Beauty & Pain

This tattoo is about my struggle with endometriosis, and a way to feel "complete" after my first of 3 surgeries in 4 years which eventually ended in total hysterectomy in 2022. An artist myself, I've always made work about what it means to be a woman, but when I started to get very sick in 2017, this question became even more a part of my life: this time physically. I could write an entire book here about what endometriosis is and how it affects women, and its definitely something I can expand upon if need be, but it's extremely painful, incredibly difficult to diagnose, and has a ridiculous lack of research or funding in the medical community. I wanted to honor my body's strength and beauty, capacity for great life as well as great pain, and honestly just have a uterus again, so I brought this idea of a uterus made half of weapons and half of wildflowers to Clover (they were at Bluff City at the time) and they drew my idea incredibly and gave me this piece that's really about reclamation of my body from illness.