A tattoo is a major investment, and not just because they’re expensive. You may think professing your love of Dave Matthews Band (or Starland Vocal Band) in ink is a good idea now, but what about in five years, when you’re reminded of your smelly “Two Step” days? It’s your mistake to make.
At a recent installation at Milk Gallery in New York, brave people allowed a complete stranger to tattoo their arm through a hole in the wall. They didn’t see him, or what he was putting on them, only the final product. Luckily for them, the “complete stranger” was Scott Campbell, a famous tattoo artist who’s married to Cassius & Clay‘s Lake Bell and counts Jennifer Aniston and Justin Theroux among his friends. The four-day project was called “Whole Glory,” and Campbell told the New York Times that he decided what to give everyone by “a bit of a palm-reading… I don’t really know the person, but I’m physically touching them, reacting to them subliminally.”
From someone who got one of the tattoos:
For the project, Campbell erected a white picket fence adorned with tattoo graffiti in the lobby gallery at Milk Studios, with an arm-size hole in the middle. (Hence the name.) He sat on one side, with all his equipment; participants in the project sat on the other. No words, notes or information were exchanged. Campbell inked 23 tattoos on people who didn’t see them until they were finished — and completely irreversible. I ended up with a sort of triangular thunderbird, with a tiny, lopsided heart next to it: my favorite part. (Via)
Here’s some of Campbell’s work.
https://instagram.com/p/-HxZDcvTK5/
https://instagram.com/p/-Hdi0uPTNk/
https://instagram.com/p/-HKPlUvTAB/
https://instagram.com/p/-FXTGCPTJN/
https://instagram.com/p/-FA5qDPTM8/
https://instagram.com/p/-AchHaPTBz/
Campbell should have given at least one person a tattoo of Calvin pissing on the Dallas Cowboys logo, just to keep everyone on their toes.
(Via New York Times)