Joe Shit

Today Bonel from Corazon Santo in The Netherlands which is also working on my second sleeve, finished the Phoenix backpiece on my wife.

(The kanji was there already, it had been done a few years back by another artist)

You made the right move Pete.You may spend a little more money,and have to drive a little farther,but in the end you'll have a much better tattoo.

The first pic is what I started with and is a 10 year old tattoo. The other 5 are fresh. Sorry for mirror pictures. Nick was great and fast. I kept apologizing cause some spots were really painful, felt like a wuss
Sent from my LG-E980 using Tapatalk 2

You made the right move Pete.You may spend a little more money,and have to drive a little farther,but in the end you'll have a much better tattoo.

You made the right move Pete.You may spend a little more money,and have to drive a little farther,but in the end you'll have a much better tattoo.

You made the right move Pete.You may spend a little more money,and have to drive a little farther,but in the end you'll have a much better tattoo.

Welcome Mike,your a lucky man Rodrigo does beautiful work.

Tattooed by a guy called Steve in Bath around 1970. Don't know what became of him. He gave me two great tattoos though. Got tattooed by Doc Price in Plymouth. He was 80 and has been tattooing since the 1940s, amazing guy and some great tales. I first saw one of his tattoos when I was in Approved School (Reform School) in the 1970s. It took 40 years but I got there. I've a great big framed picture of me and Doc that takes pride of place on the wall in my house.
I've also got a Bristol Tattoo Club bat tattooed by Jimmie Skuse (Les Skuses grandson). Jimmie has been tattooing for a few years I'm not sure if Jimmie has been tattooing since 1985 but the family lineage dates back to the 1940s.
Alex Binnie did his version of my first ever tattoo a couple of years ago. He is such an important person in British tattooing history.
At the London tattoo convention I'm getting tattooed by Henning and in October, on my birthday, by Lal Hardy.
George Bone is also on my list.

Jack Rudy,Mike Perfetto,Brian Everett,Cap Szumski.I would also like to get tattooed by Dana Brunson,Richard Stell,Debbie Lenz,Sailor Jerry Swallow,Terry Tweed,and a few others.
I do remember checking out a shop near Baltimore around 21yrs.ago.I think it was Tux's shop.The shop was in a small strip mall,and I remember it was filled with all this old time flash all over the place.

The people who get tattooed by their friends out of their house aren't going for quality.But there's plenty of people I've met who have bad work that they got in a shop,and they think its good.
I met this dude last month in the city who had a sleeve of what he called a skin rip of an Italian flag,and it was pretty bad work.I ended up telling him that I thought the artist didn't do a good job,and gave him some business cards and websites to some good shops in his town.I told him I was just being honest,and not trying to put down his work,but trying to help him get it fixed up,and he was thankful of that.

The people who get tattooed by their friends out of their house aren't going for quality.But there's plenty of people I've met who have bad work that they got in a shop,and they think its good.
I met this dude last month in the city who had a sleeve of what he called a skin rip of an Italian flag,and it was pretty bad work.I ended up telling him that I thought the artist didn't do a good job,and gave him some business cards and websites to some good shops in his town.I told him I was just being honest,and not trying to put down his work,but trying to help him get it fixed up,and he was thankful of that.

Mike Rubendall and Ichibay at the London Convention in the end of the month. Next autumn: Timothy Hoyer and Chris O´donnell in New York, and hopefully Brian Bruno

All stolen from Dana Helmuth's IG.

Phil Holt (and this was this guys first tattoo):

- - - Updated - - -
Also Phil Holt and this guy is actually the brother of the guy in the last photo:

Get a food based half sleeve,with a Chicago dog,deep dish pizza,Italian beef sandwich,and some pierogi's,for your polish heritage.And you can always get a portrait of your dog in a traditional style instead of realistic.

