Have you ever gotten a tattoo? Tattoo art is remarkably beautiful and extremely challenging to do well. People are incredibly picky about their tattoos and a mistake is sort of there on their bodies forever. So I don’t blame folks for being picky about their tattoos. Moreover, when a tattoo artist is doing his or her work, they’re having to create art on people’s skin and their customer may or may not be still (I wasn’t, but I did my best) when the work is being done. Getting a tattoo is painful for most people, and tattoo artists have to put up with this while they’re drawing. But whatever you think of tattoos, it’s crazy to think that there are people who see tattoo artists as “not real artists.” In the story below, a man steps in just in time to save a little girl from being devastated. Enjoy.
I was at the library the other day, and my daughter was playing at the Art Table with two other girls. One of the little girl’s mother was nearby and said, Aren’t you girls good little artists!
And the third girl perked up and said, My dad’s an artist!
The woman smiled indulgently and said, Oh really, what kind?
The little girl proudly told her, He’s a tattoo artist.
And the woman. Oh man. Her face just twists, crumples into something nothing short of disdain, and she opens her mouth and says, That’s not…
An easy job, I cut in, looking the woman in the face because really? You’re going to tell a child her dads not a real artist? I continued, In fact, it’s very very hard, because that art is alive forever on a person, not like on paper. And that’s scary! You have to be really good, to be a tattoo artist. Your dad must be really, really good.
The child’s face just lit up, she grinned and turned back to her coloring, happy as can be.
But I had to ask myself: Regardless of how you feel about tattoos, what kind of person can put down the profession of a little girl’s parent? I was just glad that I could make this little girl feel proud of her family.
Image: Gabriel Lara, Pexels
