Huero

What's going on on your leg? Is that from the tattoo?

I love tattoos like that. I'd rather look at one of those over a 1,000 Bert Krak panther heads or Daniel albrigo Navajo blanket tattoos. Offensive tattoos, racist tattoos, religious tattoos, drifter, hobo tattoos, Political tattoos, obscene tattoos. Tattoos done in garages, motel rooms, Russian penitentiary tattoos, south African gang tattoos, british soccer hooligan tattoos, handpoked punk tattoos, facetats, poorly thought out names on necks. I've always loved ugly tattoos, and I always will.

It was on my homeboy's dad. he was from a old gang called lomita maravilla, from east LA. He had a topless girl ina sombrero, just her torso. I think some roses too. She had a rifle in her hand, her nipples were covered by a ammo belt. On the other forearm he had this little dude in a sombrero, but you could just see his feet, his mustache, some shotgun barrels, and that big sombrero. it said MARAVILLA in gang writing, arched above the hat. Youd see writing like that all over and I used to try and copy it or write my name in those letters too like in schoolwork I'd write the answers like that, or my name all crazy like that and they'd get pissed. Anyways I'd always try and look at those tattoos when I'd go to his house, but they were old and sort of faded. He was a garbage man, and sort of a scary lookin dude, or was back then and i didnt wanna hassle him or fuck with him about it. Years later I asked to see em, and got a good look. Another friend had a older punk rocker sister with a pachuco cross under her eye, but that was later, and I found out it was make up. Lots of punk rockers would do that with a ballpoint pen or mascara if they hung in certain scenes.

"Sugar Skulls"

Forgot to mention that fool. Robert pho too, outta Vegas via the LBC. He comes from the tradition and does some of the baddest portraits in the game.

roots of "Chicano tattooing" can be traced back a long way, but what was really influential on the art form was the tradition of public murals, especially in east LA in the mid to late 1960s. These murals were scattered all over Los Angeles, in nearly every barrio neighborhood, but you had a concentration of them in the projects. Places like Ramona gardens, Estrada courts, aliso village, dogtown (not the venice dogtown, butthe dogtown projects, by the LA river, near chinatown) Sometimes they were political. The themes generally revolved around racial pride, community disenfranchisement, Aztec and mayan mythology, Lowrider culture, pachuco culture etc. Tattoos were and are an extension of that tradition. That was the era. The end of the viet nam war, a massive increase in the prison population in California and the rise of biker culture. It just happened that Cartwright and negrete and Rudy where there at the right time in the right place. They had credibility in the broader tattoo culture, and exposed that style far beyond califas. It was seen as an underworld, undesirable thing, then it became chic for a time.

I don't think it's a strictly "Chicano" thing, or a "black" thing (actually you didn't see tattooing making much of an inroads in the black community in general until reletively recently, and prior to that the tattoos they'd have we're very basic, and almost never photo realistic portraits. Blacks in general were very conservative anout tattoos until the mid 2000s. Before that You'd see political tattoos, black power, racial themes or tribal, pan african themes, on them, very basic lettering, maybe old English.) Whites and hispanics in the california prison system got them. It came from the same genre as fantasy themed tattoos, Aztec motifs and Viking imagery (if the wearer was on a white power trip). Stuff inmates had, bikers had, sometimes military, gang members had. Portraits were a 1970's thing and southern California thing specifically. It came from prison and was disseminated into the public sphere informally through home tattooing, and then formally through various influential tattooers and tattoo magazines.

One of the most slept on of the single needle old guarde, and among my favorite tattooers. Did I mention tony olivas? Him too.

Scrappy doesn't do single needle tattoos. There are lots of newer tattooers carrying on what the aforementioned tattooers started. Pint and chuey q, Placaso, drew flores, Jose l, jun cha, ruger, chente, chuco, andrew farnsley, Tattoo tony, Mexican tattoo family, Steve soto, tattoo Louie, big Gus, el bros Mendoza, Antonio m, kiki platas, Dave Sanchez, even kat von d. Grillo and Hendricks do it good too but they aren't married to it. The thing with these tattoos is it can look good even when it's bad. The tradition is that it's handpoked or done with homemade machines, so even when you see people with rough looking stuff, it still looks great. You don't find a lot of people outside of southern California that do it right, and while it's a style most associated with inner city Los Angeles, the people that do it the best are in orange county, riverside, inland empire, etc. There are some shops that specialize in this stuff, under the gun, tattooland, oc ink house, Por vida, lowrider, rubes, shamrock, the Slauson swap meet ha ha. But these are just tattooers known by the general public or people who know about tats. Every hood in califas has a few local people working out of their house or in small little shops or swap meet spots that get it in.

I'm not hating on homeboy, it's just all this gossip, praise, chitchat. I see that a lot here, everything dan higgs does is brilliant, mike Wilson is "the best tattooer in the world," face tattoos are dumb but Corbin's are okay, tattoo shows are evil, but it's okay that Hendricks/peck is on it, etc, etc. It's a little weird. To me at least.

All this big deal about this dude. It's a little carried away I think.

i don't get it.

Gogue Hooper Rudy Goethe Roberts Brand Montie Stoney Hollywood mark Stell Placaso Lakra Negrete Hardy Grillo Jondix Shige Everett Chuey q Mr x Olivas Leu

No not at all. Specially mike giant. Fuck no.

the best people that work in this style are unknown. i came up in l.a., and growing up id see, and still see to this day, people with really beautiful black and grey tacs, lettering and portraiture and other staples of "chicano" tattooing, but were done by nonames, in prison, county jails, firecamps and kitchens. it looked green! id always look at that stuff when i was a kid.it would almost always be girls. topless girls in sombreros on a forearm. and i remember always trying to get a good look at it. i still always try to look at it. a lotta this stuff was done in the late 60's to the mid to late 80's, with the heyday being in the 1970's. a lot of cool looking tattoos were made in the 70's. in the 90's it took on a different look. still cool but a little different. not as blue. no one invented it. no one started it. some people just capitalized on it. it become popular. not so long ago a lot of tattooers were doing that kind of work, bob roberts was doing it, ed hardy. the fad went out, and they went back to what they knew. but some people started with it, and stuck with ut. the two best known "names" for this stuff are negrete and rudy. i think they might be about the same on the art level, but i think negrete is the better all- around tattooer. jacks got him on lettering for sure, but jack is a beast on letters in general. negrete learned to tattoo in prison, so his work retains that purity, that packed in, dense, blueish black hue. hes good at more stuff i think, then jack. then theres lesser known but just as important arteests, like baby ray, brian everett and tony olivas. dick warsocki, romo, flame, creeper, lady blue, mahoney, montie and brown (RIP). all those people have been doing the kind of work your talking about, for a long, long time. i think some of them get associated with "chicano" tattooing, but in reality they did a lot of other stuff, a lot of biker style shit, or typical 70's tough guy motifs. They did as many sombrero girls as they did single needled grim reapers, starry space scenes, naked girls, pegasus and other winged creatures, unicorns, led zepplin winged dudes, butterfly's, zigzag men, Harley Davidson shields, vikings, castles and wizards handling business. That stuff is cut from the same cloth as cholo stuff. later.