Petri Aspvik

I know that in 2012 it will be 2012 tattoos. I have been actually thinking that it would be cool to get I survived 2012 NOW, just to fuck with all the "doomsday" bastards. Because I base my prediction on logic, so its a shure bet."
edit. Then again... There really isn't going to be anything to survive from. So maybe the idea needs little work.
Maybe like a check list type thing with all the predicted doomsdays going on as far as they go. Maybe even make some dates up, then all of them crossed before hand and Carl Sagan slapping a face with a text such as "Carl Sagan - slapping bitches back to reality 1934 – 1996"

Ron Henry Wells (The Hyena in here)! The man has been tattooing for like 4 years, which boggles my mind. Great shit allready. I have only exhanced few emails with him, but apparently he is also a gentleman and a schollar. My hats off to him. I will put here few of his things that I like, hope you dont mind Ron.
The Laughing Hyena

My wife and I just booked with Stuart Cripwell. We are stoked!

Man, everybody already used my smart-ass answers but the Greg Irons quip was funnier than I could have come up with.
But back to the original question.
This is one of the newer approaches to tattooing that makes me slightly uncomfortable to be honest. Myself and a few tattooers I know and work with have noticed the trend of customers finding a sense of pride in how long they had to wait for their tattoo. As if that makes the tattoo more worthwhile.
With some of the currently living/working tattooers mentioned in this thread, I personally know people (not even on the internet) that have tattoos from all of them. Filip, Horiyoshi III, Shige and Mike Rubendall. Yeah, they had to wait a little while for some of them but not as long as you'd think for others. Mike Roper is a different situation because he makes it deliberately difficult to get in touch with him, which answers the question posed above. But that wasn't really the question that was asked and it's rarely the question that gets asked. The question, or at least the implication, is "who has the longest waiting list' or "who has appointments booked furthest into the future". If I were to be snarky "who gives me the most bragging rights".
For me the hardest people to get a tattoo from are the tattooers who are located furthest away from me. The ones where I have to get off my ass and do something about it. Time is easier to overcome than distance although patience is a different matter. It astonishes me that people call our shop from the outskirts of the city expecting us to change the way we work because they are catching a train to get here. On the other hand, we are humbled and honoured by the people who cross seas and continents to get tattooed regularly with us.
But that's aside from the issue.
Why is it a trend that makes me uncomfortable?
Because I've heard people brag about how long they had to wait for 'x' artist and wear that information like a badge of honour. It feels almost as distasteful as bragging about who charges the most. Yeah, tattoos are for tough guys and tough buys like to brag and maybe that seems harmless, but it makes me uncomfortable and I have trouble clearly explaining why.
Maybe it's because it's a phenomenon spurred on by the internet and the gossipy world of hearsay. Nobody calls and checks with the artists or shops they want to get tattooed at. Nobody travels down to the shop to ask the question. They just ask random strangers on the internet who have a lot of time on their hands and like to talk about something they know nothing about. Then the reality gets lost or twisted and in the end the real information is lost. I see this a lot with regards to the shop I work at. Forums are (or certainly used to be) bursting with 'facts' about how much we charge, how long we take, how far 'x' and 'y' are booked or how long their waiting lists are. Nobody calls the shop to ask and nobody suggests that the person calls to ask.
I know that happens with a lot of things but it seems like this is starting to have a real-world effect, however small. People who wanted tattoos that we would love to do heard that we wouldn't tattoo them at our shop because we were so cool and busy and booked up for decades and rolling around in money 'n' bitches or something. We've heard of this a few times and it seems to be happening more. Yeah, we're busy, you may have to wait a little, maybe not. If someone has contact information, especially a phone number on their website it means that they want you to call.
I'm not really going to touch on the tone of the "are they a fad or are they really worth it?" comment, except to say that if you have to ask, the answer is "no".
Sorry to jump on this fun thread with a rant. I look forward to more witty quips.

exactly! rob ryan told me he was playing a show with dan and dan spotted a group of bearded-tattooed dudes in the crowd. dan leans over to rob and whispers "they're here!"...hahaha
these guys act like dan was lowered to earth from a ufo driven by jesus. he was a great tattooer, is a great artist and musician...they're turning him into a sid vicious type cartoon charecter to use as an icon to express your tribe and show how cool you are. what they don't realize is that shit is exactly what dan hated about tattooing. .

i love this thread becasue i really learned something! i was thinking you had to fill in every negative space or else it was almost llike it would be incomplete. i was not thinking about how it would age and what it would look like. the legs are pretty amazing and what everyone has said totally changed how i was thinking.

What ever Chad Koeplinger does next

You are some sort of a saint Shawn.
Thank you.

You are some sort of a saint Shawn.
Thank you.

