Amanda Wachob Tattoo Designs

Amanda Wachob Tattoo

I was three years old and sitting on a low 1970s style bench. Kicking my legs back and forth, I felt the skin on the backs of my thighs stick and pull against the mustard colored vinyl. My mother stood up next to me, and I stood up in turn. I watched distractedly as she extended a hand and shook that of a large man with salt and pepper hair and beard. His hand fell back to his side, just at my eye level. I grabbed it and, interrupting whatever conversation had been buzzing above my head, demanded to know, "What's that?"

It was a tattoo.

He was one of my mother's professors and explained to me kindly (crouching down low so as to look me in the eye) that he was allergic to metals, and when he got married his wife designed a ring that he had tattooed on instead. I declared then and there that I wanted one.

I love the beauty of tattoos, their artistry and symbiotic nature. A good tattoo works with the line and form of the body to accentuate and even elevate the beauty of both the design and the physique. Amanda Wachob's unique and avant garde pieces do just that.

Here, as above, the flow of what look like paint brush strokes echo the line of the body.

I decided I wanted tattoos when I was three. Now, I want one of these.

Vanity Fair

Vanity Fair

Freedom of Love

 

I created this film in reponse to Andre Breton's poem, "Freedom of Love." I performed both the reading of the poem and the sound poem that forms the background. I also created each image by hand and incorporated it into the film via photoshop. I apologize for the quality, the file was compressed horribly when I transferred it to Blogger. All sound and imagery, in part or in whole, is © MacKenzie Edwards, 2010.

Avant Garde Class, 30 November

It's very simple: it shows you how a dream evolves without any censorship, letting your desire/dream unfold cinematically. Speak about the genesis of the images, modeling for you the way things are born. Anyone who tries to show you the reality of mystery is no narrator, not a thing that is actually there. It's a signifier, and it has no signified. The unconscious desire has to be perceived in all of its chaos. If you're trying to make sense of a donkey and a piano, you can't. And that's all. It is the lost object, a memory trace reappearing. It's erupting in the subconscious. These are phantom images that you see.

Avant Garde Class, 18 November

They have in them chess sets, or they could have condoms. You feel them and they are squishy or gushy. They touch back. I don't know if I'd want to play chess with them--chess men, chess women flying around the room smelling of coffee eggs, fish jello, shit pudding. They play with taboos. Or is this just upsetting you?