Donn

I worked for him for the time I lived in NYC and had a great time working for him. He new I was into vintage tattoo memorabilia and would bring old flash, machines and photos for me to look at. This was especially great since it was his begining issues of IT that got me into Bert Grim, Todd and Shaw and he would bring in stuff for me to check out and read every few days. I had never worked for an owner who did more to put people in my chair and make sure that all the tattoo tourist who came to check out the mystique that was Fun City sat down with one of the guys working there and went home with a permanent reminder of what tattooing was like before shops mainly populated strip malls. I know that many don't like his ways or manner but one thing he taught me was that you should never forgets who you are and start believing what you hear about yourself and that if you can't have a good laugh about your life you probably aren't living much of one.

I would go with Richard Stell because he use to have a serval, which is an african wildcat the size of a german shepard and use to go work at a big cat refuge. He is one of those guys who knows animals inside and out, it's because of him I started collecting taxidermy so that I could really study animals and see how they work. I never did get a full body panther from him just a panther/rose/eagle morph about a decade ago, never to late until I run out of room though.

I remember Adam West having a bad ass Greg Irons sleeve, felt very fortunate to check it out when he came to New Orleans for the conventions in the early 90's.

Great story and thanks for the pics. I have several pages of his stuff up at the studio and his sheet of cats is fucking classic, based a 1/2 sleeve of his crawling tiger on it recently as it is such a classic it deserves to be done as often as possible.

A friend from Albany NY called today and mentioned that a shop there is wrapping on season 1 of "Tattoo School" for TLC. I have no problems with the reality show done by professional tattooers because in reality it has brought many people in the doors wanting bigger stuff but a show that is about teaching people how to tattoo is a different thing altogether. So I hope this winds up being one more reality show that is shot and never shown, like Americas Next Top Tattooer that was done in Texas.

You seem kind of bitter about shops in cities, I have worked all over the country in some of the biggest cities around (NY,LA, Miami and more) and have never heard anybody disparage shops in smaller towns. Hell they usually bitch about the proliferation of shops in their own areas and many talk about moving out to the country to escape the rat race. There are lots of amazing artist working in smaller towns all over the country.

What I like about this site is it doesn't really have anything to do with the tech aspect of the trade. There are enough forums out there that have tons of tech info on it and still people can't figure it out. There isn't much new under the sun and some things are best learned in person.