As I was getting undressed and into my fundoshi, Shinji
said, “I think we do regular background.”
“Okay,” I said, surprised.
“Since we have to connect background here,” he said,
pointing to my shoulders, “we should do regular background.”
My tattooed arms both end on the top of my shoulders with
clouds; the right side from Horiyoshi, the left from Shinji. I guess that means
the plain wind bars are no longer the plan.
“Is fine,” I said. “It’s just that you tell me what we are
doing, and then I spend a month thinking about it, and next appointment it’s
something different,” I said, mock-exasperated.
Shinji laughed. “Trust me,” he said, smiling.
Shinji applied stencils of two of the three flowers and then
freehanded the rest. The session was similar to the last several: an hour of
drawing, followed by two hours of tattooing. As he was drawing, I was looking at the
stencils he had tacked up to the wall, in preparation for other clients. There
was a new one, a wonderful hero figure that looked like a cross between a
samurai and a hula girl. I asked him about it after the session.
“That Tamatori Hime,” he said. I asked if it was a warrior,
as I didn’t think there were many women warriors. “Not warrior,” he said, searching
for how to describe her. “Diver,” he said, settling on that word. “She went
into the ocean and stole a ball from dragon,” he explained, pronouncing “ball”
like “bowl,” so much I wondered which he meant. “She stole a ball and cuts her
chest, putting it inside. Very famous person—not real person though,” he said,
not sure I understood it was a myth. I asked him to write down the name so I
could Google it later.
Wikipedia says:
“The
fable of Tamatori-hime 玉取姫 ‘Princess Jewel Taker,’ which was a favorite ukiyo-e subject of Utagawa
Kuniyoshi, is a variation of the Hoori and Toyatama-hime love story.
Tamatori was supposedly an ama diver who married Fujiwara no Fuhito and recovered a precious jewel that
the Sea God stole.
“The
legend of Princess Tamatori (Tamatorihime), or Ama, developed around the
historical figure Fujiwara no Kamatari (614-69), who was the founder of the
powerful Fujiwara clan. Upon Kamatari’s death, the Tang dynasty emperor, who
had received Kamatari’s beautiful daughter as a consort, sent three priceless
treasures to Japan in order to comfort his grieving lover by honoring her
father. One of the treasures, a pearl, was stolen by the dragon king during a
storm on its way to Japan in the inlet of Fusazaki. Kamatari’s son Fujiwara no
Fuhito (659-720) went in search of the pearl to the isolated area where he met
and married a beautiful pearl diver named Ama, who bore him a son. Ama, full of
love for their son, vowed to help recover the stolen pearl. After many failed
attempts, Ama was finally successful when the dragon and grotesque creatures
guarding it were lulled to sleep by music. Upon reclaiming the treasure, she
came under pursuit by the awakened sea creatures. She cut open her breast to place
the pearl inside for safekeeping the resulting flow of blood clouded the water
and aided her escape. She died from the resulting wound but is revered for her
selfless act of sacrifice for her husband Fuhito and their son. (Miller
2007:137)”
When
we were first discussing ideas for my back, at my first visit, Shinji asked if I wanted a human figure on my
back, a mythological hero.
“No,”
I said. Explaining that I wasn’t familiar with the myths, and that I didn’t
feel right getting on tattooed on me.
“Good,”
he said, obviously relieved. I got the impression he was glad to not have to
talk and American out of appropriating a mythos he knew nothing about. “Is
better, I think, something else.”
I wonder who is getting the Tamatori Hime piece. I didn’t ask.
When I was at the museum, I almost walked past it. It’s much
smaller than the painting I told people it was: the Internet lists it as 171.3
x 122.3 cm (about six by four feet). The
green color of her skin is there, but definitely not as garish as I remember,
and she didn’t look like the monster that I’ve been describing to my friends. 
Her mouth had the sexual sneer I remembered—the lips painted
red and open, with a wanton, teeth-exposing part to her lips—but there was
something else there too… a kind of pained grimace. I kept looking at her eyes:
why are her eyes so ill defined when everything else is so vibrant? They look
clouded, or like… she’s crying. 
Friday, after the markets, we headed over to la Galeria
Gorilla. Jason, from Gorilla Glass, played host for visitors from all over for this year's festivities. Many
stayed at the Gorilla Glass factory, while a few of us bunked
off-site at one of several hotels. I saw many of my good “traveling friends”: people
from the body-modification industry and around who I only see a few times a
year, but who I still consider friends—and several of them good friends.
Bethra, (from Atlanta), Adam (from Brooklyn), Corey, Lysa (and Todd),
and Andrea (from San Francisco and the Bay) Autumn Swisher and Shon (from Nomad in San Francisco), Kevin (from Phoenix), Jimmy Buddha
(from Austin), Ron Garza and his wife Nakota (from Long Beach, California), and
a few others I was meeting for the first time. While we waited, Corey, Meno,
and Luna worked on the traditional alter in the courtyard in back of the
gallery.
We visited the Gorilla Glass factory the next day for stories
of the insane, all-night drunken march through the Oaxacan hills for the
traditional celebration of mescal and food. Part of me wishes I could have seen
it; part of me knows I wouldn't have survived it. It seemed like everyone else barely did.
