There used to be quite a debate as to whether, or not, tattooing was a viable art form. Every once in a while the debate will still come up. Now for myself the answer to that question has always been YES. Tattooing and tattoos are, and have always been, a viable art form. Just as important as any artsy fartsy painting that hangs in a gallery, or in some stuffy museum.

To quite a few art snobs the argument had always been that “legitimate” art was justified by the high price set upon it by art collectors. To be honest after seeing a TV special about an artist who was commanding an average of $15,000 dollars a painting, then learning that the “artist” was a raccoon, I have to wonder about the state of what is considered “real art”. I’m pretty sure no tattoo collector in their right mind would let a raccoon do a back piece for them.

Well, settle down kiddies. It seems that old rule of thumb about “real art” fetching mega-bucks from an art collector has taken a major hit!

Swiss born Tim Steiner has had a German art collector at a Zurich gallery pay a grand sum of $219,000 for his back piece of the Virgin Mary.

According to the gallery owner, Jutta Nexdorf, the deal is for Steiner to allow the work to be shown at least three times a year, and the buyer has the right to remove the skin from his back upon his death.

The tattoo is a full back piece done in 35-hours, and is an original creation of Belgian artist Wim Delvove, who is known for his depictions of the Virgin Mary with a lifeless skull in place of her usual serene countenance.

According to the agreement the un-named art collector also has the right to sell the piece later, if he so wishes.

Now if that doesn’t settle the argument, I don’t know what will. Say what you like about tattooing, but one thing is for certain. No raccoon, chimpanzee, or elephant is ever going to make our kind of art and have it sell for those kinds of dollars. Unlike some of that snobbish stuff that hangs on the walls of the galleries and museums, (Where ‘ol Tim may wind up yet, anyway.).

That should give a lot of collectors a reason to take better care of their art. You never know, there just might be gold in that thar skin. 😉

Have fun, gang.

It never ceases to amaze me how utterly and down right imbecilic people can be with regards to their prejudices against tattoos.  As common place as tattoos currently are, rigid opposition to the artform still exists.  The only difference is that now the excuses to ban or divert the sight of tattoos from the general public are highly transparent and weak.  Which makes for an interesting challenge for all the dinosaurs out there who still insist on equating tattoos with some sort of lower level of society: either start coming up with better excuses for excluding tattoos or realize that tattoo popularity is on the rise and will only continue to rise as the years go by.

Sports Illustrated is one such example of a refusal to either strengthen their excuses or accept the current popularity of tattoos.  In their February swimsuit issue, race driver Danica Patrick had the tattoo on her lower back airbrushed out because Sports Illustrated says it promotes “natural beauty”.

That’s just weak.

Any publication that regularly showcases photos of bikini clad, sillicone injected, no-thanks-I’ll-just-have-a-cracker-instead-of-an-actual-meal models doesn’t give a single solitary crap about “natural beauty”.  Whatsmore, even if Sports Illustrated was fully concerned about natural beauty, how does having a tattoo compromise a person’s natural appearance?  Is Sports Illustrated somehow trying to suggest that tattooed women can’t be or aren’t beautiful?  There’s nothing natural about any of the photos that Sports Illustrated takes of women in their swimsuit issues, so let’s not kid ourselves about that.  What I think is that Sports Illustrated has a problem with tattoos – a problem that has nothing to do with promoting any sort of pure aesthetic.  Sports Illustrated is stuck wallowing in tired old cliches about tattoos and neglecting to confess their true motives behind their actions in the process.

Seriously, it wouldn’t be half as insulting if they had just come forward and said “We don’t want tattoos in our swimsuit issues”.  Many people wouldn’t have agreed with the policy, but at least their honesty could have been somewhat respectable.  Instead, they took the chickenshit transparent lie route and that makes Sports Illustrated look weak and outdated.

Not to mention totally ignorant and more than a little sexist.

Ever notice how many folks out there don’t have to be actually talented to be a celebrity? Take Paris Hilton for example. Other than being cute and the heiress to the Hilton fortune just what does the girl do? Ok, so she had a homemade porn film. I’ve got to confess, I saw it and it was about the dullest piece of crap ever. Just about as exciting as watching Plan Nine from Outer Space, and that’s an insult to Plan Nine. As well as a failed reality show that only proved the girl couldn’t act if her life depended on it.

At least Peaches Geldof, nineteen-year-old daughter of Bob Geldof, had a better reason to be in Britain’s News of The World newspaper. The girl is talented. She wrote and produced her own reality show in Britain which, unlike some other supposed reality shows wasn’t just about her. Teenage Mind was a thoughtful study of what makes teens in merry ‘ol England tick.

