It’s a very interesting testament to the times we are living in when tattoos can actually be used as motivation toward making a significant change in society and in the world.  When you consider how impossible it would have been for such a concept to exist even ten years ago, it’s pretty remarkable that in such a short amount of time tattoos have actually been capable of becoming a rallying point for those concerned about the world that they inhabit.

What I’m talking about here is an environmental rescue program that actually does use free tattoos as incentive.  Tatzoo is a website based out of San Francisco, California which aims to create a movement to protect biodiversity and at the same time, to create leaders who will work with others to do their best to save local endangered species.  How it works is that people go to the Tatzoo website, choose their favourite endangered species from the list that the Tatzoo folks have provided.  Once you’ve chosen your favourite endangered species, the real work begins.

Entrants must come up with 100 people who will aid them in their plan to help whatever particular endangered species that they chose.  The entrant must then must create a plan that details exactly how they will best use the aid of 100 people.  They will also have 100 days to bring their plan to life.  This entire plan must be posted to the Tatzoo Facebook page so that others can read the information and vote on which proposal that they like the best.

Judges, ranging from environmental activists, to artists to conservationists will then select 15 entrants based on their proposals.  These 15 finalists will be given FLIP cameras and are then required to document their projects.  But the best part of all is that the 15 finalists will also be given a free tattoo from one of these tattoo artists.  The tattoo will be of the endangered species that the finalists chose to try and help.  Oh and the tattoo artists who have volunteered their time and talent are all local San Francisco artists and they are all AWESOME.

Not bad huh?  Animal lovers, environmentalists, aspiring filmmakers, artists – you name it, this is one really cool way that tattoo is bringing people and the environment together for a great cause.

Tattoo has long been the whipping boy when it comes to talk of its ability to spread blood borne illnesses.  And while it’s true that you can catch a disease if your tattoo artist is an irresponsible moron who doesn’t sterilize his equipment, I don’t think it’s quite accurate to report to the public that hepatitis C is more than a little popular amongst the tattooed.  That’s what this article/report seems to do, anyway.

Okay, fine.  There are bad tattoo artists out there and yeah, if you go to them for a tattoo, well then you very well could be at risk for something.  But any reputable tattoo artist is sterilizing his/her equipment.  You know why?  Because they’re fucking professionals.  That’s why.

And as far as I’m concerned, the biggest risk isn’t whether or not the tattooist’s equipment is sterilized, the number one biggest risk is committing to one tattoo artist over another.  If you choose poorly here, you could very well end up at place that might not have the best hygienic practices going, if you catch my drift.

Anyway, back to my original complaint…So yeah, some tattoo artists don’t sterilize their gear.  And as a way to combat that, I’ve stated many times before that I am fully in favour of tattoo artists being licensed artists who undergo inspections and are legally qualified to tattoo.  Not to punish the artists, of course, but to aid them.  When artists are licensed by their city to tattoo, the hepatitis rates will drop and the negative image of tattoos spreading hepatitis C will hopefully be on its way out.

Still, I don’t think it’s fair to associate hepatitis C and tattoos in such a broad way as the article did.

“To help quantify the risks, the researchers reviewed and analyzed 124 studies from 30 countries — including Canada, Iran, Italy, Brazil and the United States. Of those, 83 studies were included in the meta-analysis.

Based on these studies, those who had tattoos were 2.74 times as likely to have hepatitis than those who had no tattoos.

However, among certain groups the risk could go much higher, they found. For example, non-injection drug users with tattoos were 5.74 times as likely to have hepatitis than their non-tattooed counterparts.

So people with tattoos are 2.74 times more likely to have hepatitis than those who have no tattoos.  That doesn’t sound like that huge of difference, if you ask me.  And furthermore the number of people out there who have tattoos is as massive as it is varied.  I’d like a separate study done to tell me where the people in this study who are tattooed and hepatitis positive, got their tattoos done.  That is, what sort of establishment was it?  Or was it even an establishment?  Was it in a friend’s basement?

If so, that would explain a lot more than this article is willing to.

I like Leigh Oldcorn.  It doesn’t take long to like him, either.  His work is characterized by a lot of black and grey, which is filled with a variety of influences from other tattoo genres.  It might sound odd, but is was something about the way that Oldcorn tattoos roses that really got me to take a deeper look at his work.  To put into words exactly what it is about Oldcorn’s roses that I like so much probably won’t do any justice to the work.  I think that all I can say is that the work completely nailed my attention.  Does any more need to be said?  If you’re doing the sort of work that immediately gets people’s attention and makes them want to see more of what you can do, then I’d say there isn’t much more you can ask for.  You’re doing everything that you need to be doing as a tattooist.

