You’re going to dance - Gilles Budin

You’re going to dance says Gilles to his client Robert Clarke. These words best described the tattoo of the mystical character Golom tattooed on a sensitive side of his torso. The charcoal like drawing was executed by Mr. Budin five years ago, and Mr. Clarke laments that it was a time when he felt the symbol reflected a side of his personality.

The bookman occasionally comes across someone off the beaten track with a tattoo. In the instance of this person in these photographs, the interest was in an actual post done by the bookman and adele several months ago. This gentleman informed us that he got the recent work from a Italian tattooer Fabizio Divari in Toronto, Ontario. The tattooer worked with Gilles Budin at Tattoo Farm in Trinidad and Tobago, and ended up overstaying his welcome and had to be forced to leave. That in itself is a whole new post that we shall write in the future, the tourist who gets a serious tabanca for Trini...

Anyway, what struck thebookmann with these inkings was the intent of the wearer of the ink. It struck us profoundly first that several months after the tragic death of the very beloved Gilles, here is proof of his 'life' perminantly on the skin of this person, in colours so light and soft they look like watercolours on the skin. But then the Mr. Clarke also has the very unusual image of Golom from Lord of the Rings, an odd choice in a country where most tattoes are celtic or hearts or whatever celebrities say you should have, like guns with your name done over a heart. (Sorry guys, not original or really deeply meaningful, not that a tattoo need be.)

But it is always touching when someone shows you, as this guy did, a very private expression that has several layers of meaning and then is done in such a subtle way. It almost seems too intimate to just display, and that in itself has its own titilation because it covers skin and is yet, somehow very revealing. Written this way, it sounds alot like what happens when one observes good art, you want to observe, but you want to do so privately to capture the meaning, and ultimately you take away with you something that has meaning to you in your way, whatever that chooses to be. - Adele