She’s a talented writer, broadcaster, and fashion model.

So what was the reason Peaches photo spread in News of The World caused such a rave. Well it seems that with all that going for her Peaches is also a tattoo fan, which no one suspected.

Peaches has a total of over twenty separate tats, including lyrics from Nick Cave’s “Into My Arms”, Snakes, and angel wings on the back of her neck. There’s even one that she will most likely be looking to either cover up, or remove. A tribute to her soon to be ex, Max Drummey. (See what we mean about getting your SO’s name tattooed on you? They’ve only been married about 186 days.)

Most celebrities, other than rock-n-rollers, get one or two tattoos. Just enough to show they are into the fashion. Peaches shows that she not only has the talent to truly be considered a second-generation celebrity, but she’s a true tattoo fan as well. Most of all she’s living proof that heavy tattooing doesn’t stop you from accomplishing your goals.

Now that’s what I call smoking’ HOT!

Anybody out there know where I can get a copy of that photo spread?

Aren’t tattoo artists swell?  I mean it.  Here’s a group of people who bring joy to millions of art hungry people around the world on a daily basis and all they ever ask for in return is a little bit of cash and a quick photo of their work on your body once they’ve finished.  Just like that, and you’re set with something important that you can keep for a lifetime.  Not only that, but it also seems to me that tattoo artists are some of the most generous people currently working in any sort of professional context.  How many times have you seen a news story about a particular tattoo artist doing something for a charity or an all around good cause?  And, it seems that even when these artists are doing something that thrusts them into the limelight, there is always an underlying reason for doing what they do.

Such is the case with the world record for most tattoos inked in a 24-hour period.  We all heard about Kat Von D inking 400 people back in December of 2007, with 100% of the profits going to Vitamin Angels, a charity which helps provide much needed nutrients for children in third world countries.  Then, this past June, Von D’s ex-husband Oliver Peck broke the record by tattooing 415 people with the number 13 at his Elm Street Tattoo studio in Dallas, Texas.  The record was destroyed on October 25th by Derek Kastning, a Tyler, Texas tattoo artist, who did 726 tattoos and subsequently donated all proceeds to the Humane Society of East Texas.  But that wasn’t to be the end of it, no way.  In November, Hollis Cantrell of Phoenix, Arizona took the record to the next level, tattooing 727 people, with a percentage of the proceeds going to non-profit charities.

Finally, this weekend, John Streightiff of TNT Tattoo and Body Piercing in Tyrone, Pennsylvania is setting his sights on the record yet again.  Streightiff is tattooing a one inch stick of dynamite on anyone willing to give up $15.  All proceeds will go to Grandma’s House, a charity which helps children suffering from HIV.

There you have it, all these artists doing something that gives them a great deal of publicity, but using the proceeds from that publicity to help their communities and others in the world.  It’s not just the record holders who are charitable and considerate people, either.  A quick search through this blog and the internet will reveal tons of instances where tattoo artists have used their skills to give back to others.  So give it up for the tattoo artists, they often do more than just tattoo.

Know a great tattoo artist who is good at memorial tattoo pictures and designs? Leave a link to there memorial tattoos in the comments and we’ll add them to Tattoo Blog!

Anil Gupta
Inkline Studio
62 Rivington Street, #1-B
Bet. Allen St & Eldridge St,
New York, NY 10002
212-228-3393

Anil Gupta
Inkline Studio
62 Rivington Street, #1-B
Bet. Allen St & Eldridge St,
New York, NY 10002
212-228-3393

What is the difference between tradition and cliché?

A current topic running the gamut on the Internet is tattoo clichés. Now one thing I do not agree with is putting down anyone’s body art, (Unless, of course, they happen to have been dumb enough to get a scratch job. But that’s another subject.), and someone’s choice to get a tattoo that somebody else thinks of as cliché, is for the better part a nod to the history of tattooing.

Think about it. Almost any “old school” tattoo could very well be looked upon as cliché. As a matter of fact some of the tattoos that have been listed as cliché are ones that have been a part of tradition for ages. Such as a Nautical star, skulls, roses, blue birds, flowers on the ankle, etc, etc.

So, what?? Since when did we as a community become tattoo snobs? What on earth gives anyone the right to put someone else’s choice of body art down simply because it was popular enough for more than one person to have it done? Trust me some of these rants against so called cliché tattoos go so far as to question the person’s hygiene and manhood, among other things, simply because of their choice of art and placement.

Bad form!

