Humans On The Loop 44 - Christopher Sheehan (Time Bound in the Body: Transformational Tattoo)
This week’s guest is tattoo artist Christopher Sheehan, who regards his practice as a sacred act and tattoo as a kind of binding of time in the body.
https://www.mountaintempletattoo.com/
We talk about:
• how he became a tattoo artist and came into “transformational tattooing” as a way of communicating with and programming the subconscious mind;
• other ways we bind time into matter with earthworks art and pre-Columbian mounds;
• the difference between choosing your own tattoos and the more traditional style of having them chosen for you by the artist;
• the virtue and value of The Ordeal in personal transformation;
• seeing skin art as a transcultural phenomenon connecting us to other tribes and traditions across time and space;
• and the future of tattoo as an art form and a culture, in which skin art merges with speech as part of a new, richer, more embodied language…
“If you had to put something in your bathroom mirror…what would you want in your bathroom mirror FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE? That feedback loop with the imagery with which we surround ourselves is TOTALLY game-changing and shifting.”
“What identity do I want to imprint upon my life? What connection to something within me do I want to see empowered and enhanced? And the tattoo becomes this living reflection of that enhancement, that empowerment, that connection, alignment.”
“So much of our cultural perspective is about comfort and convenience – and to do something that is physically taxing, emotionally and mentally demanding on a level of momentary transcendence – it’s new for a lot of people.”
“The tattoo artist and the machinery that they use are going to become more and more intuitive and integrated…kind of like when I oil paint, or even when I get into a flow with dot work and stippling, I don’t even feel like I’m doing it. I’m watching myself INTEND it.”
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