Role Reversal Reimagined
Tattoo by Raquel Cude at Forest To Shore Gallery in December, 2020
So, finding new shops to venture into feels extra hard these days. Between the ever budding process of coming out, COVID numbers going up and my introversion becoming more intense it felt like a needed push to find something new.
Raquel was recommended to me by and friend and then I found her on Instagram months ago and fell in love with the beautiful animal tattoos and artwork she created. After seeing her work I decided I wanted her to design a seahorse for me. The whole picture made sense at the time and meeting in person reaffirmed that. Raquel kindly shared her own connection to seahorses including raising them as a kid with her dad. It’s moments like this that I believe the universe is reaffirming my choices and beliefs
Forest to Shore is a really beautiful gallery, curvilinear walls, high ceilings, and some truly fantastic and weird art that was very captivating. It was very calm, quiet and warm. It felt safe in all the ways I would want a space to feel. Raquel was very much the same way. She put me at ease right away and I felt super ready for this specific tattoo.
Seahorse are some of the weirdest, most magical creatures on the planet. They mate during the full moon period and they mate for life, the males change colors to attract a mate and then it is the males that carry children and give birth. Seahorses are said to wake up, intertwine their tales with their mate, much like holding hands, and then move on with their day. Many cultures have amazing myths about Seahorses including, being the horses to guide Poseidon underwater, being water dragons, and even being a magical amalgamation of land creatures. They feel weird and mythical, they don’t belong. Highly sensitive creatures in captivity and yet they thrive in the wild. It made sense to me, to add something so odd as a seahorse to my growing ocean collection. Something real yet mythical, something that proves my point, gender is a construct and the binary is false, if you don’t believe me, see a male seahorse give birth, totally fascinating.
Seahorses seem to be the epitome of genderqueerness in nature: males that give birth, dance and show off for a mate, doing things we as a culture have labeled as inherently female…gender has no binary, either do seahorses and either do I.
