Dan S

My dad's tattoos, Eagle from Tacoma Wa 1969, Sparrow from Ft Worth TX 1972

Here's the latest and greatest for my oldest son. He got this done by Nick Colella at Chicago Tattooing Co. this past Saturday. Sorry for the low-quality pic, just a cellphone shot.

I agree with you about the USA making "things" again. Absolutely.
I would love to hear some of our dear friends across the pond chime in about this comment: "Look, if socialized health care was so great, how come people come here from all over the world to get their health care needs met?"
Well, our last revolution was due to taxation without representation...what you are hinting at is a little closer to internal strife. Because we have people on all sides, which makes this place great, we can agree to disagree and still drink a beer together and shoot the shit about tattoos.

hmmmm... think I will drive downtown and get something done today...I need a touchup if anything...

Here's the latest and greatest for my oldest son. He got this done by Nick Colella at Chicago Tattooing Co. this past Saturday. Sorry for the low-quality pic, just a cellphone shot.

Our politrix are controlled by the banksters, just the same as yours are.
Tell you what, instead of my listing all the ways that socialism/collectivism have overtaken Ami society, howsabout if you give our Constitution a good study, and then brush up on our history over the last 200 years, with a special interest in social issues, and then study on the changes that ahve taken place in our Nation since, say, 1975 or so. I don't mean to be a dick, but without a good grounding in all of that, it's impossible to intelligently discuss this.
Our Nation was founded as a Republic, not a Democracy. You were free to earn and keep whatever you could. Now, everything you do and aspire to is regulated and controlled, and if you get out of line, there are more than enough alphabet-soup agencies with their own paramilitary forces to bring you to heel.
The welfare state here is mind-boggling, anyone in the entire country, contrary to popular fiction, can walk into a County hospital and get whatever care they need absolutely free if they have no insurance. Anyone.

Judging from the tattoo, lots of acid and E in the mid to late 90's :p

Here's the latest and greatest for my oldest son. He got this done by Nick Colella at Chicago Tattooing Co. this past Saturday. Sorry for the low-quality pic, just a cellphone shot.

Here's the latest and greatest for my oldest son. He got this done by Nick Colella at Chicago Tattooing Co. this past Saturday. Sorry for the low-quality pic, just a cellphone shot.

Here's the latest and greatest for my oldest son. He got this done by Nick Colella at Chicago Tattooing Co. this past Saturday. Sorry for the low-quality pic, just a cellphone shot.

Here's the latest and greatest for my oldest son. He got this done by Nick Colella at Chicago Tattooing Co. this past Saturday. Sorry for the low-quality pic, just a cellphone shot.

Our politrix are controlled by the banksters, just the same as yours are.
Tell you what, instead of my listing all the ways that socialism/collectivism have overtaken Ami society, howsabout if you give our Constitution a good study, and then brush up on our history over the last 200 years, with a special interest in social issues, and then study on the changes that ahve taken place in our Nation since, say, 1975 or so. I don't mean to be a dick, but without a good grounding in all of that, it's impossible to intelligently discuss this.
Our Nation was founded as a Republic, not a Democracy. You were free to earn and keep whatever you could. Now, everything you do and aspire to is regulated and controlled, and if you get out of line, there are more than enough alphabet-soup agencies with their own paramilitary forces to bring you to heel.
The welfare state here is mind-boggling, anyone in the entire country, contrary to popular fiction, can walk into a County hospital and get whatever care they need absolutely free if they have no insurance. Anyone.

When I talked to Nick last, about 3 weeks ago? He told me that he will definitely be writing more on this as he has the time.
Just as a teaser, he also told me that he has over 50 pounds of paper from Cliff Raven. Flash, pix, you name it...

Funky choices? Lets not b.s. We've all seen a guy with tattoos and piercing wearing designer clothes, fucking around on Ipods and buying their groceries with a food stamp card.
Why do these parasites have tattoos, MP3 players, 50 dollar shirts, hundred dollar jeans, 200 dollar shoes, fancy purses and wallets, piercings and tattoos, hair cut from a hair salon, manicures and all this garbage if they're using FOOD STAMPS?
My money goes to losers who buy their groceries so they can spend the other money they get on pure frivolity and creature comforts. Everybody using a food stamp card drove a nicer car to the grocery store than I did. I feel like a dupe every time I go shopping.

Part Two
Chicago’s Tattooing past is as deep and influential as both the Bowery and The Pike and South State Street was the spot for all of these tattooers to come through. Like I stated before hundreds of tattooers came through to work on South State Street, from the early 1900s through until the demolition of the area in 1967.
Here are a few of the oldest photos I have found of unidentified tattooers tattooing on South State Street, if anyone knows who they are I would be stoked to hear it. These photos looked very staged, but it looks like the typical arcade style tattooing, just a small little corner or spot underneath some stairs where these arcade owners could house a tattooer as well. These photos where found in an online archive of old Chicago pictures from a local paper that no longer exists.



A lot of the tattooers where complete winos and would tattoo for the Mob owned arcades just long enough to get some drink, then would disappear until they needed to work again. Other like the ones I will mention below made South State their homes if not only for a short while. Most notable tattooers that worked on South State are but not limited to.
Ed Thornton
Bill Moore (Chicago Tattoo Supply House) not affiliated with Chicago Tattoo Co
Paul Hansen
Bill Killingworth
Jerry Pope
Ned Resinol
Ernie Sutton
Randy Webb
Mickey Kellet
William Grimshaw
Owen Jensen
Bert Grimm
Philadelphia Eddie
Don Nolan
Oakland Jake
Stoney St. Clair
Amund Dietzel
Phil Sparrow
Buddy McFall
Cliff Raven Ingram
Sailor Jerry Collins
Ralph Johnstone
Tatts Thomas
So there are 22 of the heaviest hitters to ever hold a tattoo machine and they all came through Chicago at one time or another and the history is relatively unknown or not talked about. To me this makes Chicago’s history even more intriguing. When people talk about tattooing they either mention The Bowery or The Pike, but Chicago was home to some pretty amazing tattooers that helped shape not only the look of what tattooers today call traditional designs but they where also trying to improve their tools and techniques.
Out of the list you have a few stand outs that are obvious you have of course Sailor Jerry, he was said to be introduced to electric tattooing by Tatts Thomas, here is the only card in existence that shows Sailor Jerry was tattooing on South State Street in Chicago. This card was in China Sea when Rollo bought it after Jerrys death, Kandi Everett had it in her possession for the last 20 something years and passed it on to me recently.

Bill Moore had the Chicago Tattoo Supply House and worked closely with Tatts Thomas over the years, Tatts and Bill moved shops a bunch of times during Bills stay on South State Street. Bill used to run ads in Popular Mechanics at the time touting his “Tattoo Outfit” so there you have tattooers selling to the general public way before Spaulding ever graced the back cover of Tattoo magazine. Bill Moores earliest ad was found in Billboard magazine in 1932, where he is listed at 434 South State the same address that Sailor Jerry used to work at. This was the Burton Arcade, which a lot of other tattooers had worked at as well. Bill Moore died in Chicago in 1944.
Ralph Johnstone to me is one of the most under rated tattooers of this time. Not only was he one of the most amazing circus banner painters but he also was an amazing tattooer that by all accounts was extremely kind and never had a bad word to say about any other tattooer. Ralphs business cards used to say he would work off of photographs, which meant photo realistic portraits in the 1950s. Ralph and Tatts Thomas worked side-by-side for Ralphs entire State Street Career which lasted I believe until everyone left in 1963. Johnstone also painted flash for Milton Zeis who at the time had a supply business and tattoo correspondence class out of Rockford Illinois. These business cards below show some of the address that Tatts and Johnstone worked at. The cards where also drawn by Ralph himself, as you can see he was light years ahead of his time in the way he approached illustration and tattooing for that matter.


Here you have a couple of Ralph Johnstone’s clients with full chest pieces, and the third pic is of 3 backpieces with Johnstone in the front the center was done by Tatts Thomas it is on Sailor Bill Killingsworth the other 2 where done by Johnstone.



Thanks for your interest more to follow on some of the other tattooers that shaped South State Street.

