βΌ PERSONAL DETAILS
βΊ Age - twenty-six. βΊ Gender - cis-male. βΊ Sexuality - hetero. βΊ Nickname - sam. βΊ Occupation - tattoo artist; contracted at Black Arrow on the boardwalk. βΊ Qualifications - associate's degree in fine arts. βΊ Residence - ocean city, maryland. βΌ PHYSICALITY
βΊ Scars - long surgical scar on his right arm, about as long as his forearm. βΊ Tattoos - from neck to feet, all six-three of him, Sam is donned in tattoos from conceptual lines and fonts, to expansive murals of snakes and birds; mammal skulls, shadowed out profiles, and miscellaneous practice flashes from various artists. βΊ Piercings - stretched out earlobes, up to 1". βΊ Style - black on black with rare interchanges of various-stages-of-wash denim and graphic tees between shades of white and gray. bottle-black dyed hair, razor-faded at the edges, and curling stubbornly on his brow. ββββββββββββββββββββββββ | LIFE AT RITMAN Samuel Sabiston was always troubled.
Ritman High would remember the creature that was poor, grungy, unassuming and an overall underachiever that listed into the crowds as a specter: the kid sunken into his seat; bedded down away from the social woes and ques of his peers. Overweight and penned as the loner child from separated parents that found solace in the back of the class and spent lunch hours smoking at the nearest park on the swing sets. Clove and smoke and hole-punched ears with barbed wire exteriors and acid wash hand-me-downs. A counselor's wet dream.
Homework was penned in scrawls of skulls and cross-bones, snakes and pin-ups of historical dames, the black splotches of ink bleeding into math problems -- completed, but none the less marred -- and English papers much to the chagrin of his teachers. Even the vexation of his art instructors was palpable, his brand of flourish not quite accepted and their criticism going unheard to the ear-buds jammed painfully in safety-pinned lobes. Endearing terms of prodigy and genius were exchanged for the fixated labels of trouble-child and lost-cause; maybe he'll grow out of it, as Mom would say. Maybe he'll change.
And he was just fine with it. He could manage.
Rumors dipped and spun, an elaborated tale of the woe be gone boy that flitted between families during the holidays, his parents remarried, beginning lives anew. Mutters and whispers of ball-pen stick 'n poke tattoos done in the boys room, pretty white lines on mirrors to fix the ravenous voices in his head, and looted liquor cabinets to drown out the noise his music could not. PSYCHE Buried - entombed, maybe - beneath dregs of smoke and mystery lies a heart of gold.
Tarnished, dented, chipped and perhaps a forgery, but none the less the by gone remains of a child the world forgot. Samuel Sabiston set fire to the child within and from the ashes he was made anew and he never looked back; but even ashes hold the remains of what was and could have been. From baby pictures thrown aside and yearbooks sacrificed to the shredder, he didn't want to acknowledge the demon within and Ritman High was nothing more than the foundation of lonely days and nights numbed thoroughly by addictions. An addictive personality his mentor would mutter, one that flings upon the chasms of obsession and passion and fixation when sanity refused to be had. Such appellations befitting to his work perhaps, from apprenticeship days spent on faux skin until his first practices of twenty-dollar flashes on insatiable individuals looking to rebel.
Smiles are perhaps sharp and brittle, like bared teeth peeled through the shadows, the mask of mystery and secrecy one wears to protect the most delicate parts of their heart and soul. Outward projections allude to a rebellious man unhinged and untamed, wild and brazen and harsh, but Samuel instead exchanges deep whispers liken to an old and aged man, and anxiously drums his fingers to a tune unheard. He's seen and heard and done it all, got the shirt, and the post card to prove it.
As many of the woefully misunderstood and underestimated, life did not begin until after graduation wherein Samuel disappeared, not that many would've noticed, let's be honest. Two years of absence until social media became abuzz with an emerging artist with an eye for conceptual commissions and aesthetics of hyper realism with a broad portfolio that ranged from traditional, old school, blackwork to new age water color and Japanese landscapes. A young prodigy, the irony did not go unnoticed. Still, Samuel mastered them all, dedicated his life to the art, to busy himself because as they say, the devil finds work for idle hands. ββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββ |