Lady Fox's Laissez Faire

It is fitting that they would hold the Long Beach, California Tattoo Expo '05 on the Queen Mary June 24-26.  This ship's wall drip with mystery.  The history behind this boat is fantastic, and it has been rumored to be haunted.  It was here that three stories worth of tattoo artists came to set up shop for the weekend.  The buzzing of tattoo guns could be heard throughout the establishment.

Whether it be the hum of the tattoo artist's needle, the pain, or the sheer beauty of a new glistening tattoo or shining stainless steel piercing, there is just something about tattoo conventions that make me feel like home.  From the rockabilly beauties to the hardcore harley hunks, everyone here has one thing in common - a love for personal expression.  Everybody has a different reason for getting an artpiece permanently etched in their body.  Some use it as a form of artistic expression, teenage rebellion, unification, or to memorialize a person or period of time in their life.  Tattoos are a way of life. 

 

    People have been scarring themselves as a beautification ritual for centuries.  There are some historians that date the tattoo back to the stone age, when cavemen would pick up a stick from the fire and scorch black marks into their skin.  To this day, some of the most symbolic of tattoos are designs that have been passed down from generation to generation through various cultures.  Look at Samoans with their beautiful tribal designs.  Or at celtic knotwork, with it's intricate complexities.

 

   There were all sorts of artists here, from old school to new age.  World-Famous artists such as Ethan Morgan and Robert Hernandez were in attendance.  All day long there were various forms of entertainment.  In the morning there were acapella rockabilly singers, and other musical acts.  In the afternoon there were freak shows, and acts from Cirque De Soleil, including a woman that did acrobatics by entangling her body in long indigo scarves hanging from the ceiling.  Late in the evening before closing, the best artists were on stage performing "Art Fusion".  Two canvases were set up, with two artists to each canvas.  Painting side-by-side, they merged their styles together to create one magnificent artistic achievement.  At the closing of the day, we were treated to a Gothic Marching Band, complete with drumline & scantily clad colorguard members.

 

    At the end of the day, my back sore and bandaged from David Shoemaker's tattoo gun(I got a bluebird of happiness on my upper back.), and my best friend's leg complete with another tattoo, this one from Ethan Morgan, we left the Queen Mary for our hotel room.  The throbbing pain coming from the tattoos could not have ruined a moment of leaving somewhere that you've enjoyed so much culture and so many open minded people.  There is nothing like it in the world. 

 

~Fin.

Lady Fox