Angie is an artist friend of mine. Earlier this year her mother died, they were very close to one another and it has been an incredibly tough time for Angie. A few months ago she decided to go under the needle for the first time to get a memorial tattoo for her mom.

(Angie’s initial sketch.)

What do you have a tattoo of and what is the story behind it?
I have a memorial tattoo of a bird, banner, a few flowers and the word “Mom” written in my mom’s handwriting that I took from a letter she wrote to me years ago. There’s really no huge significance between the bird and my mom. I drew the tattoo years ago looking at swallow references online and always liked the result. Birds to me are very beautiful and I could just watch them for hours. I basically just wanted something pretty to go along with the banner.
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Nov 21-23 08′

Artists: 2008 Tattoo Arts Festival

More to be announced!!!

• Capital Tattoo
• Nate Beavers
• Phillip Spearman
• Gabriel Cece
• Dave Lukeson
• Bryan “Chop” Reynolds
• Sean Karn
• Cliff Evans
• Josh Richey
• Robert Pho
• Dan Henk
• gfresh
• Jules
• Gunnar
• Craig Foster
• Ed Yeary
• Morgan Broadfoot
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On October 30th, 2008, USA Today ran this article. It basically outlines how school districts and counties across the United States are imposing rules and regulations on employees regarding tattoos.

Bountiful, Utah passed a law this past August banning new city employees for rocking any visible tattoos. Tattoos that are seen on the head, face, neck and hands are now officially banned and anyone seeking work for the city who is sporting art in these areas will not be hired.

The Joplin School Board in Missouri voted mid-October on whether or not visible tattoos were appropriate for its teachers. The vote determined that no, tattoos were not appropriate and next year there will be no room in the school board for teachers with them.

The Pasco County School Board, Florida, decreed that its teachers be free of visible tattoos that are “offensive to community standards.” School principals are given free reign in determining what exactly “offensive to community standards” means when assessing their school’s teachers.

Jeff Flowers, a member of the Joplin School Board was quoted in the Joplin Globe as saying, “There’s a stigma associated with tattoos and it’s not a good stigma.”

This is how I see it: The school boards have decided to reaffirm a supposed negative stigma by refusing to support its qualified professionals because of choices these individuals made in exercising their personal rights and free will in regards to their own bodies. Instead of recognizing that tattooing has become a generally accepted form of artistic self-expression – instead of recognizing that tattoos are no longer things borne by sailors, convicts, gang members etc., etc., etc., and that regular Joes, soccer moms, and even grandparents are getting tattoos nowadays – these school boards and cities have decided to perpetuate their ridiculous outdated stigmas when they should be creating environments that are modern, tolerant, open-minded, progressive and free from discrimination. Read the rest of this entry »

D-list desperado actor Stephen Baldwin added to his body of work with a Hannah Montana tattoo. That’s right. I said it. A Hannah Montana tattoo.

For all you unawares who don’t have any tween daughters, Hannah Montana is a Disney character played by celebuspawn actress and singer Miley Cyrus, daughter of Achy Breaky Heart legend and mullet icon Billy Ray Cyrus. It seems Miley and Baldwin met last Easter at the White House where Miley dared Baldwin to get a tributary Hannah Montana tattoo in exchange for a cameo on her show. 42-year-old Baldwin took the dare, tattooing an H.M. on his left shoulder.

For his sake, I hope the tattoo pays off. There’s no definite word yet on whether Miley has made good on her half of the deal and scheduled Baldwin to appear in a future episode.

To read related articles, click here

 

Craziness out of Sydney, Australia, where a tattoo shop was firebombed in what appears to be an escalating turf war between rival biker gangs, the Hells Angels and the Comancheros.  The shop in question calls itself a cosmetic tattoo shop, but the manager of the property that is being leased by Angel’s Cosmetic Tattooing claims that there is no cosmetic tattooing being done and that instead, “full-blown tattooing” is going on.  Full-blown tattooing?  Is this really the time to split hairs as to what sort of tattooing is being done on the premises?  Call me crazy, but the property was the target of two drive-by shootings this summer before being turned into a tattoo shop in September.  From September to October it was in business until it was firebombed.  I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that maybe tattoos, cosmetic, full-blown or otherwise, aren’t the biggest problem here? 

 At any rate, if you happen to live in Sydney and were planning to get some work done at this place, you might want to consider switching up that appointment to some place less…targeted.  Drive-bys and firebombs tend to be bad for business.  I’m just sayin’, that’s all.  Check out the full story right here.

Robbie Williams, the Boy Band Extraordinaire- turned junkie- turned solo artist, now claims he is in direct contact with aliens through the tattoo on his neck.

The tattoo is the Egyptian Eye of Horus, said to have been a symbol of protection and power from deities. Once shown on images of deities like Hathor, Horus’ mother. The Eye of Horus is now serving a string-and-two-tin-cans kind of purpose for Williams, who plans to make communication with our alien brethren very soon.

It’s not Williams’ first trip to the Paranormal rodeo, but his obsession with extra terrestrials is relatively new. He recently teamed up with the ECTI, (Enlightened Contact with Terrestrial Intelligence,) a US group founded by James Gilliland, and has been spending a lot of his free time at UFO conventions and local alien “hot spots.” Williams claims to have had alien encounters on three separate occasions, and is reported to be considering dumping his music career all together in favor of full time UFO research.

