Jack Wier

He hasn't. But when I get my stomach finished, maybe I'll coerce him to telling it on film.

R.I.P Smoking Joe Frazier.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNY3_00p180

This is the finer thing in life.

here's my repayment D...

she could be my muse any day

Here are two living legends that i know have already been mentioned but I got to hang with them both this past weekend and had such and awesome time! Mr. Tony Polito....who showed up to surprise me....and in the background you can see Mr. Mike Perfetto tattooing! Sorry....I look like crap....mostly because I had already been tattooed earlier in the day by Steve Delgatto...ha ha ha!

Henry Goldfield of SF. Still tattooing.
From his site:
Henry Goldfield established Goldfield's Tattoo Studio in 1977 on the Embarcadero in San Francisco. One year later Henry moved his shop to its present location in San Francisco's famous Broadway Strip where the street was teeming with locals, sailors and tourists. A master of many trades Henry is known worldwide as one of the profession's finer artists, and is considered a pioneer of modern tattooing styles.

Well, the Coasts have both been written up, so I guess I have to throw in my vote for Chicago.
Cliff Raven. I don't usually like linking to Wiki, but this is a fairly concise and accurate summation of his career.
Cliff Raven - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
While it is accurate, it doesn't really convey just how much of an influence the man had. When I first started hanging around his shop at WAY too young an age, Buddy McFall was still working there, and it was a pretty rough and tumble place. Phil Sparrow was there at times, as was Tats Thomas.
Cliff was called "The Father of Modern Tattooing in America" by those in the know in this area. He may have been, or he may simply have been one of the earliest and most influential advocates of Japanese-style tattooing.
Continuing his style, and also his renown, were some of his apprentices, especially Dale Grande, who still owns Chicago Tattoo, and Bob Benedetti. That line continues with the man I consider to be one of the finest traditional tattooists in the world, Nick Colella, (Tattooing by Nick Colella) and with another outstanding artist, deeply immersed in the Japanese tradition, Miles Maniaci. ({ Miles Maniaci }) BTW, that's my arm in the "Progress" section.
It seems that these tattooists get short-shrift in books and print in general, and that's a shame...Chicago Tattooing is literally a shrine to the art. There is original flash on the walls by Cliff, Dale, and Nick, along with such greats as Sailor Jerry, Don Ed Hardy, Tats Thomas, and many others. Cliff was named "Tattoo Artist of the Year" at the very first International Tattoo Convention in 1976, and shortll after bought out Lyle Tuttle's shop in Hollywierd. While there, he tattooed many celebs, including Ringo Starr.
I got tattooed by Nick Colella a few weeks ago, and he told me that he is hoping to continue the thread on tattooing history in Chicago he had started here as soon as he got a minute free from ink-slinging. The man is busy, but you can still get a walk-in with him without too much difficulty.
So give Chicago it's due, some of the heaviest names of tattooing in the modern age came out of here! Add another to your list, Bunny...you can book a spot with Nick, chat with Dale while you're there, and then maybe hit Miles the same day-he works out of Deluxe Tattoo, not too far from Chicago Tattooing Company.
I am fortunate to have work by by Dale, by Miles, and by Nick, and have more planned with Nick.
.02

When I was six or seven there was a sixteen year old girl on my block with a tiny spider on her ankle. I was in awe of this, and wrote in my diary that I was going to get a spider tattoo as soon as I turned eighteen. Found this diary when I was cleaning out my mom's basement a few weeks ago--I'm a bit late, but am finally getting that spider done Monday.

Many many years ago a wise old motorcycle enthusiast of my acquaintance told me, "I like good-looking tattoos as much as anyone else, but I just don't feel like you're getting the whole tattoo experience unless you have some shit like your old lady's initials that looks like it was drawn on with a green crayon and the third letter is only half done."

Not sure where Sailor Eddie (Jr) might fall into the mix here (Bonnie & Clyde's Tattoo) in Philly....but he has been tattooing 40/41 years and just celebrated his 49th Bday!
He has become a good friend of mine (like a brother) and this is a guy who learned to shave an arm with a straight razor when he was 5 years old, cut acetates when he was 8 years old, and sat and colored in flash with his Grandmother and Paul Rogers as a kid!
It's amazing to sit down in the shop with him and look though the family photo albums he has!
I think I am heading up tomorrow to see him in fact....since the weather is gonna really nice!

Another who truely fits the tag legend is the godfather of Italian tattooing ,Gian M Fercioni .He pioneered the stylish Italian look of reduced palette and plenty of skin within beautiful traditional design, compounded by his colourful personal style .He's a real tattooers go to guy and is revered in Europe ,personally I would love to see more of his work.

when i was like 12, maybe 13 yrs old i seen my friends father's tattoo on his back of a naked girl laying on a back of a scorpion, which also was my first time seen seen a nude portrayal. so ya that had changed my outlook on art in a couple different ways LOL.

Lance did this one ten years ago. He called me back the next day freaking out. He said he woke up in the middle of the night and remembered that he forgot to tattoo the nipple on her. Then said, show it around, and if nobody says anything, then we wont worry about it.............if anyone notices, come back and lets put that nipple on her.

