Water. We are born in it, most of our body is made up of it, and we can’t live without it. 3/4 of the world is covered in it. We drink, bathe and swim in it. It’s the source of life and death. And it is a resource which is scarce and becoming scarcer to the point where it has been said that “the wars of the 21st century will be fought over water.”
I have an ambigram tattoo of the word “WATER” on my ankle. Water is what I think about when I want to be still. Watching the waves from the warm sand on a beach, staring out at a still lake, listening to a quiet rain, snorkeling in a reef, or even taking a nice long bath. I’m a water sign, born a Cancer on July 20, 1961. And all my life I’ve designed fountains, pools, and fishtanks. I have filled up nearly 50 sketch books and countless pages sketching out ideas for fountains and sculptures. And while some people love the mountains, the desert, or heading out into a forest, for me the ocean is it. Pure and simple.
While water draws me in, relaxes, sedates and nourishes me, some things about water also scare me to death. First off, I hate lakes and won’t swim in them because I can’t see the bottom even in shallow water. Same is true for the ocean. If I am swimming I freak out if I can’t see the bottom. But if I’m scuba or snorkeling and I can see around, I am like a fish. Also, I have a serious (and most people would say totally irrational) phobia of buoys. I own the url www.buoyphobia.com and have posted about this on my blog and have gotten quite a few comments (check them out here http://www.michaelgitter.com/?p=66#more-66). While I’ve gone off and done a lot of different things over the years, one constant has been my love for water. I want to design, create, install and watch people enjoy fountains of my design. This is my truest passion and I really hope you like www.fountation.com
My “water” tattoo art is an ambigram (reads both right-side up and upside down).
