Day of the Dead

2008-03-10 11:52 AM | 3 comments

Sometimes, it seems like only yesterday I was putting all of my belongings in boxes and riding into the sunset with my posse of recently-unemployed tattoo artists. But other times, it feels like eternity has come and gone since then. I’ve grown. I’ve rested. I’ve pulled my hair out with artistic frustration and all the stress of opening a new business. In reality, it’s been less than 6 months since we had to cancel our Day of the Dead party to go pack our shit. Looking back, I don’t think I could have planned it better myself. To put to rest a chapter of my life that was so important to the path of my career, at the beginning of the Days of the Dead, made my heart happy. And on that fateful day, 6 employees of Skin Factory died. Only to rise as owners of the Living Dead Custom Tattoo Parlour.

Just like the loss of a family member, losing a job that you’ve been at so long kinda makes you go through the grieving process.

Denial and Shock: At first, I was really surprised and everything was so surreal. As I was carrying out my things, I was thinking, “I painted that wall.” Weird thing to think, I know.

Anger: During this stage the most common question asked is “why me?”. I was angry with everything, mostly I was angry with the course of action taken in my severance, not the leaving itself. This stage is revisited every time I hear a client say they went looking for me and were met with a discourteous skeleton crew, only a shadow of the heart Skin Factory once had.

Bargaining: Trying to find a job at another shop was not a journey I was excited to embark upon. I was worried that we wouldn’t all get to be together, in which case, why did we leave together? There’s no shop in town that will take all of us with winter at our doorstep. (Winter is the hardest time financially for a tattoo artist.)

Guilt: I found myself questioning my methods, but it didn’t make sense. Everything I did was above-ground. Everything I practiced embodied the values I was taught early-on, and evolved as I learned everyday. Eventually I gave up and forgave myself.

Depression: I felt a great loss not being “at the shop” every day. I felt socially uninvolved and greatly missed the surprise daily visits of clients, friends, and having appointments, and all the camaraderie that comes with it. Encouragement was no comfort. I was finding myself more removed than I had already become.

Loneliness: I was scared at this point, and alone, it seemed. (I really wasn’t.) But losing a great deal of mutual friends, and feeling like an enemy were working on my brain. This phase didn’t last long. Everyone knows, when it comes to real friends, quality wins over quantity, and now I appreciate this period of time as a “weeding out” of unnecessary shallow souls in my collection.

Acceptance: Acceptance does not mean happiness. Instead you accept and deal with the reality of the situation. You find ways to pay your bills. You find ways to occupy your time. For me, it was watercolors and a flash set. Thankfully I have a strong family that is always willing to lend a hand (and a hundred bucks). As we sat around my dining room table, each of us painting different stages of depression, or boredom, or love, we all carried the same dream.

Hope: Remembering is less painful. It doesn’t burn when someone asks where I work. I’m happy to hand them a business card that says more than “Living Dead Tattoo”. To me, it says:

“I clawed my way out of an early grave.” “You tried to bury me, but only resurrected me.” “My past is dead. And my future lives forever.”

And I love it. I love being poor. I love scraping money together to buy art supplies. I think I appreciate it more. I would rather be a poor artist than a rich asshole anyway. It’s more fun. I love the suspense of having no idea when everything will get better, but enough courage to move forward anyway. It’s been fucking scary. But I collect scary shit. And it’s made me fearless. Skin Factory is just another plastic monster for my collection. On a dusty shelf, equally important as Frankenstein or Dracula.