Untitled ["tattoo" book] 1971

This "Tattoo" book was made by James McCracken Jr, but when exactly, we don't know! It's a small book, a modest size, and the pages are filled with simple, elegant designs rendered in black ink. I wonder about McCracken's hand as he worked; Were the lines hesitant, or did they flow freely? What inspired him? Were these images from his imagination, or did they come from real-life encounters? These drawings remind me of folk art. They have a raw, direct quality, a sense of being unfiltered. Maybe he saw tattoos as a form of storytelling, a way to mark life experiences on the body. Each mark, a symbol. And in his own way, McCracken continued this tradition of visual storytelling by creating his own language of images. It's like he's inviting us to become storytellers ourselves.