Tattoos are very personal, I don't think tattooers will ever be replaced by technology in the slightest. I would never buy a painting made by a machine, nor would I get a tattoo made by one.

The Frisco Skin one was a huge inspiration on me when I first started getting tattooed. A lot of the work I get is "weird" (especially by the standards that were in place in 1990) and I'd walk into shops, barely 18 and ask for really odd stuff. Most of them were polite to me, but.... they didn't get it.
To have Higgs saying that it's ok to get things that people consider stupid and that it works anyway... it just opened my eyes to what I was missing. That there were people out there who were roughly my age who were into weird comics and art and all that shit AND who tattooed it. After that, I just had to be patient and find the right tattooer. Which is a good lesson when you're young and you just want to be tattooed. Patience is hard found sometimes.

At the time I was a weird comic book reading horror and scifi nerd (so, pretty much no change) who would just slap stuff together- "I want a black panther, but he's an incarnation of St. Sebastian... oh, and don't make him growl, cause he's a fraidy cat" could easily get you a dead silent stare in 1990. I eventually got that in 2000 from Hoffman.
it took me a while to hit my stride with getting what I want, but now I just sort of ramble on until my artist of choice says "I have no idea what the fuck you're talking about, but lets nail it".

Fuck! I wrote a long ass reply then pushed the wrong button!
Well.
It depends on the person. I see us humans as primal beings, so I can associate any tattoo style to something "deeper". But it is the most prominent when we are dealing with blackwork.
I think it maybe in someways makes us look more inward as you also pointed. Because the desings themself are in a way closer to us, as a philosophical thing where you can create the meaning based on your own self and also as a physical thing, where the image it self is about enhancing the bodys curviture. It uses the body maybe more than other styles where the image itself conveys something (ship, monkey, crack addict). They have a set visual meaning. Like words. Car, tattoo of a car. When blackwork can work -maybe even more than other styles- with the human figure and do just that with out having a set image. But of course blackwork/trbal tattoos HAVE meanings, but as I said, it can be easier to make the tattoo alive yourself than get a image that is alive allready.
So, it depends.
Relating to this. To me, even a bad tattoo is a good one if the person likes it. That is why I rarely take part in discussions about visualy or techinically bad tattoos. Because there is the person behind the tattoo. I try to look past the image and see the whole spectrum.
Of course a bad tattoo is a bad tattoo. I just try not be snobish in a way. Tattooing is about more than just the images. Is about the people wearing them.

One down. LOTS to go!

They're not mine to charge for, Pete. I'm just glad they're getting seen.
I've had people send me stuff in trade; drawings, books, etc- but I wouldn't feel comfortable making money from them.
Speaking of- Cliff Raven. 1974.
This video features Cliff tattooing in New York & Florida. And generally not wearing pants.
There was no audio originally, so I decided to leave it silent for now. Enjoy-

Petri, great topic with a lot to think about. That's a really good Cliff Raven quote, too! It's strange, too, because I've been thinking a little bit about blackwork tattooing lately as I've been reading up on plains Indians (this is a really fantastic book on the Blackfeet, by the way if anyone has any interest) and learning about some basic things, especially how artwork reflected their beliefs and what was important in their lives.. seeing some old photos of the men and women, and gathering little tidbits about the importance of tattoos across different groups. Which also ties in to the sun dance that the Blackfeet participated in, incorporating some serious piercing… Anyway.
I think this topic is pretty huge but I'll try keep it short. In my opinion, with tattoos, we're all struggling to apply ten million things to our bodies, most of which we’ll never fully understand. Aside from our struggle to reconcile our own mind and spirit with our physical world, we obviously latch on to art that we can identify with, be it music, tattoos, or the argument could even be made for clothing. And so much of it is ingrained in our culture and subconscious, it's tough to step outside those parameters, tattoo or otherwise. I do love blackwork tattoos and I do appreciate what those (growing) few have done and are doing by exploring different styles of the artwork. I do think it suits a lot of people but I think there's a certain... not problem, but maybe an uncertainty, when it comes to co-opting various styles and designs from other cultures. It's powerful and striking and instantly more "meaningful" or "exotic" than traditional western tattoos, but sometimes what happens is just a bunch of borrowing from other cultures. Now -- there's not necessarily anything wrong with it and, in fact, there's something very American -- and very human -- about that. We consume and incorporate and for the most part it's to understand and gain knowledge. And in that way, we create a new tattoo language, which is really exciting and maybe even necessary.
All of this is to say, I’ve had a real, growing interest in blackwork/native tattooing as I’ve gotten older. And I think it’s because I’ve made myself think about things a bit more, try to understand the whys of tattooing and expression; whys that probably won’t ever be fully answered. I think folks that exploded the possibilities for our modern times, like Leo Zulueta, and those that are building on that foundation, like Thomas Hooper, have the right idea. When I mentioned “co-opting” and “borrowing” I didn’t mean it in the negative, I think that’s just our nature because we’re all trying to understand something we can’t put our finger on. Who knows – maybe as I get older I’ll get really into black-only tattoos. I identify a lot with both Celtic and American Indian designs but maybe that’s my own subconscious connecting slivers of my ancestry to my geography to my own search for meaning. I’m glad for the renewed interest in tribal tattoos, I just keep my fingers crossed people will treat it with respect.

