Inked

Yesterday, Michael spent the better part of the day getting inked by a tattoo artist named Watson. I dropped by in the evening, five hours into a tattoo that will take at least that much time again to finish next week. I planned to take a few photographs just to document what Michael has promised will be his last tattoo (I know, we’ll see). Little did I know that the light and the space would make for some awesome images.

Watson’s studio is actually one of the coolest spaces I’ve seen in a long time. Tucked away off a busy street in Portland, Maine, it’s perfectly curated with photographs, old cameras, silver spray painted manual typewriters, animal skulls, and tons of Watson’s graphic artwork. He hand-letters in a font he designed himself that’s almost western meets goth, and blows it up at Kinko’s on an old copier. I wouldn’t really want any of it in my house, but man, the combination of everything he has collected is powerful.

The tattoo, when finished, will be a Renaissance-style depiction of the Old Testament story of Daniel in the lion’s den. Tattoos aren’t very appealing to me – I would never want one of my own – and Michael and I had a lot of conversations about whether this one would happen. But the tattoo itself is stunning, unusual and meaningful to Michael, which is about all I could ask for. Well, that and some grainy, edgy images from Watson’s hideaway studio.