I just noticed something in the news today and it irked me and so I’m going to talk about it for a little bit here.  I know, I know, you’re probably reading this and thinking Jeez, Mike, did I really just cruise over to the good ol’ Tattoo Blog to read a rant?  Well, in answer to your question dear reader, I know that you cruised over to the Tattoo Blog because you enjoy the unparalleled quality and witty insights that it typically provides its readership.  That being said, yes, today you are going to read a rant.  Why?  Well because I think it’s an important enough topic to merit a rant.

Okay.  So I found this article at Stuff.co.nz, which is a news website based out of New Zealand.  The article talks about the “unfortunate” turning away of potential blood donors and how blood donations are currently down in New Zealand.  Why are potential donors being turned away?  Well, it’s that old chestnut once again: they have tattoos.  I’ve written about this sort of thing many times in the past.  It’s nothing new to hear that people are being turned away from donating blood because they have been tattooed within the last six months.  The reason it’s all a little bit different this time and the reason that it irks me so much is because New Zealand is one of the most tattooed countries on earth.  So stuff like this gets me thinking…

‘The New Zealand Blood Service (NZBS) knocked back 1714 potential donors between July 2009 and June 2010 because they had been inked within six months of wanting to give blood.

That was up from 1430 the previous year and 894 the year before.

According to the NZBS, a single blood donation can help save up to three lives. But marketing manager Paul Hayes said the service was cautious about recently tattooed donors because of concerns the industry didn’t have set standards which are actively monitored.

“They [tattooists] might be using new needles but dipping them in the same ink pots… we just don’t know,” said Hayes. The biggest risk was the transfusion of Hepatitis B, he said.’

Am I crazy or does it seem more than a little idiotic that one of the most tattooed nations on earth doesn’t have a better system of tattoo regulations set up??  If the NZBS knows that it is losing out on donors and if blood is in need and if they are downright confused about the state of the sanitary conditions at tattoo studios, then why the hell doesn’t the government step in and create a better monitoring system of the tattoo studios so that next year all 1714 potential donors from this year – and who knows how many more next year – can donate their blood if they so desire?  I’m sick of fingers being pointed at tattooists in this manner.  The truth of the matter is that organisations like NZBS have no clue what’s going on at any of these tattoo studios.  They could be and most likely are, completely sanitary.  So if they really want to know for certain perhaps its better to put a little pressure on the governing bodies rather than just leaving us with Well, we really would like to accept more blood donations, but we’ve got all these possibly diseased tattooed people wanting to donate and that just can’t be done.

I don’t get it…

You know, I try to keep things positive here on the Tattoo Blog.  Sure, you’ve stopped by plenty of times and read some post that I wrote where I slagged someone’s tattoo or a particular new trend amongst those in the tattoo industry.  Fair enough, I admit that I can be a little negative that way.  But I stand by it nonetheless.  The type of negativity that I’m trying to avoid is the stuff that deals with artists who have gotten themselves messed up with the law in one way or another.  I don’t like to write about a lot of stories like that because I think the tattoo industry already gets enough flack from small-minded stereotypers and naysayers.  It doesn’t need further negativity and stuff that only serves to live up to the stereotypes that clueless people have about people with tattoos and people who tattoo.

That’s why this new bit of news is so disappointing: it involves a real tattoo veteran and well, it’s all just plain odd.  Jonathan Shaw has tattooed many celebrities in his lengthy career as a tattoo artist.  He opened New York City’s first legal tattoo studio back in the day, he founded International Tattoo Art Magazine as well as writing two novels.  But on Monday the 57-year-old tattooist was arrested in Manhattan after police found a weapons cache worthy of an early 80’s Schwarzennegger movie.

‘Cops discovered an AK-47 assault rifle, a Mossberg 12-gauge shotgun, a loaded British rifle, 96 knives, five sets of metal knuckles, eight batons, 2,833 rounds of ammunition, stage pistols and an air rifle, authorities said.’

According to this news story, the weapons were in a duffel bag and a suitcase that Shaw was having sent to Los Angeles.  No one is sure exactly why Shaw had the weapons or why he was sending them to LA, but he’s been charged with a whole slew of weapons violations and he’s definitely going to have some explaining to do come court time.

It sucks for stuff like this to happen to people who’ve been in the industry for so long.  It would still be bad if it had been some young, up and coming tattoo artist, but when you have someone who has made such progress for the tattoo industry and community end up in such a bizarre and frankly just plain shitty situation, it’s an all around big disappointment.  Call me cynical, but I’m doubting that Shaw will be able to clear this up very easily.  I mean, what possible reason could he have for not only having all that stuff, but for sending it over to LA from NY?  Seems shady to me.  Ninety-six knives?  2,833 rounds of ammo?  Dude, what are you – training for the apocalypse?

