The Babe With The Power!
Tattoo by Sabrina at Integrity Ink in Wallingford, CT, September 2020 (Phase 2 COVID)
I'm unsure where to start with this one. It's a small tattoo with so much personal meaning.
Here is something most people don't know. As teen I was a babysitter, as someone from the Babysitter's Club generation I wanted to be the BEST. So every week before babysitting I would go to blockbuster and rent The Labyrinth for the kids and we would make popcorn and sing with Bowie. I remember a kid I was babysitting telling me I was, "The babe with the power". It felt so good! It felt so affirming and empowering during such a painful and traumatic time in my life. So Ian, wherever you are, THANK YOU! This experience and film affirmed that David Bowie was and is a massive part of my life.
His music was the anthem of many teen angst ridden nights trying to figure out who I was. He was kind of odd looking, weird, strange and unusual. Unafraid to be androgynous and speak his mind, unafraid to be himself. He embodied all the things that I was striving to be and attain. As I got older, my BFF and I would drive through the back roads of upstate NY where Bowie had a home. We used to drive around guessing which home was his, making up stories about our afternoon tea with the Bowie's. Oh the fantasies of adolescents!
So when I considered this tattoo and how much I wanted it and how important it was to me I knew it has to be apart of this project and done by a brand new female identifying artist. Someone who didn't know me who would just magically make this happen. As I was looking through Sabrina's work I saw an old flash sheet of MCR (My Chemical Romance) tattoos and was sold. The angsty, death obsessed, glitter goth kid in me felt this spark and a little voice reminded me I was still looking for someone to do this tattoo and this was it.
So thank you Sabrina. Thank you to every emo, angsty, goth, androgynous, weird theater kid. The weird will inherit the Earth and as we do I am reminded that I Am The Babe With The Power.