Which is why Leigh Oldcorn’s stuff is so good: it is unpretentious.  It is subtle.  And it is the end result of much hard work, dedication and due paying.  Leigh Oldcorn knows the value of hard work and the importance of being available for his clientele.  Perhaps most importantly, he remains humbled by the success that he has seen and recognizes that the people he work for matter.  That sort of humility can’t help but form a mutual trust and respect between tattooist and client, which I feel is essential to anyone’s tattoo experience.

“Ooooh, I have lots of them, yeah I have lots of ideal customers. My actual customers. I am not joking it’s a compliment that they choose me to do their work, that they spend an hour or two in my shop. They could go anywhere else but they don’t, they choose our shop and a lot of them will say ‘do what you want’, and that’s a compliment. When you get given a theme and can do what you want. Those are good customers, the ones that let you do what you want and trust you to do it well.”

Leigh Oldcorn has been tattooing since the 80’s.  In other words, he’s been tattooing longer than some of you reading this have been on this earth.  His struggle to get to where he is today as owner of Cosmic Tattoo in Colchester, England has been a lengthy one that more or less began when he dropped out of school at age 16.  Oldcorn began sketching and showing his work to various tattoo studios in the hopes of any kind of job.  He eventually settled in at a shop just basically helping the tattoo artist around the shop, cleaning, etc, and little by little he began to build the knowledge needed to strike out on his own.  It wasn’t until 1998 and many jobs at many different tattoo shops that Leigh Oldcorn finally managed to set up his very own studio.  That studio is Cosmic Tattoo.

“Why is it that all these tattooists are bitching and moaning these days? I read that tattooists are whinging, saying ‘I am booked 3 months in advance, I’m a slave to my shop,’ It’s like mate, you are on at least 50 quid an hour yeah, you get to draw on people and it’s not exactly a hard life. It’s not like working at McDonalds taking shit all day so stop whinging and just enjoy it. Rejoice and think ‘thank God I have the privilege to do what I do.’”

How can you not love this guy?

You know, there aren’t too many art forms out there can end up as a central point of an argument between jail chiefs and lawmakers.  At the same time, there aren’t too many art forms that are as delicate to perform as tattooing is.  I mean, if you paint someone’s portrait and accidentally paint their eyes the wrong colour, that’s too bad but not life threatening.  On the flip side, if someone is tattooed by an artist who doesn’t sterilize his equipment…Well, you get the idea.  Bad news.

So I guess that’s why it’s interesting to me to see a story in The Scottish Sun – a paper printed out of Glasgow, Scotland – about prisons in Scotland considering an act that would see tattoo studios opening full-time in prisons.  The reasoning behind this idea is pretty obvious: prisoners tattoo one another and they aren’t using the best equipment.  To say the least.  The risk of blood born illnesses being spread throughout the prisons through unsterilized “needles”, as well as the risk of infection are enough to consider placing clean and legitimate tattoo studios in prisons.

Attica!  Attica!  Atti…

Really?  Why not?  Yeah, okay, some people have a problem with the idea of their tax dollars going toward making sure that some prisoner gets a professional tattoo.  But hey, you know what?  There’s probably a lot of things that your tax dollars go toward that you may or may not support.  It’s just the way that it goes.  And if that’s the case, then why not have your tax dollars go to keeping your society – including the people in the prisons – healthy?

In case you hadn’t guessed it, I’m all for tattoo studios being opened in prisons.  Unsurprisingly enough, not everyone is a fan of tattoo studios being opened in prisons:

“But the move was slammed by Labour’s shadow justice secretary Richard Baker.

He said: “If prisoners are bored then this is a failure of the system that needs to give them more work to do.

“When money is tight the idea of spending taxpayers cash on a tattoo parlour for convicts is obscene.”

And TaxPayers’ Alliance spokesman Matthew Sinclair added: “Ordinary taxpayers don’t expect their money to be spent on prisoners to add to their tattoo collections. Prison authorities have to be very careful not to endlessly cave in on these issues.”

I can really see this entire thing being a contentious issue if ever it were to be adopted elsewhere.  Any tattoo artists out there volunteering for the job?  I’ll say one thing about it: you would hear some unbelievable stories… Anyway, I’m very interested to see what happens with this.

I’m not a big fan of TV and I’m even less of a fan of reality TV, but I do have to admit that I have watched the odd episode of Miami Ink back when Miami Ink was on the air and then in 2007, when LA Ink spun off and created a whole new mainstream appreciation of tattoo, I gave in and watched.

