Norm!!

Remember in that show Cheers how everyone yelled Norm's name when he entered the bar? I always wanted to be like that - but without having to be a fat bar-fly...

Oh boy. I haven't even started and already I digress... 

This coming Saturday (Jan. 14th) would be the 101st birthday of Norm Collins (a.k.a. Sailor Jerry) if he had lived so long. So today I painted a sailor-gal based on a tattoo of his... well... part of a tattoo of his. 

I feel really out-of-practice since the holiday season (when I did nothing but visit relatives and eat). The FW Inks are giving me troubles. This feels way too messy... but at least today I completed something (I've had a bunch of false starts lately).

Anyway, I really liked the red-background-curly-cue-thing... how it rotates around the face.

Here she is before colour.

In a frame I have kicking around, waiting for the right image to compliment the anchor (which is cut out of the mat)... this is not the right image but I thought I'd check... just in case it was...

With the picture I took her from (in Sailor Jerry Collins - American Tattoo Master)

Below is one of my "false starts". Too many blobby lines to continue with it. Shouldn't have used that rusty, old nib! I'll try doing some pretty flowers again soon though as I haven't done too many flowers yet... and they are pretty...

Well, there she is, "in the can" so to speak... with apologies and birthday greetings to the late, great, (horribly right-wing but we'll let it pass) Sailor Jerry! 

Thanks for looking!

questioning death and dishonour

Yesterday I was waiting for a friend to swing by and got to sketching these Sailor Jerry skulls. I was also listening to some CBC coverage about the Shafia murder trial - parents and a brother accused of killing 3 daughters and a first wife... they claim it was an "honour killing".

Oh... and I had also just read about a cold-blooded murder that took place, most ironically, in a Lululemon store... Peace, love, and what?

So anyway, I know the "Death before Dishonour" tattoo imagery has certain historical* meanings (and I know it applies to one's own death) but I have always found it troublesome... I guess it's too far outside my worldview or I am so comfortable with dishonour that I can't imagine embodying this statement personally...

Anyway, thinking about a parent killing his own children for the supposed embarrassment/dishonour they brought upon their family (they became too Western after he brought them into Western society)... well, it's just too much. It doesn't make sense. It makes me so angry/frustrated that I don't even know how to talk about it. There aren't words for how gross that logic is.

So when it came time to put words in the banner of the last skull, it had to be "dishonour before murder" instead of "death before dishonour"**...

* I don't know the exact historical meaning because I've never been interested enough in this imagery or sentiment to look it up - I would guess it was originally of military origin, possibly influenced by Samurai culture, and likely also used by gangs... ???

** Too bad Shafia didn't just kill himself to deal with his supposed dishonour instead of his first wife and his 3 beautiful young daughters... then "death before dishonour" would work in this case... although I would still think it would be a dumb reason to die.