exume

That's because your old mate makes his opinions based on the internet and tv shows, not the real world.
He obviously has never seen Oliver take walk-ins all day and totally nail every single tattoo drawing, regardless of style in less than 15 minutes. Then execute every tattoo, regardless of style, cleanly, quickly and accurately without rock star attitude.
Just to make this clear, Oliver manages to give walk-in customers what they want and make a great tattoo that he can be happy with and other tattooers will appreciate. Think about that for a minute... walk-in customers who don't give a shit who he is... and just want a tattoo they can like.... great tattoos... It's a rare talent among tattooers and even more rare among 'artists' who make tattoos.
Making great tattoos, making customers happy and having a great time while being so fucking cool to everyone else in the room and helping tattooers less experienced than him, yeah, fuck that guy. I'd hate for the guy who does my awesome tattoo to have a toothpick, like ewwww, gross, totally not cool.

I'm gonna keep watching it, seeing Oliver tear that girl apart was so worth the other shenanigans.

ew, green stuff.

ew, green stuff.

I'm gonna keep watching it, seeing Oliver tear that girl apart was so worth the other shenanigans.

I'm gonna keep watching it, seeing Oliver tear that girl apart was so worth the other shenanigans.

Just had another session with Marcus Kuhn today, the arm is swollen with some healed work, some almost healed and some fresh.
I just wanted to share an update.....

GUCCI!

Mind. Blown.
Thanks for giving me another outlet to shovel money into.

I haven't heard much about this show except that Oliver is in it, but I would say if they want to make it realistic the first challenge they should do is have a client come in with a horrible idea. The tattooers job will be to talk the client out of it and make them get something better. Extra points if finished tattoo is a eagle, dagger, or jungle cat of some sort.

Duno if hes been mentioned but XAM's works ace.
Tattoos by artist — The Family Business Tattoo Shop
The Family Business Tattoo Shop

Texts From Bennett
this kid... is amazing

looks like a bunch of +'s to me, I had to squint to see swastikas

both my ankles are super jacked from skating and snowboarding, glad I haven't done my knees or anything though

@MGblues, I think you need to add the grill and the trashcan..

neat little conductor panther on chad koeplinger's blog

I saw the whole Doomtree crew at red rocks about a month ago, sick show.

neat little conductor panther on chad koeplinger's blog

I'm definately in the Dan Higgs camp on the subject of mixing different styles.


As the saying goes "Suits the wearer, not the starer"

I bet hipsters LOVE this guy.

hey kev, you got featured on tattoosnob's blog today. probably already knew that but I think its pretty cool

neat little conductor panther on chad koeplinger's blog

Thanks for the kind words, Stu.
I definitely agree that the "not just for sailors" thing is old news - in fact, that's basically what my recent articles have been about, really. I hope you don't think I'm just completely retreading old ground - in fact, I've been trying to talk about just how trodden that ground is, and trying to examine why these myths persist. I'm less repeating the assertion than examining the perception of tattooing in the media, and how these strange misconceptions have been repeated again and again since the 1890s, at least. I've been trying to analyse these old tropes, and trace them back to try and uncover where they start, because I'm as bored by them as you are. As you say, for more eloquent and informed people than I, Ed Hardy probably chief amongst them, have been pointing out that tattooing has crossed the social strata since the day Joseph Banks got tattooed fresh off the Endeavour, so what interests and frustrates me is that that (as you rightly say) banal fact is so tenacious.
I definitely don't want to be a spokesman for anything, and I really hope I don't come across that way. It would horrify me if that's the impression I give. I certainly wouldn't pretend or presume to be representative of anything except my own ideas. As you say, tattooing needs neither spokespeople nor justification, and I don't want my work to come across as doing either. If it does, I can only apologise, and promise to bear that in mind in future.
I'm simply interested in and passionate about tattooing, its history and its culture, and I'm just trying to put together knowledge from a variety of sources and put it together in a way that's accessible, interesting and novel. I'm lucky to have found myself in a position where my abilities as a researcher and writer have been able to align themselves with my passion and my love for tattooing, and all I want to do is find out as much as I can about it and share that in a sensitive, respectful way (which so often doesn't happen!).
As for coming solely from within academia, I hope that part of the strength of my writing is that I am passionate about tattooing and come, in some respects, from inside the tattoo community (whatever that might mean, of course). You've known me for a long time, so you know I'm a tattoo collector and fan before I'm an academic and historian. In fact, I became an academic because the information I went looking for about the art-form I love just wasn't there, really, and much of what I did find was so obviously wrong. Most, if not all, academic work on tattooing has been written by outsiders treating tattooing and tattooed people as just another research project, and that's why (it seems to me) that much of academic work on tattooing is so awful. I hope I can redress that balance, in my own small way.
My current project is, I hope, going to be more novel. I'm currently working on a fairly straightforward book-length history of tattooing, but one which looks at the artistic practice of tattooing rather than treating it as an anthropological freakshow. There's not been anything written like that since the 1930s, so I hope you appreciate it and think it's worth doing. I'm focussing at the moment on the period immediately after Cook's voyages returned to Europe in the 1790s - the iconic images of Western traditional tattooing were embedded by even the early decades of the 19th century, and yet (to the best of my knowledge) no-one has ever examined where they came from, and how they relate to the visual culture contexts from which they emerged. Pieces of research like that are something I hope I can bring to the table. It seems to be that there's a lot more to be learned, and a lot more to be said, about tattooing's history.
That said, I really appreciate your comments and concerns, Stu. I understand that as I'm not a tattooer, I'm always going to be on the periphery, to some extent, and I definitely understand the suspicion of and scepticism towards academics! I do want to write work and do research and conduct myself in a way that earns respect from people like yourself - serious, artistically-minded, talented, hard-working, knowledgeable and well-respected tattooers - and produce knowledge that is as of interest to those already well-versed in tattoo culture and history as those who might never have even thought about tattooing before. It's really important to me not to tread on any toes or rock any apple-carts!
As the work on my book goes forward, I'd love to sit down and talk with you and anyone else about its direction. I know you'll have a lot of really interesting things to say which can only make the finished product better.
On a final note: Mario Desa's definitely right!
Anyway, looking forward to seeing you soon.

Another Rodney Raines tiger...on me.