A Different Kind Of Permanence

    We all hope to leave our mark on the world.

    With the written word, I hope I leave a small mark on people's imaginations, and a fabulous, glittering, colourful smear across their inner world. It is a way of leaving a legacy. A way of having a life longer and more complex than simply a number of years. We all crave it in some way. Many do this by having children. I do this by way of words and art.

    Aside from an author, I am a tattoo artist. The tattoo also creates a permanent change to a person, though much more tangible than some minute internal alteration. A vivid, striking, bold alteration to someone's physical presence. As a tattoo artist I help to show on the outside of a person, a little of what's on the inside; That ineffable and inexplicable surge of chemicals and firing neutrons we call thought and feeling.

    I leave my mark on the world between the pages of paperbacks, and on the open book that is the human body. Both can be read, but in remarkably different ways. And both are a little piece of me that goes off and has its own life, separate, but connected to the creator. A different kind of permanence to genetics and legacy. A more wonderful kind of permanence, which isn't permanent at all.

    rylanatkewpietattoos@gmail.com