So in response to recent inquiries about Chicago and its place in tattoo history and to try to up the ante here at The Last Sparrow Tattoo Forum I will try to breakdown what I know and have acquired about tattooing in Chicago from early on up until present day. All of this will revolve around the history of Chicago Tattoo because honestly I don’t know or care to know about any other present day shops in the city.
This of course will give a broad range of information at first because most of the photographic history was lost to the trash or to the flea markets at the time. The stories of South State Street are very few, 99% of the tattooers that dominated that street in its hey day are long gone. There are a few still left and their stories are amazing, some look upon those times fondly as the last truly honky tonk time in tattooing other look upon South State as Chicago’s tattoo demise.
The 4-block area of South State Street in Chicago from the early 1900s to the mid 1960s was considered the worst red-light district that ever existed in this country to date. It consisted of skid row flophouses, porn theatres, liquor stores, wino bars, shooting galleries, arcades, and of course in every corner of every arcade were the tattoo shops. Chicago was supposedly home to hundreds of tattooers through out the early years. All making tattoos cutting their chops and making their bones on the abundance of fresh sailors from Great Lakes Naval Base just north of Chicago, and the working class folks looking to let loose on South State Street.
These first photos show the very early days of south state notice in one of the photos the Armed Services recruiting center, this later became and Army Navy Surplus store. This is one of the main reason I believe that attracted the tattooers to South State they had a fresh abundance of young men signing up to serve their country and at that time service men especially sailors and tattoos went hand in hand.




These other three photos show the burlesque barkers looking to get customers in to see the show



Thanks for your interest, more to come later

Knee tattoos, truly are not fun...I've been shedding scabs from Chicago to Seattle and now back from these...

So, my Lady and I went into Chicago Tattoo last night for our appointment, figured we'd be in an out in a few hours, had a small custom piece designed, a little coverup on my knees, no big thang.
Wrong.
First, Kathy spots an ancient Sailor Jerry design on the wall, and it's "can we do that instead?". Yes Dear.
Then Nick shows me the drawings he's done for my coverups, and they were just a wee tad larger than I had thought....
Ah well, ended up staying for five hours, and walking out with some beautiful work. I've got to say, Nick Colella is, imho, about the best there is at Traditional American tattooing today.
Anyhow, here's a few pix. The last pic is the old firecracker pack the cat heads came from.

I want to make it real clear that the six month wait WAS NOT at Chicago Tattoo! The artist in question had been working there when he did my piece, but then moved-on and became all popular and hip and so-forth.
Anyhow, for a typical waiting time at Chicago Tattoo, I e-mailed Nick Colella there this morning, and have appointments for my Lady and myself this Wednesday evening. Guess I can wait a day!

I really don't think Ami's hate the poor more than anyone else, merely that most Americans recognize that if you are "poor", yet can afford what most consider to be luxuries, i.e.; cigarettes, alcohol, etc., then you aren't poor, but rather lazy, or at best, making some really funky choices.

Poor people typically have poor ways and in many cases ought to be hated.
"And that's all I have to say about that."

No no no. There is an American quirk for you. Everybody thinks he's "poor."
The typical "poor" person in America lives in a home with air conditioning, cable t.v. with two television sets, a stove, a microwave, refrigerator, washer and dryer, some video game bullshit, a VCR or DVD player with 5 or more movies a piece for them, a computer (possibly with the internet) and has a bike and a car in the garage. This can all be had by sitting on your dead ass and taking money from the productive people of society. Funding some lazy cocksucker's lifestyle of boozing and playing Xbox 360 all day is called "welfare."
The poverty line in this country is set at like 13,000 dollars a year when the typical person world wide, billions of them, don't even make 5 U.S. dollars a day. Everybody in the White, Western world thinks he's poor and never wants to pay taxes. Taxes are only for "rich people" which are magically defined as "anybody making more in government handouts or money than me."

Cliff owned shops in S.F. and el-Lay. He had a "silent Parnter" in both, but I don't know who it was. He, together with Dale Grande and Buddy McFall, bought out Lyle Tuttle in L.A., then He bought out Buddy, then finally Dale traded his half of the L.A. studio for Cliff's half of Chicago Tattooing Company.
The man was a trip, for sure, and you know, all of them tolerated a kid hanging around their shop watching and waiting...now that's class. Course I spose they figured they'd make their money back from me in a few years-and they did!

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

Cliff owned shops in S.F. and el-Lay. He had a "silent Parnter" in both, but I don't know who it was. He, together with Dale Grande and Buddy McFall, bought out Lyle Tuttle in L.A., then He bought out Buddy, then finally Dale traded his half of the L.A. studio for Cliff's half of Chicago Tattooing Company.
The man was a trip, for sure, and you know, all of them tolerated a kid hanging around their shop watching and waiting...now that's class. Course I spose they figured they'd make their money back from me in a few years-and they did!