← Shannon Cason's Homemade
Shannon Cason's Homemade
Not the Tattoo I Expected | Everyday is a Story
00:06:58
Letting go isn't always easy, but it may be best.
Loading summary
Transcript1 lines
- [00:00]
A
I walked into a tattoo shop with one idea, and I walked out with something completely different. Every day is a story. I'm Shannon Cason. Make sure you like, comment and subscribe. I never had tattoos until recently, about a year ago. I'm a late bloomer in that way. I wait till the last half of my life to do a lot of things. Weed. Never smoked weed when I was young. Now I smoke occasionally, very occasionally. Living solo, never really had a place to myself. I either had roommates or wives. Tattoos. I got my first tattoo in my late 40s. So I started on my back with the tattoos, and it didn't hurt at all. It was pretty painless. And then I got an Old English D on my leg, and everybody knows that iconic D, that Detroit Tigers D. And I had seen Other Old English Ds on other people's tattoos, and a lot of them didn't look right. The lines were either wonky and crooked, or it was like too many notches and lines in that Old English style or it's too small or too big. And I wanted it done right with clean lines, very clean lines. So I researched who does the best line work in Detroit, and I found this artist on Reddit. Somebody else had mentioned this on Reddit, and they said that she does the best line work, but she wasn't super famous, which, like some of these more famous tattoo artists with big followings, they're. They're super expensive. But there's a lot of artists who do great or even better work who don't know how to promote themselves as much. And I'm looking for those people who aren't, you know, they cost a little, but they aren't super expensive. And I found this artist named Dot Matrix on Instagram, and I set an appointment with her, and she gave me a clean, perfect Old English D on my leg. I love it, but it always looked kind of lonely on my shin all by itself. And I had planned to add more to it over time, and yesterday was that time. So.matrix, aka Ali Cat, she. She told me she had a lot of aliases and nicknames as tattoo artists do, and she had. After she did the D, she moved out of town. And she's elusive. Like tat tattoo artists seem to be elusive. You know, all these artists, people are, you know, you don't know where they go be. So she was visiting Detroit. She had put on her Instagram that she was visiting Detroit off and on for limited times. And earlier in the year, she posted that she'll be in Detroit Around June. So I contacted her and booked an appointment. And this was months ago, like earlier in the year. And yesterday was the time. So I met up with her at this small studio in an office building. And she was borrowing a tattoo studio from a friend, I suppose. And I had an idea in my mind. So I'm talking to Alicat Matrix, whatever name she's going by for that day. And she's very good at leaves and flowers and stuff. Like she. If you look at her Instagram, it's a lot of leaves and flowers. And I wanted leaves coming up from my ankle around the Old English D, almost like ivy climbing up a wall. But it's my leg, you know, something masculine, though. It had to be masculine. Not many flowers, just the leaves. I told her this, and when we got in the office, I reiterated everything that I had sent through the emails before the appointment. And she said, when I'm, I'm there in the studio. She said, yeah, I'm thinking something different. This is what she said. I'm a little stunned, but I say, oh, okay. And she got my leg and she hand drew on my leg something totally different than what I mentioned in my emails earlier to her. And she said, this is what I see. And I looked in the mirror and I'll be honest, it wasn't what I thought of, but it was better. And I told her after I saw that, I was like, do whatever you think works best. I trust you as an artist. And she got to work. The pain wasn't bad at all. I kind of psyched myself up to imagine it to be the, like if it was going to be the worst pain ever. So when she started, it wasn't that bad at all. And I listened to Griselda while she was doing whether she was tattooing. I listened to Griselda and I could just do hard things better while listening to west side Gun, Conway the Machine, Benny the Butcher, hey yo, hey yo. I just do hard things better. And when she was done, she added a few more details that she thought would work really good around that old English D. And this was her artwork on my leg. I'm good at stories, she's good at tattoos. I'mma let her do her thing. Then I paid her. So the moment of meaning for me was trying to control everything at all times can be a limitation. Sometimes trusting someone else's expertise can. Can create something better than you even originally imagined. You have to trust the artist. But what about you? Are you a micromanager? Is it hard for you to trust others? And have you ever gotten a better result by just letting go, entrusting someone else's expertise? What's your story? It's my hope that some of these stories hit people, hit you, the listener, right when you need to hear it, for whatever reason. I trust in that. That's what I hope for. And don't forget to appreciate the storyteller and all that. Become a friend of homemade@patreon.com backslash Shannon Casein and if you like to go direct, you don't want to join the Patreon, that's fine. I'm Dollar Sign Shannon Casein on Cash app. I appreciate that, too. We're all about trusting and supporting artists over here. All right, talk to you tomorrow.