Oh man, Valerie Vargas blows me away.  Straight up, that’s all there is to say about it.  When I come across an artist like Vargas and then I find out that they’ve only been tattooing for a short period of time (since 2007, in Vargas’ case), I’m really in awe.  I mean, in terms of learning an art form, three years is absolutely nothing.  And yet Vargas tattoos like an absolute seasoned pro.

Hailing from Scotland, Valerie Vargas made her way to England and currently tattoos at one of London’s preeminent tattooing establishments, the Soho based Frith Street Tattoo.  She’s certainly a busy lady, judging by the fact that her waiting list is currently closed until further notice, which is always a good sign.  She’s got a downright masterful grasp on the classic American style, making it pop when it needs to pop and go down smoother than a healthy dose of Wild Turkey when it needs to go down smooth.  The classic American style has never been my favourite tattoo style, but when I see artists like Vargas pull it off so well, I find that it is rapidly becoming one of my favourites.

Unfortunately, I don’t know much more about Valerie Vargas that I can tell you.  I do know that she has some prints for sale at her website, as well as a tote bag and a sweet T-shirt that I can’t seem to figure out how to buy.  It seems to me that they’re only available at the Frith Street shop, but from what I can tell, you have to actually go to the Frith Street shop to purchase such merchandise.  Oh well.  So yeah, check out Valerie’s stuff.  It’s worth the time, worth the effort and it’s definitely worth putting yourself on her waiting list (when it opens back up again), should you be in the market for a superbly done tattoo.

Love ’em or hate ’em, the reality TV series is a part of our pop-culture.  While some may cringe at any mention of tattoo and reality TV in the same sentence, the truth is that the current surge in popularity and to some degree the mainstream acceptance that tattoos now enjoy is due at least in some small part to the ol’ reality TV monster.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that you have to like it.  And I wouldn’t begrudge you in the least for wanting every last mention of tattoo artists, tattooing and the tattoo industry as a whole to be as far away from anything remotely resembling a reality TV programme as Cheez Whiz is from resembling actual cheese.  But hell, I like to play devil’s advocate from time to time, so I have to say that if you’re a tattoo artist who wants their work to reach a wide audience in a hurry, then it’s certainly arguable that there are worse things for you than being cast on a tattoo based reality TV show.

With that in mind, I’ve decided to drop a bit of info here for anyone who might live in the New York area – or for that matter, who might be willing to relocate to the New York area – in order to make it big in a little tattoo reality TV.

‘Original Media, producers of hit television shows Miami Ink and LA Ink are casting for a new tattoo series set in New York City. Casting outgoing and talented tattoo artists, apprentices, and shop managers and asst managers in the New York and surrounding areas to be a part of a brand new crew headed by one of the biggest names in the tattoo world. If you are interested in auditioning email Billywonka@aol.com.  If you are energetic, opinionated, funny, and passionate about tattooing, then we are looking for you.  You must be local to NY or be willing to live in NYC and be hired as local talent for 12 weeks starting at the end of the year.  Please put “Tattoo Artist” in the subject title.’

You never know, it could change your life…

With the ever ubiquitous and increasing popularity of tattoos, new artists as well as new studios come along at a crazy train pace.  Some last and gain heaps of notoriety, while others fade away, never to be heard from again (or so it seems).  As a fan of tattoo art and tattooists, I like to try and keep up with any and all info on new shops that are being opened and learn a little about the tattooist(s) involved.  So if you’re out there and you’ve recently opened a shop or you plan to, drop me a line over here at the Tattoo Blog headquarters and tell me a little bit about yourself and your set up.  If I like what I see, I’ll contact you for an interview.

Anyway, all that being said, I thought that today I would focus on a newly opened studio in Germantown, Maryland.  X2 Ink has been open since May of 2010 and it is the culmination of a lot of hard work, saving pennies and just plain business savvy on the part of tattooists Aurorae Dye and Ryan Jordan.  This isn’t their first foray into tattoo studio ownership though, the two friends have been business partners since running their previous shop, X-Dream X-Pressionz, back in 2006.  They learned a few tricks of the trade along the way and applied some of that knowledge in opening X2 Ink.

‘To mitigate the risk of opening a new shop in an economic downturn, the partners invested the profits they had saved from their first shop and kept expenses low by painting the shop themselves and relying heavily on word-of-mouth and what Dye calls “hand-to-hand” promotion.