OK. Due to the Jonathan Shaw topic (here) I thought I will get some conversation going on about blackwork. I will just call everything that has spawned from Tribal style work blackwork. My favorites are Jun Matsui (3 pic), Thomas Hopeer (4 pic) and the likes. Too many to name. Marisa Kakoulas has a great info piece in the article relating to her book Black Tattoo Art: Modern Expressions of the Tribal.
I will quote it here.
Needles and Sins Tattoo Blog | Black Tattoo Art Book Release
I really love the part where mister Raven said
And I think that is what really draws me to this style aswell. How a great black work backpiece for example makes the human seem like something else. A myth perhaps. Some type of otherworldly hero. And it doesn't just have to link the wearer to something old. Like for example the Leo Zulueta backpiece (1 pic, Rory is the one in the right) on Rory Keating conveys a feeling similar to Queequeg from Moby Dick (Queequeg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) when for example the one by Volker (2 pic) is a futuristic anti goverment operative who bears the mark of the resistance. It's his armor of choise. But both have a strong romantic feel to them. The chosen ones.
It fits (when done right) the wearer perfectly. Perhaps better than any other style of tattooing.
Do you agree or disagree?
edit. The title should be Blackwork, not black work

What ever Chad Koeplinger does next

So I'm pretty much a packrat. And I have 1000s of hours of VHS video in various rubber maids around my house. Some commercially produced stuff. Some literally one of a kind transfers of old 8mm films that were left to me when older friends passed away.
I found out last night that my "dazzle" video hub doesn't work with a mac, so I put an order in for a Apple compatible device. Soon I'll be transcoding old films to digital.
I'll try to remember to post links to anything I put on youtube here, though some of the footage (Cliff Raven tattooing naked) may not be everyone's cup of tea so I'll use discretion.
First up is some NON naked Raven, some classic Realistic Tattoo stuff with Hardy, Irons, Salmon, Zulueta and the gang. Just have to wait for the hardware to arrive!

What ever Chad Koeplinger does next

Hey all!
After lurking around on this site for a long time without contributing a whole lot I thought I'd start by introducing myself properly.
I'm an enthusiast and a collector, and I currently reside in the cold and snow-filled city that is Oslo (Norway, if you slept through geography)
My enthusiasm for tattoos sparked when I started a halfsleeve in the summer of '06, and since then it has gradually grown into an obsession.
My collection consists of work by Marius Meyer (multiple), Xam, Seth Wood, Dalmiro Dalmont and Jimmy Duvall. At least those are the ones worth mentioning.
My wishlist is too long to list, and it's constantly growing. To name a few I'd say Chad Koeplinger, Sarah Schor, Grime, James Tex, Lars Uwe, Chris O'donnel, Thomas Hooper, Peter Lagergren, Chris Cleen, Garver, Bailey, Scott Sylvia, Ryan Mason, Stefan Johnsson, Jim Sylvia, Eckel....Fuck! I was only gonna name a few. Sorry....
It recently came to my attention that Valerie Vargas is doing a guestspot at my local studio in May. She's been at the top of my wishlist for a long time, and I was lucky enough to book a session with her while she's here. Can't wait!
In the meantime I'm getting my front done by Marius Meyer. 4 sessions so far, and one short session to go.
Here's a (shitty) picture of our progress:

I'll be sure to get a decent picture up when it's all done.
I hope to contribute more here in the future. So far I've only been leeching off of all the wisdom the majority of the members here are so generous to share with the rest of us. Thanks for creating this awesome site guys!

:) Nice story

OK :D I was expecting a scene out of Toxic Avenger...


Wait, they ARE in a diner in that scene!!

Yeah. That album is perfect. And I mean perfect as in
Amazing lyrics that I can compare with out hint of sarcasm to lyrics from people such as: Bruce Springsteen, Tom Waits, Nick Cave, fucking Neil Gaiman. Anyone who can write so much in so few words is someone to admire to
Just the perfect lenght. You just listen to it and press play again. And fuck, how many albums are there where the opening is as amazing as "The Outsiders (AKA Hell is for Heroes, Part 1)"
Fuck choruses.

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.