Despite the fact that they are almost the complete opposite of what most people find appealing about tattoos, prison tattoos have always managed to retain their very own particular aesthetic and importance.  Sure, no one’s really in any sort of particular hurry to get one (unless of course, you happen to be doing time), but they’re interesting to look at and once you start to peel the layers back and look for meaning in the work, there’s often a history to be found.

An upcoming exhibition in London, England is ready to take aim at a project that was begun some sixty-two years ago.  After his father was denounced as an enemy of the people by the Russian state, Danzig Baldaev grew up in a children’s home.  Once he was old enough to work, he was forced to take a job as a warden at Leningrad prison in 1948.  Here he began something of a curious hobby – documenting the tattoos of the Russian prisoners.  He was able to do this for some time before the Russian authorities discovered what was going on, but surprisingly enough, they allowed Baldaev to continue on with his work.

‘”They realised the value of being able to establish the facts about a convict or criminal: his date and place of birth, the crimes he had committed, the camps where he had served time, and even his psychological profile,” Baldaev wrote, shortly before his death in 2005.’

What Baldaev discovered through his work was the vast world of Russian prison tattoos and the meanings behind them.  For one thing, tattoos were illegal in Russian prisons, but that certainly didn’t stop the prisoners from adorning themselves with a variety of imagery.  Ink was made by melting down the heel of a boot and mixing this with blood and urine.

‘Skulls denoted a criminal authority. A cat represented a thief. On a woman, a tattoo of a penis was the kitemark of a prostitute. Crosses on knuckles denoted the number of times the wearer had been to prison, and a shoulder insignia marked solitary confinement, while a swastika represented not a fondness for fascism but a refusal to accept the rules of prison society.

A criminal with no tattoos was devoid of status, but to have a tattoo when you hadn’t earned it – bearing the skull sign of a criminal authority, for example – often resulted in the tattoo being forcibly removed with a scalpel by fellow prisoners. And “grins” (depicting communist leaders in obscene or comical positions) were a way for criminal to put two fingers up at the authorities.’

Life was harsh in these environments and the tattoos seemed to give the inmates a purpose, a method by which to showcase the lives they had lead and the people that they were.  The exhibition runs at 4 Wilkes Street, from 29 October – 29 November, Thursday to Sunday, 11am-6pm in London, England.  If you live in these parts or just happen to be visiting, I think stopping by would be well worth the time.  For the rest of us who aren’t anywhere near London, Fuel Design – the people who are putting on the exhibition – have put out three different volumes of Russian Criminal Tattoo Encyclopaedias.  For a taste of some of the gnarly photos in the encyclopaedias and at the exhibition, follow this link.  If you’re interested in buying a copy of the RCTE, try going here.

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Sometimes revenge is necessary.  Heh, I don’t begrudge anyone for a bit of clever, harmless fun when it comes to getting someone back.  Those Jackass dudes are a good example.  They play pranks on one another, there’s a nice little back and forth rivalry going on between them sometimes.  It’s funny.  I remember back in the day when I was a pizza boy, some ass thought it was funny to give me a three cent tip.  I came back the next night around midnight and egged his house good.  I laughed all the way home.

Okay, some of you might think that egging some guy’s house because of a bad tip is crossing the line.  Hey, maybe it was, but I was a kid and I don’t feel bad about it now.  No one got hurt.  But it does bring up an interesting point – there is a line that you can cross with some acts of revenge and I’m pretty much positive that a 21-year-old Australian tattoo artist recently crossed that line in a big, huge way.  Hell, he didn’t just cross it, he catapulted himself miles past it.

Here’s the story: a 25-year-old man came into a tattoo studio in Ipswich, Queensland, Australia and asked the artist to tattoo a yin-and-yang symbol as well as a Chinese dragon on his back.  Well, I guess the two men got to arguing about something that hasn’t been made clear at this point, but they eventually made up enough for the tattooist to get down to work on the tattoo.  The thing is, the tattooist didn’t tattoo a yin-and-yang symbol along with the Chinese dragon.  Nope.  He just tattooed a 15-inch dick on the dude’s back.  Apparently he also put some text in there that made some sort of spurious allegations regarding the client’s sexuality.

