“Bury my body
Lord, I don't care where they...
Bury my body
Lord, I don't care where they...
Bury my body
Cause my soul is gonna live
With God, oh, oh, oh yeah
Lead me Jesus, lead me
Why don't you lead me in the middle of the air
And if my wings should fail me
Won't you provide me with another pair”
My grandfather was a brazero from Oaxaca, Mexico, more specifically a small town within the Sierra Juarez region named San Baltazar Yatzachi el Bajo. A farmer by trade in his adult life looking for a better financial opportunity he traveled throughout the South West with my Grandma, during the late 70’s they began a trek up and down California that eventually led them to Los Angeles. In the 80’s they cemented their roots in L.A. and became formal American citizens. The first grandparent that passed was my Abuelito when I was still in high school. My abuelo was a God fearing man, stern and strict but he used to say, “It is better to have a hundred friends than a hundred dollars in your pocket” in the end he was a hard working man whose hard work wasn’t adequately compensated but he held no gripes. We didn’t have enough money saved up at the time of his passing to have a proper burial in his beloved home town, so he was buried here, in Los Angeles, at the cemetery on Washington and Normandie. As for my grandmother, she would fall to cancer, by then we had the means to send her back to our pueblito in Oaxaca, but my grandmother in her dying days insisted “NO!”, she was going to lay next to her husband in that cemetery, that became the root to my Angelino identity, it solidified my attachment to this city and more specifically South Central.
I was able to choose the song for this video, I ran it by Iguana and he said if I liked the song then it was all good. I dig The Animals, the title says it all regarding why I got the portrait of My Grandfather on my forearm. The detail around my Grandfathers portrait is the image of The cemetery in our Pueblo back in Yatzachi El Bajo, the cemetery where my Grandpa would have genuinely liked to have been buried. The actual tattoo process was over nine hours in one session, it was done just prior to first day of The LA Body Art Expo being held in Pomona, we submitted the piece for their “Best Portrait” category and took First Place, but more than that Iguana was able to put my Grandfather in the cemetery where he intended to rest for all eternity.
Paz,
DML
Award winning tattoo artist Edgar Tagle a.k.a. "Iguana"
2032 W. Washington Blvd LA, CA 90018 (5 mins from Staples Center)
APPTS ONLY!! (323)730-7205 or E-mail: Iguanasart@att.net
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