My Back is a Work of Art
By Digi on Jul 23, 2008 in Society
I can remember back to my childhood and the many trips that my grandfather took me to the local art gallery. I admired the paintings on the wall, and I vowed that I would be an artist someday.
Even though I practiced drawing and painting as I grew up, it was clearly apparent that I was never going to be an artist at all. My skills at both drawing and painting never really progressed beyond those of a five year old, so I was never going to be able to achieve my dream.
Little did I know that art would enter my life in another fashion in my early twenties. At the age of twenty-two, I got my first tattoo of a dolphin jumping out of the water on my back. It was small, but it took a lot of courage for me to get it. I was so very proud of the dolphin, and I showed it off as often as I could.
When I turned twenty-five, I realized something important – my back look very bare. Sure, there was the little dolphin back there, but otherwise, my back was a large, barren expanse. What followed after that day was the realization of my dream – art would become a very large part of my life.
In the three years that followed, I added a number of heart tattoos, Celtic tattoos, and many others to my back. I thought of my back as a canvas, and I was working my masterpiece with each tattoo that was added back there.
By the time I was thirty, I had become quite a celebrity in our town. I would make sure that any event that I attended that I would wear an open-backed dress to showcase the work of art found on my back. In the end, I became an artist after all.