As some of you may know, I lost my youngest son four years ago. Last Saturday I finally got a tattoo honoring him and my love for him.

My friend Tiffany at Tiffany Arp-Daleo Artworks had lost her mother, someone who meant as much to her as my loved ones do to me. Today she posted a lovely post about the tattoo she got to honor her mother.

Tattoos are not for everyone. But for those who get them, each one is special and magical. It takes a special person to share their grief and connection both in body ink and in a blog. 

Here is hers.

I wanted to do something special to remember my mom, who passed away on December 9th. We often joked about getting matching mom/daughter tattoos, but it never happened.

When she was first diagnosed with dementia, she went through her things and got rid of a lot. Besides being a great artist, she was also a writer and wrote poems and stories, but sadly, most of that she threw away. While I was going through her remaining belongings, I found this poem on a small piece of paper and decided to keep it. She probably wrote it after my dad passed away.

It took some effort to find someone who was willing to do the tattoo on the specific date, and someone who could do the lettering exactly in her handwriting. I found my guy at Seventh Serpent Tattoo, and I couldn’t be happier with the final tattoo, he nailed it. 😊

 

”

Maarten Vrolijk is an Amsterdam-based artist and designer who considers it important to elaborate on the simple, unequivocal nature of a product or art work and has been creating his works for over 25 years.His aesthetic and ‘art language’ is particularly unusual because it consciously plays with shapes, colours and materials in an uncontrived way.

He also believes his pieces should also make people’s everyday lives that bit more beautiful through the many little details that evoke the unexpected.Vrolijk is perhaps best known for glass vessels with their outgrowth of colored glass fragments.The volatility in accomplishing the exceptional thickness of his vases creates a risky balance between strength and delicacy.The thermal stress caused when trying to equalize the interior and exterior temperature of the cooling vessels, is fraught with the threat of breakage.

To create each piece, a meticulously patterned bed of broken glass pieces is strategically laid down and heated to a specific temperature in order to be properly fused to a nascent blown glass form.

The temperature and timing must be precisely in tandem. It is a high-stakes process that results in a kind of frozen sense of chaos.

More of Maarten Vrolijk’s unique glasswork can be found at https://www.maartenvrolijk.com/

Tattoos are like stories – they’re symbolic of the important moments in your life. Sitting down, talking about where you got each tattoo and what it symbolizes, is really beautiful.

~ Pamela Anderson