting posted. Anyway, Dinosaursr sent in this x-ray shot of her surface bars done by by Seth at (Pro-Gress) Body Piercing in Raleigh, NC.

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Betty Boop Tattoo

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Candy got this skeletal Betty Boop tattoo done by Kris Roberts at Shipwreck Tattoo in Corpus Christi, Texas. She explains,

I grew to love Betty Boop as a child and now that I’m older, I have a passion for animation because of her creator, Max Fleischer. I wanted to commemorate Betty as she represents not only loves of mine, but also female history as well as the history of animation. I did not want to just get a straight up portrait of Betty because her image has been strewed over the years. Modern Betty has a stereotype of Harley Davidson and Playboy which I didn’t want to portray on my body.

I was browsing the internet one day and came across the online portfolio of artist Michael Paulus who had drafted skeletons for a bunch of cartoon characters, including Betty. I thought his designers were soooo clever! As soon as I saw his Betty, I knew it was the perfect imagery. I emailed him asking for permission, which he granted!

I took these images to my tattoo artist and asked him to come up with something “neo-traditional” and 1930s themed and to have Betty’s skull decorated dia de los muertos style (to celebrate her death*). Kris came up with this amazing composition and the rest is history! One thing that I think is really amazing is that when Kris drew up the design, he put a sacred jaw on her forehead because he noticed that she did not have a jaw. It was funny because when Micheal e-mailed me granting permission for the tattoo, he included this little tidbit: “You might have noticed that I omitted the lower jaw of Betty. Was never sure if she indeed have a jaw, although she does obviously talk!”

Funny how that worked out!

* Betty’s death = her censorship. ‘America’ forced her to move into a small apartment with a small pet dog and lengthened her skirt. Betty was no longer free to be the independent sexy women she once was. Weveral of her cartoons were banned as well.