Again, I have to maintain that an act of revenge like that is guilty of pretty seriously crossing the line.  I guess it goes to show that you should never piss off your tattoo artist before they’re about to lay down some heavy duty work on your back.  I don’t know, maybe it’s all just a case of the artist not hearing the guy properly when he came in.  Maybe he mistook “yin-and-yang” for “15-inch wang.”  It kind of sounds similar…

I don’t personally know Nate Beavers and I’ve never met him, but I think he’d be the kind of dude that I could very easily get along with.  For starters, Nate is an excellent tattooist.  His work is rich in colour, shape, texture and all that good stuff that goes along with any quality tattooist’s work.  It’s pretty hard not to respect anyone who can put out a steady stream of tattoo work, despite only having been working as a serious tattoo artist for somewhere in the neighbourhood of seven years.

Next, Nate has a great work ethic.  He’s serious about what it means to be a tattooist and what it means to be an artist in general.  Aware from the beginning that he didn’t want to follow the path of the scratcher or someone who tattoos out of their basement, the moment the idea to become a tattooist struck, he began working to make it a reality, even though he wasn’t sure exactly how to go about it.  As a result of this, Nate got his start in the tattoo world very quickly, working the front counter for a year at tattoo studio in Houston, Texas while doing a tiny apprenticeship.  After this quick insight into tattooing, he was almost immediately set loose to tattoo for real.  With the stakes high and a great deal of importance placed on his own confidence to deliver the goods, Nate brought the ruckus and continues to do so.  He has an immense respect for his clients and for the work that they want done.  This in addition to talent makes Nate Beavers worthy of the attention of anyone who values great tattoo art.

Lastly, Nate Beavers believes in the power of community that exists within the tattoo industry.  He can see how getting all the artists on the same page in terms of connections and friendships between shops can only serve as a plus for the entire tattoo community.  This in turn can further the art form, pushing it in new directions and making tattoo something much more than it currently is.  I couldn’t agree more with him.

Interested in Nate Beavers’ tattoo work?  Check out his stuff and contact info here.

I don’t care what anyone says man, I loved that Blair Witch Project movie.  Even today whenever I watch it, I get completely freaked out.  Witches can be pretty scary, especially around Halloween time.  Man, those witches are crazy.  Well, if I’m going to talk about witches, I need to mention Salem, Massachusetts.  Salem has a long history involving witches and I’m not going to get into it all here, but needless to say, if you want to learn about it then you can head over to Wikipedia or maybe even a trip to your local public library.  For now, let’s just say that there were witch trials in Salem back in 1692.

These days, Salem is a tourist attraction and all that, but it’s around this time of year in particular – Halloween time, that is – that Salem’s tattoo industry really starts to feel the effects of that tourism surge.  People seem to decide that they want spooky tattoos at this time of year and I guess they also decide that a way to make a spooky tattoo even spookier is to head to Salem and get one done there.

‘At Witch City Ink, Micah R.O. Litant, apprentice tattoo artist and shop manager, has seen a large influx of tattoos during this Halloween season.

“As soon as October is upon us, we get a swarm of people coming into the shop. We get things like pumpkin tattoos, Salem 2010 under it, or witch tattoos with the same,” he said. “Tourists seem to come to town for the day and want something small and simple to commemorate their trip to Salem, and they end up doing a tattoo that might take just an hour or so.”’

Seems pretty cool to me and there aren’t too many locations that I can think of that have an influx of people wanting to get tattoos during certain times of the year in honour of specific holidays.  I guess it would be sort of like if there was a tattoo studio in the North Pole and people who visited it got tattoos of Santa.  That wouldn’t work though because no one visits the North Pole and no one actually lives there.  Except for Santa.  And his wife.

Normally I don’t really give much of a crap about celebrities getting a new tattoo.  It seems that every day when I check out the latest news, I see something about this celebrity or that getting a new tattoo and really, who cares?  What difference does it make if Sandra Bullock just got a new tattoo or Beyonce or anyone for that matter?  I mean, news needs to be reasonably interesting to qualify as news.  Just because someone is a celebrity doesn’t mean that the world should come to a stop because they decided to get a tattoo.

That being said, I have to go ahead and contradict myself here today because I wanted to write about a celebrity getting a new tattoo.  I can feel the collective cyber punches to my kidneys as I write this.  Okay, I’m sorry, but give me a chance to explain, would you?  There’s a three part reason why I think that this most recent celebrity tattooing is worth mentioning.  So here it goes:

Emma Stone, the very much up and coming Hollywood actress who’s starred in films such as Zombieland, Superbad and most recently Easy A, has made the decision to get her first tattoo.  The reason for this is because two years ago, her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer.  Her mother has since beaten the cancer and mother and daughter have decided to get matching tattoos.  Nice right?