You can't learn to swim by reading a book.
To expand on that again, tattooing is best experienced first-hand. Many times, here on this forum, in the shop I work at and conventions etc, someone has mentioned that they wish there was a book that had all the information they were looking for about a particular subject at that moment. It usually doesn't exist. You have to find it yourself.
With regards to tattooing and "tattoo culture" We're living in a folk art culture. We should embrace the folk art tradition of oral storytelling and first hand knowledge and be relieved that we not (yet) shackled by the literary bounds of other art movements, cultures and historical societies.
But to be more on topic, in a general sort of way...
I'd stick my neck out and say that any style of tattooing (until maybe around 2000-2010) is influenced by the popular culture surrounding the people who get those styles. Sailor Jerry cribbed movie posters and other advertisements for many of his designs between the 40's - 70s. Mike Malone used objects and paintings he found in Chinatown as reference for many of his popular designs. It stands to reason that Charlie Wagner would have used Edwardian style filigree ornamentation (from a variety of sources, jewellery included) in his designs.
The dotwork thing is slightly separate. During the first decade of the 21st century tattooing entered a more post-modern, referential phase where most styles of tattooing referenced or were influenced by earlier styles of tattooing. Except dotwork. I consider the work of Thomas Hooper, Xed Le Head, Jondix (I'd extend that to Duncan X) to be the only "new" style of tattooing since biomech in the 90's - but that didn't seem to catch on outside of tattoo culture the way their work did.
That's why I still bother to get involved when someone refers to dotwork as a "fad".
While it is imitated ad nauseam, we've alive to witness the birth of a new tattoo style that was influenced by disparate artforms outside of tattooing to the point where it works and it's possible to have a coherent bodysuit of that style. Pretty exciting stuff.

Getting good tattoos is a current fad, but I'm buying into it for the long haul.

Chucho Garcia is a pretty kick ass tattooer, he has been tattooing since 1980 and has a killer shop up in Bellingham Washington, a must see for the tattoo enthusiast. If you a driving I would stop in Seattle @ Lucky Devil South tattoo and take a look at some of Ernie Gosnell's collection and his shop filled with Higgs, Harrison, and Maaske flash and all his hand painted signage. If my recollection is right Ernie started Electric Ladyland Tattoo in New Orleans as well before he moved up to Seattle and opened his two Lucky Devil shops. Ernie has the best line in the sign painter trailer below. Both these guys are legends in my mind.
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Old-Gold-Tattoo/207352882635334?id=207352882635334&sk=photos_stream

http://shelby.tv/video/vimeo/61006621/sign-painters-official-trailer

I highly suggest you definitely get tattooed by Dana Brunson and Debbie Lenz....well....all of the tattoo artists you listed as well....But I had great experiences at both Dana's shop and Debbie's shop during my Ohio trip two months back!
Not just great tattoo artists but also really awesome people!
- - - Updated - - -
It was a really great decision....at least for me.....to seek out these artists who had put in their time and were very happy to just sit in their shops and tattoo whatever walked through the door on a daily basis!
Some of these people were in magazines back in the 70's...80's....90's....but they would have tattooed regardless....and really didn't seek out fame! To them it was a job and a way to support themselves doing something they loved doing!
And it's my opinion that is what tattooing should be about!

Wow, Stanley Moskowitz did my 1st tattoo in 1977. The shop was bought out by this guy Mike in 1997 and he preserved a lot of the memorabilia from the original S&W Tattoo shop. The stuff is awesome.
I also had some work done by Wayne Loftain, who is now in Florida and not tattooing.
JC Fly in Medford did my fu-dog in 1982, he's been gone for years but his son Greg is tattooing and does a nice job.
Rob

Yeah sounds like the spot. At that time there were about 3 shops in the surrounding area ; Tux's, Dragon Moon, and Gypsy's; your description fits the shop location Tux had at that time.
Right on man.

I don't know if it's a matter of skill. I have a friend who got his first tattoo over the weekend at the convention. He's wanted a tattoo for a while and I invited him along to the convention because it's a great place to look at tattoos and get a sense of what's out there and he went to the convention's website, followed links and went through portfolios, got a sense of what he liked stylewise, contacted artists he liked with his idea, and he ended up with a really rad tattoo from Bobby Tripp and had a great time. Fundamentally, he wanted a great tattoo and he understood, without any prompting, that getting great tattoos takes time and research and work. And I think that's rad.
I guess with that tattoo I posted what bothers me the most about it is that it really speaks to a lack of curiosity. Like if you love this tattooing thing so much, don't you want to learn as much as you can about it? Don't you want to get tattooed by people who are doing things that inspire you and make you want to be a better tattooer? Filip Leu is guesting at a shop a couple of blocks away from me right now and he's tattooing a bunch of tattooers who are already doing amazing tattoos but who are probably going to learn things from the experience that they're then going to bring to their tattooing so that they can do even better tattoos. That makes me excited. That's the kind of stuff that I love.
But yeah, I basically agree with you that you can't really force people to get good tattoos. They have to want it.

Nobody is gonna top Bunny in this thread
As far as myself;
deVita
Tux
Higgs
Sonny Tufts

I feel special because I get to just comment in this thread. I have also been lucky enough to get a hit from Stell. In 15 years I'll get to post again about Dana Helmuth and Dave Fox, haha.