ah, this lovely gal again. how appropriate i find her now on my tumblr dashboard. thanks, jessica.
i’ve had this image saved on the three computers i’ve owned in the past decade. i’ve posted it to livejournal communities for “inspiration,” shown it to hairdressers. i bought my first pair of t-strap shoes because of her, i’ve invented stories of her in my mind, i’ve wondered what her tattoos are of. all i really knew about her is what my (very tattooed) friend ursula told me in a livejournal comment: “the first pic with the zebra, that girl is a circus freak show girl haha, back in the 20’s and 30’s girls with tattoos were pretty rare… ” i always admired her more for that, and wouldn’t have thought of it that way. in short, this image has been completely fundamental in my aesthetics, my imagination, from the time i was in my late teens until now.
sometimes i dream of having a tattoo of a tattooed lady on me, and i still see her face. her cupid’s bows lips. she’d have to be big, either on my thigh or on the back of my lower left leg.
also, i’ve been thinking about how it’s an image i know nothing about. absolutely nothing factual or true or verifiable. that intrigues me somewhat more than if i knew her name, or at least when the photograph had been taken… but mostly, it frustrates me. i saw it for the first time probably about 7 or 8 years ago and have just always liked it. but where? i probably saw it online and right clicked, save as. who is she? who took the photo? is it a closeup of a larger photograph? who scanned it and shared it online?
today when i hunt, all the sources are photobuckets, pinterest, tumblr, random places scattered about. the best quality one is on someone’s livejournal info page that was last touched in 2009. sourcing back to other places, but never to the information i’m looking for.
big sigh.
the internet is (or will soon become) an archivist’s worst nightmare.
(Source: dickiegazoonie, via tangledupinlace)
