Jack Balas, 2024
THE WAXY COMB (#2662); India ink on paper, 12x16 inches
from the TATTOO DETOUR 17 series, FROM HERE TO ETERNITY

Text:
And it seemed to him then that every human was always looking for himself, in bars, in railway trains, in offices, in mirrors, in love, especially in love, for the self of him that is there, someplace, in every other human. Love was not to give oneself, but find oneself, describe oneself. And that the whole conception had been written wrong. Because the only part of any man he can understand is that part of himself he recognizes in him. And that he is always looking for the way in which he can escape his sealed bee cell and reach the other airtight cells with which he is connected in the waxy comb.

( James Jones, FROM HERE TO ETERNITY, chapter 8)