Initially, the idea of a reality TV show where people get to see the daily ins and outs of a high profile tattoo artist and her shop full of what some might argue was the closest thing to tattoo royalty in one place: Kim Saigh, Kat Von D, Corey Miller and Hannah Aitchison, was cool.  It helped a great deal to show people that tattoo studios weren’t dingy little crack dens hidden away in back alleys.  It gave credibility to the craft of tattoo and respect to the artists who practiced it.  It showed people that everyone has their own personal reason for getting a tattoo and that tattoos aren’t just cheap flash chosen on a whim.  Of course, anyone who had been either tattooed or involved in the tattoo industry for any matter of time already knew all of this and so much more.  Still, in many ways, LA Ink wasn’t for the industry hardcores.  LA Ink was for the uninitiated, the curious, the tattoo virgins.

All right, let’s be fair here: LA Ink was never a masterful work of broadcasting.  Watching Corey Miller hem and haw over whether or not to get a vasectomy back in season 1 was far from enlightening.  Still, during those early years, LA Ink had some heart – it still wanted to be about great tattoos and the artists who do them.  But if last year’s season of LA Ink proved one thing, it was that there is very little “reality” left in the reality television of LA Ink.  Choppy cutting, mismatched audio blurbs and constant phony scenarios gave LA Ink all the relevance and intensity of a temporary tattoo.

The biggest mistake this show has made however, is cutting back on the actual tattoo work in favour of focusing on a ridiculous soap opera style, in which a series of minor conflicts are blown entirely out of proportion in the hopes of achieving interesting television.  The end result is one big giant failure on too many levels to even begin to count.

Tonight was the start of LA Ink’s fourth season and okay, I admit it, I watched it.  I wanted to see if this season would be any better than the crap that was fed to us last season.  The verdict?  No, this is still the same, stale old stuff that should have ended about 2 seasons ago.  It’s odd that this is only the fourth season of LA Ink.  It feels as though it’s been around for much longer – and I don’t mean that in a good way.  Anyway, this season sees Corey Miller leaving High Voltage tattoo once and for all, leaving Kat as the only original cast member still on the show.  Miller seemed genuinely flustered about the working relationship that he has with Kat and something tells me that all the Hollywooding up of LA Ink just isn’t him.  Despite his unquestionable skill as a tattoo artist, he’s just too good to be wasting his time in the world of “reality” phoniness.  He’s an artist, not a soap-opera star.

In the end, LA Ink seems to be little more than the Kat Von D show.  Kat is a brilliant artist and a savvy businesswoman, but as far is this show is concerned, I think we all know that no matter what, she’s going to go down with the ship and it ain’t going to be pretty.  Which is too bad really, because it was an interesting experiment: could tattoos work on TV?  I think we glimpsed the answer several years back when the show was in its infancy.  Yes, most definitely they could.  Is LA Ink about tattoos and tattoo artists?  Unfortunately, no, it really isn’t, which is just too bad.

Tattoo artist Steven J. Martinez of Cheyenne, Wyoming has been having a tough eight months.  It was eight months ago that Martinez, owner of Bad Ass Tattoos, initially had his business license application rejected by Cheyenne City Council members.  At that particular time, the license was rejected because Martinez had pending felony charges of voyeurism against him.

See, what happened is that Martinez was accused of secretly filming female clients as he pierced their genitals.  Martinez maintained that he had filmed the female clients as a preventative measure against any sort of allegations that could arise out of being alone with a naked woman.

Skip ahead a few months to the present, and Martinez has been acquitted of all wrongdoing with regards to his video collection.  So why can’t he get his business license back and continue running Bad Ass Tattoos?  I don’t know why.

Cheyenne Mayor Rick Kaysen had denied Martinez’ application for a new business license, citing Martinez and his operation as a concern for public welfare.  But Martinez has been acquitted of his charges – he is not a criminal and so clearly, there is no good reason to prevent Steven J. Martinez from resuming and rebuilding his career.

It almost seems that as long as there has been art, there have been cafes where artists sit and read and exchange ideas with other artists.  Personally, when I’m writing, I like nothing more than a good cafe.  The right cafe with the right kind of atmosphere can completely alter the way that people create.

No doubt about it, Nicole and Perry Caskanette of Parkhill, Ontario, Canada were thinking about the way that people create when they opened the Nightcap Gallery.  The couple originally bought the building which – housed a hardware store – mainly for the three apartments above.  Wanting to create an art gallery in the main space, Nicole and Perry did just that.  Soon enough however, they decided that an art gallery wasn’t enough.

Next came the plan to open a cafe and wine bar inside the gallery itself.  The paintings (from local artists) still hang on the walls and are all for sale.  People can come in, order a coffee, choose between half a dozen pot pies and check out the art, or just relax.

