Interesting! I know a great many people who are careful about their emotional relationship with the pattern and placement (which is something that I'm still chewing on). Aside from relationship markings, I'm not sure I've heard anyone talk about their relationship with the artist past "I trust him to do good work and he knows what my piece is about."
Well,there are potentially two levels of artist here. One is the designer of the actual image/symbol/etc. The other is the tattoo artist who would engrave it on my skin. I know they can be, and often are, the same person, but not always.
For the first, wearing, becoming, part of someone else's creation (art image/expression) feels very personal. It would work if they were very distant to me, to the extent that they were a non-entity to me. Such as, if it was a image that no longer "belongs" to a particular person--part of culture of mythology, or something like that. But then that's probably not very original or personal to me. If I was more of an artist, I could design my own, or work with a tattoo artist to design it.
The tattoo artist is engaged in an intimate act of tattooing me, but that could be a somewhat impersonal relationship--just as I'm ok with my dentist sculpting my rear molar. There is most a matter of comfort with the person and trust in their competency.
It does make sense. Possibly below the level of your definition of art in the last comment: Unless one goes with the absolutely strict line-art version of something, there's going to be art involved in deciding exactly *how* to represent it. (I've been chewing on how I'd like to work with that if I do this.)
So I guess there's art that is bigger than the artist and artist that is bigger than the art, if that makes sense. Someone realizing his or my vision of how Thor ought to look is doing it in service of Thor, and possibly of my idea. Or whatever else. Lee's getting a trash monster done on his leg. He's the one with the idea of the trash monster, he's just getting someone else to do the physical drawing part and telling them if it looks right.
Then there's being wowed by the designer's vision (or possibly by the relationship energy with the designer) and saying, "You designed something incredible and I think it would look good on my leg!" or "This would be very symbolic of Us." And that's more about the designer than the design.
The middle ground being, "I like Thor (or trees, or personally powerful symbol of choice). I don't know what it should look like, though. How would you put Thor on me?" which is I think what most people do.
I guess in my mind the symbolism, the archetype, always comes first and always comes out of ME, and the rest of the design work is steering, thinking of the artists as, well, tools, like the dentist. What an interesting realization.
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Date: 2008-10-29 03:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-29 11:42 pm (UTC)For the first, wearing, becoming, part of someone else's creation (art image/expression) feels very personal. It would work if they were very distant to me, to the extent that they were a non-entity to me. Such as, if it was a image that no longer "belongs" to a particular person--part of culture of mythology, or something like that. But then that's probably not very original or personal to me. If I was more of an artist, I could design my own, or work with a tattoo artist to design it.
The tattoo artist is engaged in an intimate act of tattooing me, but that could be a somewhat impersonal relationship--just as I'm ok with my dentist sculpting my rear molar. There is most a matter of comfort with the person and trust in their competency.
If that all makes sense.
-B.
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Date: 2008-10-30 12:40 am (UTC)So I guess there's art that is bigger than the artist and artist that is bigger than the art, if that makes sense. Someone realizing his or my vision of how Thor ought to look is doing it in service of Thor, and possibly of my idea. Or whatever else. Lee's getting a trash monster done on his leg. He's the one with the idea of the trash monster, he's just getting someone else to do the physical drawing part and telling them if it looks right.
Then there's being wowed by the designer's vision (or possibly by the relationship energy with the designer) and saying, "You designed something incredible and I think it would look good on my leg!" or "This would be very symbolic of Us." And that's more about the designer than the design.
The middle ground being, "I like Thor (or trees, or personally powerful symbol of choice). I don't know what it should look like, though. How would you put Thor on me?" which is I think what most people do.
I guess in my mind the symbolism, the archetype, always comes first and always comes out of ME, and the rest of the design work is steering, thinking of the artists as, well, tools, like the dentist. What an interesting realization.