Give Me Some Skin.

"Am I the happy loss? Will I still recoil when the skin is off" - The Cutter, Echo And The Bunnymen.

The cutter was one thing that artist Katie Taylor most certainly did not spare herself when she underwent a rather delicate sounding procedure and turned herself into art. Sort of. On Tuesday, I was at The Bell in Whitechapel with the London Fortean Society and I was both doing the door and operating the slideshow as the person/people who'd normally do that job were too 'squeamish' to attend Katie's 'An Unusually-Inked Artist' talk.

In truth there was nothing to worry about but it was certainly a rather unusual, niche, subject that Katie bought to our attention and which I shall try to relay to you as accurately as possible. Not having been able to make notes (too busy with my other 'jobs') and all that. 

Katie spoke a bit about her life as an artist and a little about the debate about what we do with human remains. If they should be exhibited even as scientific artefacts let alone art. We were only a few minutes in and she was already talking about the genocides in both Bosnia and Rwanda.

But her own story begins with weight gain. Katie found herself weighing in at more than nineteen stone and knocking at the door of twenty. She showed us a picture and yes she was big (hardly recognisable from the Sue Perkins lookalike she is now) but more clearly she looked very unhappy.

So she lost the weight. No gastric band, no fad diet, no Ozempic. Just the old fashioned, tried and tested, method of eating less and doing more exercise. This, however, had the side effect of leaving her with lots of yellowing dead skin. The slide of this, I was later informed, was the only one removed as it tends to cause people upset.

She arranged an operation to have this now excess skin removed as many have done and will continue to do so. But where Katie's story differs is that, being an artist and all that, she asked if she could keep her former skin once it'd been removed. It was hers after all. 

That's still an unusual thing to do. I've never heard of anyone asking to keep their old hair after a haircut or collecting all their old bogeys, and kids only keep teeth that come out so they can put them under their pillows for the tooth fairy. I wonder what the tooth fairy does with all those teeth. It doesn't bear thinking about.

Once Katie had checked with the hospital that she could keep her excess skin (they agreed to it but were surprised at the unusual request, as you might expect) she had a dilemma. They couldn't keep the skin overnight but Katie needed to stay in overnight. Her partner and grown up kids weren't up for collecting the skin but a friend was. Said friend took the skin back to Katie's place and shoved it in her fridge alongside the butter and cheese.

When Katie left hospital she came up with an idea of what she wanted to do with the excess skin. She wanted to turn it into leather but all of the male tanners she spoke to about performing this task were either disinterested or slightly repulsed. A female tanner, however, was curious and eager and set about slowly turning Katie Taylor's excess skin into leather.

 

And that very leather was in The Bell on Tuesday night. Katie inviting people in the break to go up and give it a touch (I opted for another drink at the bar instead). The skin looked like .... you guessed it, skin. There was even a belly button shaped and sized hole where they'd cut round her belly button. It wrapped nicely around a waist like a heavyweight boxing belt but there wasn't enough of it to make a jacket.

She thought about turning it into either a bag or a belt (a bit Ed Gein that) but decided she just wanted to keep it how it is and even had a tattoo she proudly showed off to celebrate the event. When asked if she'd sell it she claimed not for even a million pounds. Not for any money. It's part of her. Sometimes it sits in a bag in her front toom. Sometimes it travels on the bus with her in her bag.

When she goes she'll leave it to her seemingly disinterested kids but while she's here it's hers and it's staying hers. In our divisive age, the reporting of this led to her receiving loads of abuse but also lots of support. All of it, it seems, like water off a duck's back to an artist who has already undergone far bigger challenges in her life and now speaks about them to the likes of me.

Thanks to Dewi, Jade, David, Tim, Veronica, and Vyvy for joining me, thanks to The Bell and the London Fortean Society for hosting, and thanks to Katie Taylor for an evening I won't forget in a hurry. Katie Taylor is one person not only comfortable with the skin she's in. But comfortable with the skin she is no longer in.