Intergalactic expert, Michael Luckman, told Bang Showbiz recently, “”By design, Robbie seems to be preparing himself, body, mind and soul, to take the ultimate journey to space in the very near future.”

“I believe that Robbie is being drawn to James Gilliland’s 70-acre ranch near Mount Adams, Washington, for what could well be the most significant event in human history – the joining of the civilizations. The place is known as America’s number one UFO hotspot and is a magnet for true believers in aliens.”

No word yet on when the ECTI group plans to break out the Welcome Banner, but we’re guessing William’s E.T. walkie-talkie will help lead the way.

Read more at: Monsters and Critics.com

With the recent explosion of media-fueled interest in tattoo, I’ve found myself coaching a progressively greater amount of my customers when it comes to selecting an appropriate piece.  This is somewhat difficult because I’m attempting to give advice about something I feel is extremely important to someone I’ve only just met.  It’s taken some time to distill that question-based process into the core considerations that must be made in order to find the right piece for any individual, But I shall try to convey what I’ve learned here.

The most important thing when considering a tattoo is the subject matter.  It’s always one of the first questions any tattoo artist will ask a client “What do you want?” and there’s a systematic way to go about answering this very question.  Subject Matter can be addressed from three distinct perspectives.

1.  What does this tattoo mean to you?  Tattoos can be funny; dark; purely decorative or amazingly insightful, they should be and are intensely personal things.  Tattoo is not only a reflection of self, how others see you, or even how you want others to see you, but a greater sum of all these things.  That being said, it appears that the greater the commercial consumption of this artform, the greater the commercial influence upon it.  To witness this, one need only consider the number of tattoos being done directly from photos of celebrity tattoos, to tattoos of celebrities and the pop culture that supports them.  As people start to look outward for inspiration they can sometimes be very impulsive.  At the core of this impulse control problem lies a deep sea of regret from people who fell so in love with the idea of getting/having a tattoo, that they didn’t stop to think of why they wanted one in the first place. This should be the top priority when deciding whether or not to get a tattoo.  Why. The inspiration for getting a tattoo should come from within, while representative aspects of it’s depiction can be determined through reference.
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Way back when, before a lot of tattoo artists started to offer apprenticeships left and right to make ends meet, (Let’s face it not all of us are namers like Spider Web, Hanky Panky, or Kat.), apprenticeships were hard to come by. Most artists would simply look at you like you had just crawled out from under a rock, or simply tell you to get the Hell out of their shop.

I, myself was lucky. I had the fortune to have been friendly with several members of a motorcycle club, one of which happened to make his living as a tattoo artist. Having been an artist all my life he was slightly impressed by my ability to draw and offhandedly asked me if I wanted to learn to tattoo. Well, Hell yes I did! Like most starry eyed wannabes who can draw I foolishly thought, “How hard can it be? I can draw.” I never said that to him, but I sure did think it.

I can hear the laughter from our tattoo artist readers already.

Anyone who has ever held one of those heavy bucking machines of wonder, tried to lay a smooth line on a stretch distorted image while the “canvas” is squirming around and bitching knows where I’m coming from.
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Dates: November 14-16, 2008
Event: Chicago Tattoo Arts Convention
Location: Chicago, IL
Reservations: Hyatt Regency Chicago
Contact Information: 800.541.8239
Website: www.tattooedkingpin.com

Notes: November 14-16 Chicago Tattoo Arts Convention. Chicago, IL at the Hyatt Regency Chicago. Hotel res.-(312)565.1234 (mention the Chicago Tattoo Arts Convention). Info: (800)541.8239 or go to

Artists attending include:
Guy  Aitchison; Michelle Wortman; Corey Kruger; Jack Rudy(!); Gil Montie; Hannah Aitchison; John Montgomery; and one of my personal favorites Joshua Carlton.  This show looks like a lot of fun, check it out if you have a chance.

The more I read, the more I learn and the more I learn the more I notice (and therefore can’t help but write about) how the tattoo community – or at least some of it anyway – has moved away from its rough and tumble, stigmatized roots and towards something much more gentle, much more beautiful and, undeniably, much more charitable.

Most recently there has been a frenzy of tattoo artists putting their artistic skills to work for charity. In exchange for their places in the Guinness Book of World Records, Derek Kastning and John McManus donated 100% of the proceeds of their tattoo record attempts to their local Humane Societies and other foundations and drives close to their hearts. In the past few months alone there have been a whole bunch of different tattoo shows and festivals – the Lower Hutt Charity Tattoo Show in Lower Hutt, New Zealand; Tattooing for Community in Fredericksburg, Virginia; the Kidderminster Arts Festival in Kidderminster, U.K., Tattooed For Good in Lake Tahoe, Nevada, just to name a few – that have raised tens of thousands of dollars for people and communities in need.

This past weekend the Foundation for Open Creation (FFOC) – a non-profit organization whose self-described mission is to “integrate self-expression into the medical community and the community-at-large,” – held a Soul on Skin fundraiser to raise money not only for themselves and their program, but also for a Tattoo Scholarship Program for Breast Cancer survivors. The FFOC and the scholarship program aim to “develop the idea that art, specifically tattoo art, can augment the recovery process for those with issues both physical and psychological.” Read the rest of this entry »