A Book is a Loaded Gun in the House Next Door. Burn it.

February 2015 I made an original and unfinished painting. It was meant to be a tattoo idea. While it was left purposely unfinished, it was done rather quickly with very little physical planning and sketching. Later I did smaller scale sketches to further plan the tattoo. Because of the time that as passed, I'm actually unsure the exact order of things aside from what I have said above. But I can tell you what happened.

I thought of a tattoo idea.
I painted it, then sketched further ideas.
I wanted it on my inner right upper arm.
I thought about a particular tattoo artist whose style I wanted to the tattoo.
I talked about the tattoo to a friend and she encouraged me to get it.
I took the first step and started messaging the tattoo artist, planning for the tattooing to happen at the end of summer, when I would have money.
I sent the artist photos of my work, photos of her work with the style I wanted, and wrote out what I wanted and didn't want.
In July, I left a deposit with the artist 3 days prior to getting the tattoo, without even seeing her sketch.


The fact that I painted something prior to drawing it is very unusual for me, and well many artists, I'm sure. The reason the painting is left unfinished is because I knew the general structure I wanted, but was unsure of some of the details at the time. It is a finished unfinished painting, really. I guess I only need to touch it up and then seal it. Next I did sketches to further refine some of the unknown details, which still left things up to time to decide. At some point during this time and probably prior, I was reading a lot, in bed before sleep. I tend to read most while holding the book with my right arm (I am left hand dominant). I felt an affinity with a place on my right arm, I knew it was the spot for the tattoo.

What is the tattoo? It is a tribute to one of my favorite books, Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. Not only a tribute to the book, the concept of the book, to my love of reading and writing, and most importantly to freedom of thought/speech.

The tattoo is meant to be a stack of books with a fireman's helmet sitting atop the books. The number 451 on the helmet and flames encircling it all. In 2012, I dressed as Guy Montag for Halloween, prior to Halloween I reread the book, underlining any details to help me create my costume. Which I know inspired a lot of the imagery I used for designing the tattoo. By the way, that Halloween was what my friends and I call the "Half Assed Halloween", because we had a wedding the next day so we had a very simple and low key party amongst only the 4 of us. So I actually never finished my costume. I am left with the helmet and the notes I made.

Why is this book important to me? It's a long story I will finally share, briefly.

In 2010, I was hanging out at a bar, and ran into some people I knew. A girl I knew invited her roommate, a man I hit it off with right away. Later, a group of us went to his house and hung out in his jacuzzi. Me and the guy, B, talked all night. At some point I asked, "Are you happy?" This was not an uncommon thing I asked at the time. I may have asked anyone who I was interested to know, but it was always genuine. Because I asked him this, B said I remind him of a character from a book. The character was Clarisse, the book was Fahrenheit 451. I had never heard of it at the time. He showed it to me later and I never forgot the experience. I ended up dating B, and quite honestly, it was the best relationship I have ever had, but did not last unfortunately. But he was a great man who I will never forget. Anyways, sometime early into our relationship, we had a romantic picnic in his backyard with wine, food, and books. He happen to be a high school English teacher so he brought home a copy of Fahrenheit 451 for me to read. He gave it to me and told me to read the first 10 pages. At the end of the 10th page is where Clarisse asks Montag, "Are you happy?" It gave me goosebumps and still does every time I read it.

Since then I had fallen in love with the book, and the experience that led me to it. All of this is very significant to me, part of it is public knowledge, while the other part is definitely more private.

3 days after dropping my deposit with the tattoo artist, I went in and finally saw her sketch. The artist has actually done about half of my brother's tattoos, so I am very familiar with her work. I was excited to get the tattoo but very nervous because I hadn't seen it yet and had high expectations for something that I personally designed. I wanted her style, yes, but thankfully, she exceeded my expectations. The sketch was more awesome and badass than I could of imagined. I had no alterations to request. The only thing I did add the day of, was quotes on the book edges. My mom was spending the weekend with me and came with me for the tattooing. The night before I was explaining the tattoo and what it meant for me and that I was unsure of adding any wording. As I was explaining everything, it dawned on me the importance of the quote, "Are you happy?". So I added that, now everyday I can look it and ask myself that and remind me to ask others because I don't really do it anymore.

My mom, Laney, and I had a blast as she tattooed me for about 2 and a half hours. It was painful, but the pain is not locked in memory, the love is.

I knew that I would need at least 2 sessions to finished this tattoo, so it gave me time to decide on further coloring. I always knew that I wanted to the helmet black, the 451 red, and the flames to be red, orange, and yellow. However, I could not ever decide the colors for the books. I planned to go back in a month to finish it, so I had time to ponder. As it healed, I used markers and colored different schemes on the books. After some coloring and discussing with my friend, I finally decided on colors that I am happy with. As I write this, it's been a little over 2 weeks since I finished it. I love it and see it constantly, always catching my eye, always in my peripherals as I read. I'm tremendously happy with it.

Some coloring with markers.

Another marker session that resembled closely to the final product.

Markers.

Markers.

I finally bought a Fahrenheit 451 shirt, with the quote that is the title of this post.

Different angles of the final product.

The painting, the outline, and final product.

An unedited photo.

Upon getting this tattoo and comparing it to three others that I have, I have noticed a theme of fire. While not totally surprising, given as I teenager I was obsessed with flames in art, clothing, and accessories. In fact, my bedroom of my first house had flames painted on the walls, which I never did finish.

So it still makes me wonder, why fire? I feel I have a partial answer, but I do not, myself, know the whole reason, yet. First of all, I love water. I feel one with water, and that has a whole lot of background that is not necessary to get into now. But I am a Scorpio, a water sign. I often relate to water, best described here. In order to go on, it is best you read the post in that link. I have something to add to it as well. I am like water in the sense that what anyone near me is feeling, I feel too. The empathy passes over others like water and ripples back to me. I'm highly sensitive to the feelings of others, which at times can be very hard for me to control. But let's think fire now. First of all, fire is red. This is a big part, I'm sure, as to why I loved it in my teenage years. Fire, like water, is enchanting to watch. You cannot take your eyes from it. Fire is heat, I relate to heat far more than coldness. My body temperature runs warm, I am almost always the warm person, or often times I'm hot and get hot easily. I'm passionate, and a warm person in terms of personality. Those things relate to fire. But most of all I relate to it more than any other time in my life, I'm angry, full of rage sometimes even. Fire burns within me, in any which way. My astrological moon sign is Aries, God of War, a fire sign. The Aries in me is where the rage lies. It's probably the only part of me that relates to my Aries brother. The passion, determination, and rage. Red is a color that often is not considered calming, I may see red, but having red around me makes me happy. I enjoy it and would happily have all of my belongings in red if possible. I do not know, if on a deeper Fen Shui level, that it may not calm me. As I sit here, the wall to my left is red, the hookah I smoke from is red, my hair is red, my shirt is red, the wine to my right is red, along with a few other things within a few feet of me. I also love camp fires, as I've camped a lot when I was young. I love the smell of campfire in my hair and on my clothes. The sun is one of my favorite heavenly bodies, a ball of fire. I would stare at it all day if it didn't damage my eyes. And to tie this post together, I have burned books before, out of curiosity.

There is fire in my heart.