But like I said, cafes seem to breed creativity and despite the cafe, wine bar and art gallery that make up the Nightcap Gallery, Nicole and Perry still weren’t finished yet: The Neon Crab is the brand new tattoo studio on the premises.

This is really interesting to me, this mixing of so many different things into something that is essentially one big art space – and wow, it sounds really cool.  I wish there was more stuff like this in my own community, or city, for that matter.

I wonder if they serve vegetarian pot pies…

If you’ve ever spent any time in England before, most likely you’ll know of a small coastal city called Brighton, a little less than an hour from London.  Brighton is a place where losing several days having a good time is pretty much a given.  It’s quite fitting then, that a very cool tattoo artist like James Woodford lives in a very cool city like Brighton.  James works at Into You Tattoo, a shop which already has gained quite a reputation for the quality of its tattooers.

James Woodford tattoos what to me looks like a broad range of styles, often on their own and often melded with another style in some sort of weird hybrid that always comes away looking damn good.

Classic American, Japanese, portraits, black and grey…Woodford does them all but manages to hang a very unique and well, just pleasantly twisted style on everything that he touches.  He particularly loves to tattoo Star Wars tattoos as well pretty much anything to do with tanks.  Thankfully however, Star Wars and tanks are far from being the only thing that James Woodford tattoos.

Check out Woodford’s tattoo portfolio here, which contains all the work that he’s done since March 2003.  There’s also an interview here that he did fairly recently with Big Tattoo Planet.

A Texas tattoo artist is recovering this week after he was robbed and shot shortly before midnight on August 4th.  Baytown tattoo artist, 42-year-old Gary Spratley, was ambushed by two unidentified assailants after he turned up at the Village Lane apartment complex to give a tattoo to an unidentified inhabitant who resides in the complex.

The robbers managed to get away with Spratley’s tattoo equipment, which he claims was worth $8,000, and he was also shot in the shoulder.  Police arrived and found the wounded Spratley, who was not able to identify his attackers.  However, it is believed that at least one of the attackers fled the Village Lane apartment complex in a white Ford Crown Victoria.

At the risk of sounding petty and insensitive, perhaps this incident is further proof as to why tattoo artists should be required to be licensed to work at studios.  I mean really, wandering around at midnight with a bunch of tattoo equipment in order to do a tattoo on someone in their apartment?  It just sounds like you’re asking for trouble.  No disrespect to Gary Spratley because, well, that really sucks that he got shot and lost all his gear, but the incident would have been far less likely to have occurred had Spratley worked in a legitimate shop with legitimate hours.

Still, I could be all wrong on this.  For all I know, Gary Spratley does work from a studio and was only out doing a favour for a friend.  But based on the information that I have on this case, it just seems to me that it’s yet another reason for a change in the laws that govern – and protect – tattoo artists and their clients.

As I’ve already mentioned and shown many times before on the Tattoo Blog, resistance to tattooing and tattoos in general continues despite the current popularity of the art form.  So what, right?  We’ve all come to expect the discrimination, the stereotypes, the all around small-mindedness that comes along with so many people’s wacky disapproval of tattoos.  As much as all that stuff irks us at some point, we move past it precisely because we understand that the tattoos we have are for ourselves and no one else and that their permanence on our bodies will be the only consolation we require.

But what about art forms that aren’t permanent on the flesh but still display a beauty similar to that of tattoos?  What happens when an art form like henna is being singled out as undesirable for no other apparent reason than the fact that it’s a skin art form – a distant cousin to the dreaded permanent tattoo?

Well, if you think that’s something totally ridiculous that doesn’t or won’t happen, then I’ve got to tell you that you’re totally wrong.  In Montreal, Quebec, Canada, the word on the street is that henna is not welcome in the city’s Old Montreal district.  Why?  Apparently henna tattoo doesn’t correspond to any sort of tradition in Quebec.

‘”This kind of activity doesn’t have a place in Old Montreal,” Michel Demers, head of the cultural division and public libraries for the Ville Marie borough, said yesterday.

Henna tattooing “is not an activity that corresponds to a tradition here in Quebec,” Demers said.’

Hmmm…seems a little odd that after ten years of permitting henna artists to have a spot in Old Montreal, the art form is suddenly no longer considered acceptable.  What’s even more surprising about this is that it’s occurring in Montreal – a city which is generally known for its respect and love of art and diversity.  Perhaps there is a better reason to ban henna from the area than what they are telling us, but if there is, I can’t think of it.  I understand the concern over black henna, a form of henna that can and has caused physical damage to people in the past.  But no, this isn’t about black henna and I have to say, although I’m not particularly interested in the art form itself, I’m more than a little disappointed that others in Old Montreal won’t have the opportunity to make up their own minds regarding it.