Going forward, I kept tabs on Rachel’s journey through art school as mine progressed as well. Whenever I’d see anything they’d be working on I would ooh and aah over the quality of it. Rachel was also one of the most talented people I’d met during this time. They just seemed to march to the beat of their own drum, and that alone was badass to me.
As someone who struggled with fitting in and suppressing who I was, I was in awe of the way they expressed themselves. If you had asked me to give an example of someone “cool” during this time, my answer would have been them, hands down. I’ve always admired Rachel throughout our time in school. Once I figured this out, I still had one issue: Who do I do a piece about? I had several different ideas, but the one that stuck out to me the most was reaching out to an old friend from high school: Rachel Friel. I think it’s worked so far in the grand scheme of things! With each generation, more people are expressing themselves through body modification. It’s my belief that the more exposure that can be given to the art and artisans in this field, the more people will come to accept and value the practice as an art form.
I knew that once I thought about doing a piece on tattooing, I had to do it. If you had a tattoo, you were up to no good. That, and many years ago body modification was seen as reserved only for “bad people”. I can’t even count the amount of times I’ve seen friends and acquaintences get poorly-executed tattoos or piercings because they were cheap, resulting in infections, blurry lines, regrets, and keloids alike. Sure, it’s great that these things are accessible, but the appreciation of quality work has also decreased. In the age of cheap piercing guns at malls and anyone being able to buy tattooing and piercing equipment online, the value of these skills seems to have decreased.
A field I see so often treated this way is body modification, specifically tattooing. Being an artist myself has only increased my awareness of it. Seeing so many memes and forums dedicated to exposing people trying to shortchange artists for their work has gotten me more and more fired up as time has gone by. I think young Lauren would be a little disheartened to know that she’d still only have one tattoo by the age of 23, but hey, quality work is expensive, and rightfully so.
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I spent so much time in my adolescent years watching various tattooing tv shows (Best Ink, LA Ink, Ink Master, to name a few), daydreaming of what I’d get tattooed on my body once I was old enough. I’ve always loved tattoos and have long admired the large amount of skill and effort that goes into making pieces of art become a part of someone’s body. I soon ended up with the idea to do a piece around tattooing. I wanted to tell someone’s story and be able to give them a piece that they can use on social media doing just that. I wanted to do a piece on an individual or organization that really stood out to me. Naturally, I shifted to another form that I greatly admire, documentary. Don’t get me wrong, I love narrative work with all of my heart, but I was just so burnt out. I’d spent the last year or so working on a narrative film as my thesis for college, and by the time I was done, the thought of doing another narrative piece made me want to tear my hair out.
These pieces, which I originally only emulated, eventually built a strong perspective and sense of self as I’ve grown and made them my own.įrom the beginning, I knew I wanted a change of pace for this project.
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Even my closet is full of vintage pants, t-shirts, and Hawaiian shirts after raiding my grandfathers’ closets to emulate, and revamp, their styles. I share in my sister’s relentless sense of empathy, and therefore her unending passion for social justice. I have my older brother’s sense of humor, as I grew up desperately trying to make him laugh. The concept of sharing qualities, interests, and points of view with those around me opened a world of new outlooks and took me from a little kid lost in the crowd to one learning from it. I clung to the idea as it gave me a sense of togetherness with my family, and provided me role models to look up to in my siblings. As I was growing up my grandfather had a saying that he repeated to me over and over again – knowing I was the middle child of a big family and more than occasionally felt lost in the crowd: “You’re a combination of all these incredible people around you.” The idea was sometimes comforting and sometimes horrifying depending on how I felt about my family any given day.