MOSCOW:
Like a piano participant transferring up a scale, Igor Mikhaylov runs his gloved palms alongside his shopper’s upturned arm, feeling out exactly the place he ought to place his stencil.
The 38-year-old tattoo artist, who’s legally blind, is in excessive demand.
“That is one thing that impresses and thrills you,” mentioned a lady who gave her title solely as Alexandra. She had simply obtained a tattoo saying “Love” in Braille from Mikhaylov at a tattoo studio off Moscow’s stylish Novy Arbat Avenue final month.
Mikhaylov started to lose his eyesight on the age of eight, the results of a genetic sickness. He can understand gradations in mild and may make out the contours of objects. He nonetheless remembers what the world round him seems like.
His prospects discover his tattoos thrilling as a result of they demand an imaginative leap of religion.
“The visible photos that I’ve immediately are the truth is being accomplished with the assistance of my creativeness and my reminiscence. In different phrases, what I think about is way sharper than what I can see now,” Mikhaylov defined.
A skilled classical guitarist and graduate of a prime Moscow music faculty, Mikhaylov approaches the artwork of tattooing with nimble fingers and an open thoughts. There is no instruction guide for the best way to tattoo blind.
Mikhaylov’s prospects select a phrase or phrase, which he interprets into Braille. He then tattoos the picture onto the pores and skin utilizing a single needle dipped into ink, what is named a stick-and-poke tattoo.
“Learn how to take a needle to this or that nook, the best way to discover this center line, which method to make use of to maneuver a needle in corners — all of it jogged my memory of working with a (guitar) string the place these small facets and peculiarities matter,” Mikhaylov mentioned. “I needed to develop my very own method.”
In between tattooing gigs and music performances, Mikhaylov finds time to win match trophies as a member of Russia’s nationwide desk tennis group for the visually impaired.
A neon signal hanging on the wall by his work station within the Moscow tattoo parlour might function Mikhaylov’s private mantra: “Your Consolation Zone Will Kill You”.