“It’s mostly sheer devotion,” she said.’

I think that it’s also worth at least mentioning that both Aurorae Dye and Ryan Jordan are women.  Though there are many successful and talented women within the tattoo industry, it still remains an industry that is primarily dominated by men.  When all is said and done, it doesn’t matter if you are female or male when it comes to how well you tattoo, but having more women tattoo shop owners out there can certainly help dispel the myth that women aren’t as good as men when it comes to laying down some quality ink.

Check out X2 Ink!

For those of you out there who are not aware, November 1st and 2nd mark the traditional Mexican holidays of the Day of the Dead.  These holidays are also celebrated in many countries around the world, but instead of being called Day of the Dead, November 1st is called All Saints Day, while November 2nd is called All Souls Day.  These holidays are all basically a time to remember loved ones and family who have passed on.  The Mexican holiday of Day of the Dead has a lot of iconic art that is very popular amongst fans of tattoo and tattoo collectors alike.  Even if you aren’t familiar with Day of the Dead, you’ll most certainly have seen Catrinas, the costumed female bodies with skeleton faces and calaveras (skulls) in everything from tattoos to paintings and T-shirts.

This year the El Diablo cafe in Denver, Colorado really got into the spirit of things by holding their second annual Dia de los Muertos Tattoo Art Show and Charity Auction.  Traditional sugar skulls, which Mexican families typically leave at altars and which can be eaten, were decorated by various local tattoo artists and put up for auction.  Says cafe co-owner, Sean Yontz:

‘”This year, everyone wanted in on it.  We’ve had a big display of most of them up all week long, hanging above the bar. Some of them are just crazy looking!”‘

The skulls are present in no small number, roughly 40-50 of them within the cafe, all of them being auctioned off with the proceeds going to the Mi Casa Resource Center, a Denver based organization dedicated to aiding Latino and low income families inmprove their employability, education, knowledge and life skills.  Sounds like the whole thing was a great opportunity to see and purchase some really creative and original art, help out a worthwhile cause and of course, party.

With all the emphasis placed on the art and the artists and the clients and all the great stuff that goes along within the tattoo industry, it’s sometimes easy to forget that tattooing is a business and tattoo studios are places of business.  That’s not to say that tattooing is only about chasing the almighty dollar, but for those artists out there getting set to open up their first studio with a partner or two, perhaps it’s best to keep the following in mind.

Motley Crue frontman Vince Neil has recently found out the hard way that sometimes you just can’t trust the people who you think you can.  Neil’s two investments with an unnamed business partner have both ended up in the proverbial crapper after said business partner backed out of Neil’s Las Vegas bar and grill Feelgood’s as well as his tattoo studio, Vince Neil Ink.

‘”The problem actually started in August, right around the first anniversary of the club, because at the end of the year, I was out a lot of money. I didn’t take a cent to give the club a year to get on its feet. Normally, I would have been paid an upfront licensing fee and shared in profits. But when the year came around, my partner decided he didn’t want to be involved in the club anymore. So he brought in new managing partners.

“Then all of a sudden I was out, they were trying to take over the club without me and without paying me.”‘

The problems began with Feelgood’s but have now contaminated Vince Neil Ink to the point where Neil has had to temporarily shut down the tattoo studio.  It’s a situation that will ultimately end up in court and cost all involved a whole bunch of money.  It’s nothing new to see people who were in business together ending up on unfriendly terms – no one every thinks that the people they are working with will screw them over one day.  I’m not suggesting that no one should trust their business partners, I’m just pointing out that this type of thing happens at all levels of the game, whether it be first time business owners or super rich wheeler dealers.  Watch out for yourselves.

I’ve written a fair bit about the varying attitudes seen in some Asian countries with regards to tattoo.  In some countries like Japan, tattooing is slowly making its way into the mainstream but is still dogged by the outdated stereotype of tattooists and those who are tattooed being involved with the mafia.  In South Korea however, tattoos are illegal.  As a result of this, tattooists are forced underground, operating secretly in carefully disguised and unlabelled studios.

The situation in South Korea is anything but ideal, though if it does have a single advantage it’s that it inspires artists like African-American/Korean Phillip Spearman to dig into his culture and emerge with art and images that can be tattooed and displayed throughout his own work.

Spearman has been tattooing since 1995 when a friend introduced him to the world of tattoo by buying him his own gear.  As a self-taught tattooist, he has worked all over the place, learning what he can from various artists worldwide.  But it was his initial start after moving to LA from Baltimore that really gave him a clear insight into the industry of which he was so enamoured.  Spearman tried repeatedly to get an apprenticeship, but had a difficult time.  He spent much time learning from a handful of legendary tattoo artists at legendary tattoo studios, people and places like Mark Mahoney, The Shamrock Social club and Mario Barth, to name but a few.