Next (and my personal favourite part), Stone actually had her tattoo designed by Paul McCartney.  Both Emma and her mother are fans of the Beatles tune ‘Blackbird’ and so, Emma wrote McCartney a letter asking him to draw a blackbird that could be tattooed on her mother and herself.  Well, Paul McCartney is no slacker and he did indeed respond to Stone’s request.  Who wouldn’t be impressed by a custom designed Paul frigging McCartney tattoo?

Last and not least, Emma Stone is HAT!  Enough said.

A Detroit tattoo artist is alive, but his condition is unknown after being shot in the chest Sunday night in his tattoo studio, in front of customers.  Neither the tattooists name nor his condition is being released by authorities at the present time and despite the fact that the shooting was witnessed by numerous people, no one was particularly keen to speak to the media about what had occurred.

All that is known at this time is that on Sunday evening, a man entered the Hood Ink Tattoos and One Vision Salon in the 18000 block of Schaefer Road, pulled out a gun and shot the as of yet unnamed tattoo artist in the chest.  The tattooist was not tattooing at the time and all that police have said regarding the matter is that they believe that the tattooist and his assailant knew each other.

Wow.  That’s quite the story.  It’s great to know that the artist is going to be alright, yet at the same time I can’t imagine how troubling it would be to be sitting in a tattoo studio getting ready to have some work done and some dude walks in and smokes one of the artists.  Crazy, crazy stuff, people.  I was tempted to make some comment here about artists needing to be careful not to piss off their clients, but it would probably just end up coming off in bad taste.  Instead I’ll just shut up and wish the tattooist all the best in his recovery.

As time passes, tattoos gradually move into new levels of quality.  Artist refine their skills and learn new techniques, equipment changes and improves, and the general level of expectation with regard to style and aesthetic often evolves so continuously that tattooists are sure to always be kept on their toes.

The truth is, these kinds of advancements are to be expected and more often than not they end up bringing out something really unique and inspiring.  I think it’s great to push the envelope at all times in all art forms, because if people didn’t, things would get really stagnant, really quickly.  And while I’m not so into the idea or the aesthetic of body modification, I genuinely believe that there are people out there who see it as something that intrigues them, excites them, makes them happy, whatever.

The latest potential form of “tattooing” or body modification, however, kind of just irritates me. The concept comes from John Rogers of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.  John has invented a sort of LED light that can be implanted beneath the surface of the skin.  The lights are small and one could ostensibly have a pattern arranged or a name or even some sort of picture, if one so desired.  I guess it’s kind of like light bright on a human being.

Really?  Having LED lights implanted beneath the surface of your flesh is cool?  That’s news to me.  Here I thought it was just utterly boring and reeking of a lot of misdirected effort for attention.  Furthermore, I sincerely have my doubts that this could actually be safe for a person.  Lights don’t belong in bodies.  Ink yes, metal, sure.  But LED lights?  Please.  Just go away.

Grumble…grumble…grumble…

With Halloween just around the corner and being a pretty big horror film fan, I decided to go looking for a tattoo artist who could offer something impressive in the way of horror tattoos.  Well, it didn’t take long.  In case you’re wondering, all it takes is googling the words “Horror tattoos” and the name of arguably the best horror tattooist in the business is right at the top.

Dan Henk almost didn’t end up right at the top of any sort of tattoo related Google search.  After finishing high school, he was offered an apprenticeship by a tattoo artist friend of his brother’s.  Dan turned the offer down because at the time his personal view of tattoos was that they really were quite a limited art form.  It wasn’t until he was exposed to a variety of tattoo styles and particularly the work of people like Guy Aitchison, Aaron Caine and Tom Renshaw that Dan gave the idea of being a tattoo artist a little more thought.

Dan’s artistic background brought him into all different spheres of design and creativity.  His love for punk rock provided him with the opportunity to create album covers and band art and even a sweet little gig doing the cover art for the punk rock bible known as Maximum Rock n Roll.  He writes short stories, he paints (and has shown his work at numerous galleries), he draws and all of these things whether indirectly or directly obvious, make up his work.  Of course, there’s also the horror movies and the gloriously disturbing images that they so regularly offer up.

‘The thing I like about punk rock is freedom, freedom in its extreme. I want to go to the depths of stuff. The same as I do with horror images.’

Dan’s tattoos are scary and often extreme, but they’re always heavy on quality.  He’s the spookiest.

