Street Lights
Street Lights
Tattoo - Street lights
Thank you to Georgia for sharing her tattoo story.
Around 5/6 years ago, in the Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, there were some sketches on a postcard by Jacqueline Donachie, all inanimate objects including street lights posing in intimate positions.
At the time, I was going through a breakthrough and had two friends who really pulled me through it. I find it hard to be vulnerable and really connected with the idea of these cold utilitarian objects leaning on each other.
A lot of my tattoos are not about other people or related to events, they are about me trying to put bits of my personality onto my skin which I can’t express.
My favourites tattoos are the ones where it's about my connections with people and forcing myself to be intimate and vulnerable. This tattoo is a reminder of that.
In the photo they were actually lit, there was something warm about them. I find street lamps are in liminal in between spaces, streets, overpasses, motorways and I always feel most comfortable going somewhere rather than being somewhere, where there is no purpose but to be. On a train, on a bus, there is nothing you have to do but think.
The street lamp is a reminder of that, there is no home for it and in that, there is comfort in the mundane, solid, man made thing.
They also seem quite mystical, surreal in a way, even though they are a solid object in the City, they are still a surreal symbol to me because they could be anywhere, they are everywhere, simultaneous, ubiquitous and omnipresent, but also dependable, you can rely on them, like a guiding light and form attachments to them.
The street lamps are representing my friends, I’m the little one leaning on the other one.
I need a reminder to be vulnerable and go to people to get help and this tattoo is the way I can put that without being too soppy. It is wanky but its not wet.
A gorgeous expression of vulnerability and a reminder we’re all human, in need of people and community. We’re all more alike than we realise, share or communicate.
Do you find comfort in the mundane?
Do you allow yourself to be vunerable? When was the time you asked for help?