After eight years of running his own shop in Artesia, Spearman closed things down in order to tattoo from a private studio by appointment only.  This new arrangement has given him the sort of freedom that he wants, but perhaps most importantly, it allows him to travel at the drop of a hat – a perfect asset given that travel is one Phillip Spearman’s greatest influences.  Throughout his travels, Spearman has been able to spend time in Korea and learn about the traditional Korean art that most of us are not typically exposed to.  This art finds its way into his tattoo work, allowing him to honour his culture as well as keep the act of tattooing alive from a uniquely Korean perspective.  In a way, Spearman is doing what he can to preserve and spread the Korean tattoo scene until it becomes legitimised by Korean authorities.  Spearman hopes to publish a book on Korean tattoo artwork sometime in 2011.  He’s also compiling a DVD of work inspired by traditional Korean art.

You might be tempted to believe that all Phillip Spearman does is tattoo Korean art, but he is much more than that.  He is a consummate artist who promises that whatever it is you’re coming to him to have tattooed will come out superb.  Hey, that’s a promise I’m willing to believe in.

Yesterday I wrote about Leicester, England native John Bourner, who in a bid to win a free trip to the Canary Islands, had the logo of Flick’s Bar tattooed to his ass cheek.  Without repeating that post (look below if you want to read it), I’ll just cut to the chase and tell you that things didn’t work out, Bourner missed the deadline and I proceeded to mock him for having a crap tattoo on his ass cheek for the rest of his life.  Well, I condemned the man too soon because the folks at Flick’s Bar were so impressed with Bourner’s dedication that they actually decided to pay for his trip to the Canary Islands even though he missed the contest deadline.

‘Bar owner John Brophy said: “More than 200 people entered the competition but I think it’s safe to say that James went above and beyond the call of duty. It’s absolutely unbelievable what he has done. We felt terrible when we realised that he was too late so have decided to give him a holiday anyway, paid out of our pockets.”‘

Pretty cool.  I mean, the tattoo is permanent anyway that you slice it and the trip won’t be, but I guess for James Bourner it’s all worth it.

In other tattoo news this week, it’s not often that you hear about someone being hospitalised after a tattoo becomes infected.  It’s even more rare when that someone who is hospitalised for a tattoo infection happens to be a politician.

Jon Gnarr is a comedian turned politican, turned mayor of Reykjavik, Iceland.  He was hospitalised this week after the tattoo of Reykjavik’s coat of arms – which is on his arm – became infected.  He had just returned from a trip to Stockholm, Sweden.  Tough luck, but very cool to see a politician commemorate his love for his city with a tattoo.

Ah the world of bad idea tattoos, it keeps growing day by day just as sure as the world keeps right on spinning.  It’s odd how many people out there who don’t really seem to have any problem getting a really stupid or bad tattoo as a lark or just to try and win some stupid contest.  Yet if these people didn’t exist, I guess I wouldn’t have them to write about during times such as these.

This latest entry into the bad tattoo hall of fame also comes with a pretty decent sized chunk of bad luck.  That’s too bad, but somehow I think that bad luck and bad tattoos just go hand in hand and so in that way it’s all quite fitting.  Anyway, while on vacation on the Canary Islands, 24-year-old Leicester, England resident James Bourner found out about a contest being held by  Flicks Bar in Fuerteventura.  The contest was for an “unusual and fun” photo competition.  The flight back home to England must have given Bourner some time to hatch his brilliant plan and so, upon arriving back in England he set a plan in motion to get the logo for Flicks Bar tattooed on his ass.  It took some time to get everything going, but eventually Bourner got his tattoo.

‘The tattoo was not supposed to be as big as it is. I had a problem reducing the image, and in the end had to go ahead with this one that covers my entire bum cheek.’

That was far from the biggest problem that Bourner would encounter on that day, however.  He finished receiving the tattoo a mere two hours before the deadline, rushed home and began trying to upload the photo to the bar’s website.  Wouldn’t you know it, his computer was going really slow.  Damn computers.  By the time Bourner got the photo uploaded, he had missed the contest deadline by ten minutes.  Now he has a giant tattoo of a bar no one has heard of on his ass for the rest of his life.

Dude, next time just get a tattoo artist to draw it on with some pens and markers.  That way you can get rid of it afterwards.  Just a suggestion.