The individuality that accompanies a tattoo is not something that can be disputed.  People make the choices that they make to have the tattoo that they want and they get it done whether other people like it or not.  What you get inked on to your body is your decision, but as we’ve all seen time and time again, sometimes that decision isn’t always well thought out and results in a person later disliking the individuality that their tattoo once represented to them.

Time and time again I’ve wrote about the need to understand where you’re getting tattooed, who’s doing your tattoo and how important your tattoo is to you.  What it all boils down to is that it doesn’t matter if you want a portrait or a back piece or an armband.  That’s your choice, but it is important that you take the time to respect what it means to have a tattoo and to comprehend that this isn’t something that should be done on a whim or as a passing fancy to keep up with the latest trend.  Tattoos are meaningful and permanent.

Which is why I am pretty much all for a programme that is currently taking place in Welland, Ontario, Canada.  Think Before You Ink is a sort of travelling circus of tattoo testimonials, live music and educational information about the tattoo process.  The programme is run by Dr. Craig Kuhn and for the last two years it has been visiting various schools in the Niagara area, and talking to kids in the 7th and 8th grade about tattoos.  Though the programme initially had its start in high schools, Dr. Kuhn and his team soon discovered that many high school students were already tattooed and so, they took their spectacle to younger children.

‘They’ve been visiting schools throughout the Niagara area over the past two years in hopes of educating youth on the history of the art form and precautions that should be taken if they plan on getting a tattoo.’

Some might accuse Dr. Kuhn of propagating paranoia amongst school children and attempting to turn kids off of tattoos from an early age.  But that isn’t the case at all.  This is exactly the sort of thing that helps everyone in the tattoo community.  The more that the people getting tattoos understand the options available to them in terms of where to get tattoos and the tattoo experience in general, the less we’ll see of the uneducated assumptions and abuses of tattoo as an art form.  If you want a new generation of people to view tattoos in a different light than the previous generations, which have done their part to build up negative stereotypes around tattoos, then Think Before You Ink is definitely a step in the right direction.  Another thing that I really like about this programme is that Dr. Kuhn encourages the people he speaks to to call Niagara Region public health to learn about the tattoo shop they’ve chosen and to discover when the shop was last inspected.

Programmes like these should be copied all over the world, as far as I’m concerned.  They can be altered to include tattoo artists and doctors side by side, as well as so many other additions.  The possibilities are endless.  Hopefully this sort of thing will catch on and we’ll start seeing more Think Before You Ink programmes very soon.

Tattoos and music have always seemed to go hand in hand.  I don’t think I’ve ever been in a tattoo studio that wasn’t playing music and although there are many musicians out there who don’t have tattoos, there are certainly types of musicians who will more likely than not, always be tattooed.  For example, punk rock and metal – I can’t name too many punk and metal bands that don’t have at least one tattoo amongst the band members.

That being said, you’re probably all asking why there isn’t a strictly tattoo related internet radio station.  Actually you’re probably not asking that at all – but now that I’ve mentioned it, it does sound like a not too bad idea, doesn’t it?  Sure it does.  Well then, you’ll be pleased to know that there is now a strictly tattoo related internet radio station on the air, catering to everything that a tattoo loving person might want to know while playing plenty of “face melting metal” and every other music genre under the sun – even techno.

‘Tattooed Life Radio, Inc. is proud to introduce the Tattoo & Piercing Industries VERY first internet radio station dedicated exclusively to the life that we have chosen to live, expressing our Freedoms, and decorating our bodies with art or jewelry.

TattooedLifeRadio.com is dedicated to the Tattoo & Piercing lifestyle, not one specific image that might be in the public’s mind. Some are family people, some have kids, other are young and single and go to school or have jobs just like everyone else in this world does. We just chose to decorate our bodies with art or jewelry to enhance our lives, and of those around us.’

I myself have not listened to the radio station yet (as a general rule I tend to shy away from the radio), but according to TatttooedLifeRadio DJ Damit Dan “The Rock N Roll/Metal hippie”, his life was changed forever at the age of 11 when he got his first homemade tattoo and went to a Foghat gig.  From that point on, he refused to cut his hair and began a love affair with tattoos that has now transcended into being a DJ on the internet’s very first tattoo devoted radio station.

Aside from Damit Dan, the station’s team is: Hope Hard and Scooby Big Dawg Doo.  If you visit the site you can find out all about the station, as well as the on air schedule and all kinds of other stuff.  Could be just the thing you need first thing in the morning to help get you out of bed and on your way, or even a decent way to relax into the evening.