I grew up in a hippy ass section of Minneapolis called the West Bank, and there were a few biker bars on the south end of the neighborhood. I remember I was about 8 years old when I really noticed them and thought they were rad as shit.
On another note, I remember when my son first noticed tattoos as something unnatural on the body. When he was 3, he was sitting on my lap when his eyes locked onto my arm. He grabbed my arm firmly and scanned it over with intense focus...then let out the words "cool, dad"

i think misspelling of words is up there.
also, backwards tattoos. you guys see that TATTOO WARS show? it was awesome!!!!!!!!!! you see the one with mike rubendall up against bugs? i like the way they showed mike doing his homework researching his design and doing some sketching while bugs went to his mechanics place to work on a hot rod. come tattoo time, mike did an INCREDIBLE job. bugs on the other hand decided to just draw his design on. and drew it BACKWARDS!!!!!! thats some crap you learn in the first week of an apprenticeship. not 20 years into your career.

Just putting this out there for Mr. Sylvia and the other administrators.
I just wanted to say thanks for taking the time to interview all of these really talented tattoo artists and machine builders. You often speak in the videos about the level of exposure that tattooing has now. It is far more exposed and open than when you first got into the business. The number of scratchers is a lot higher. That being said for me personally, I believe that exposure to artists of the caliber that you interview is still rather limited. I'm currently a graduate student and won't be free of academia for some years yet. Your work on this site helps bring important aspects of tattooing to me, and I sure as Hell can't travel and see many of these people at this point. Tattooing right now isn't all sunshine and lollipops but you know better than I do that there are good, down to Earth people doing high quality work.
Thank you,
Jack

I couldn't have been more than 3 when I noticed my Dad had the old school skull with the snake crawling through the the eye socket tattooed on his bicep. I didn't understand how it got there or why it was permanent, but I damned sure knew I wanted one. I was hooked on anything to do with tattoos from then on, always have been, always will be.
I found the Sailor Jerry flash version of that skull and snake last year and got it big as Hell on my calf. I can't wait to show him the next time I see him.

I was 6 at the time. I was on the bus going home from 1st grade, the last day of school too, so it was memorable. Our regular bus driver had been replaced by this guy who was not in his happy place. He was yelling at us to keep quiet and what not... he was wearing a wife-beater shirt and had a couple of tattoos that I could see. I got a glimpse of one that was military related.
The only thing that most of us knew about tattoos was the "prize" tattoos that came in boxes of Cracker Jacks. You know the box I'm sure, with the sailor on it that was probably inked from head to toe under his uniform.
CG

Was 17 and had just got out of the hospital in Honolulu after getting some surgery. I am from the Big Island of Hawaii and there were no tattoo shops there at the time(1989). I had pretty much been fascinated with tattoos since about the 5th grade, when I got a copy of Donald Ritchie's book "the Japanese Tattoo" from the Hilo Library. Did a bunch of homemade crap on myself in the ensuing tattoo fever.
We were getting a bite to eat in Chinatown, must have been on Smith Street because I remember seeing the sign for a tattoo shop down the street. This turned out to be China Sea Tattoo. Went in nervous as fuck and consulted with Scott Sterling and made an appointment for the next day. Come the next day it was Rollo that ended up doing a coverup of my homemade stuff with a panther(traditional position like the original) and a rose.
I had no idea that he was so legendary until later. The only negative aspect of the whole experience was my mistaken impression that all tattoo shops were badass like that one. After all, I just stumbled into one of the most highly regarded tattoo shops of all time.

Got my first tattoo in 1993, age 16, from a guy who was passing through my hometown. It's a celtic design that I still have. He was tattooing out of the living room of a cook from the restaurant where I washed dishes. Reservoir Dogs was playing on the VCR so I felt like a real badass. Ha. I was so pleased with the first tattoo that I went back shortly thereafter for a second - a celtic/tribal arm band. Ah, the 90s. Turns out that was kinda beyond his expertise. I had that wonky crap on my arm for about 12 years before I got it covered up.

Now there's a sentence you don't hear uttered very often.

day after i turned 18..1995..parents were outta town for a few days..i went to the only shop i new of in my area...i want to say it was called artistic impressions, dude named paul hayden.puled up there was a badass nova parked out front..walked into the "waiting room" which had a pool table, a couple of couches, a bunch of ashtrays, and hardly any lights on...all i heard from the other room was.."what the fuck you want!" i was a young, naive, good little church boy at the time(kinda..haha)..man i was scared shitless..ended up getting "forgiven" on my backl in old english..thought it was sooo big and badass..hahaha..it was like 1 1/2 inches tall by maybe 6 long...sinc has been covered up by my backpiece of a huge severed samurai head...

My mom is a biker chick who has had hand tattoos since the day i was born, so when I wanted to get tattooed at 15 she called up her old friend named "Tattoo Pete" . We went to his house for the appointment, he smoked some pot and got started on my tribal sun that we put on my shoulder. I wanted my astrological sign placed in the middle of the sun-- he did it upside down (im a leo, it looked like the letter U instead of N) but he smoked some more pot and and said "eh, we can fix that" and he did.
I had that one covered up, but i kept the dragon he gave me a year later. Its awful, but i kind of love it anyhow.

Double :( :(
Nobody ever said you had to be famous to be good either.