They do not know all of these people personally, and have no idea as to what kind of person they are. Making such judgments reeks not only of “nose in the air” snobbery, but also of plain, outright cyber bullying. What in Hell gives anyone the right to question a person’s character just because of his or her choice of tattoo?

There was a time when just having a tattoo, regardless of what the subject, or placement, labeled the person with all kinds of lies and prejudiced presuppositions along these very same lines. Now we are going to act just like the anal-retentive snobs who put us down?

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot???!!!

News flash: Just because you have a custom back piece by a name artist does not give you the right to say that having a neck tattoo is a flimsy cover for feelings of sexual inadequacy. Neither does it allow you to infer that any woman who has a lower back tattoo has an infestation below the waist.

I used to think that because of all the prejudice and preconceptions the tattoo community went through just to get to this budding area of acceptance we now enjoy, that perhaps, just perhaps, we were above spewing such hypocritical garbage.

Now, I am not so sure. Hate rhetoric like this kind of article mongering garbage should only set the tattoo community back a few hundred years; or at the very least make us look exactly like the assholes who hate any kind of tattoos in the first place: “See…even people with tattoos know that most of their kind are a waste of humanity!!”

I’m so pissed, I won’t even grace this snobbish crap with a link. If you want to see it, type “tattoo cliché” into google. All I can say to the hypocrites putting it out is, “Well done, well done indeed.”

Know a great tattoo artist who is good at animal tattoo pictures and designs? Leave a link to there animal tattoos in the comments and we’ll add them to Tattoo Blog!

Jeff Gogue
Gogueart
Grants Pass, OR US

Jeff Gogue
Gogueart
Grants Pass, OR US

“Oooooooh
Lydia oh Lydia, say have you met Lydia,
Lydia, the Tattooed Lady.
She has eyes that folks adore so,
and a torso even more so.”

While some of our readers may be too young to remember Groucho Marx singing that old classic, perhaps you do remember the first episode of Jim Henson’s The Muppet show when his furry creations sang it. The song was a favorite of Jim’s, and was also sung by the Muppet performers at his funeral.

Musicians have always had a fascination with tattoos and tattooing. Even more so in recent years, but music and tattoos have a long history with each other that stretches back to before the current acceptance of the art.

Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg wrote the Lydia Tattooed Lady back in 1939, but the old classic isn’t even the tip of the iceberg when it comes to tattoos in songs. From the Rolling Stones Tattoo You album to The Edinburgh Military Tattoo: Bagpipe Marches of Scotland tattoos have penetrated song for decades.

Probably the next best thing to getting a new tattoo is listening to songs that have a tattoo theme. To that effect here is a list of some songs about tattoos, (I’m partial to the rock-n-roll myself, but I still get a kick out of anything tattoo.), for you to hunt down and download if you don’t already have them.

“Lydia the Tattooed Lady” by Groucho Marx.
“Tattoo” by the Who.
“Tattoo” by Siouxsie and the Banshees.
“Show Me Your Tattoo” by Cadillac Moon.
“Tattoos and Scars” by Montgomery Gentry
“Tattoo of Blood” by The Captain Howdy
“Bluebird Tattoo” by jazz singer Circe Link
“Carla’s Got a New Tattoo” by The John Cowan Band
“Tattoo Me Now” by The Bobs
“Saddest of Tattoos” by Artie Tobia
“Like A Tattoo.” by Sade
“Your Tattoo” by John Lester
“Tattoos n Jewelry” by Young Keno

The list can go on and on, and will cover just about any style of music you would care to listen to. So if you have an iTunes account, or some other MP3 account for downloading music, and want to hear some tunes about our favorite subject, (Tattoos, of course.), just put the word in the search engine. I’d bet you’ll be surprised by how much is out there to choose from.

If nothing else some of these tunes are down right hilarious, and everyone can use a good laugh now and then.

Twitter is taking over the world. These days, you will know when Tina Fey eats candy for lunch, because she’s micro-blogging about it in 140 characters or less. Drew Olanoff (@drew) is promising to tattoo the @Twitter username of the person who donates the most to the Make-A-Wish Foundation this weekend. He’s checking receipts and no last minute funny business changes to your username will be tolerated. Olanoff already sports an RSS feed logo and a giant microphone tattoo.

Presently, the bidding is at $1,000. Hurry, the deadline is Monday, February 16.

And make sure you follow TattooBlog.com on Twitter.

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We are starting a new pet tattoo pictures section on the site feel free to link to your favorite cats and dog tattoo pictures in the comment section this page is dedicated to cute pet tattoos.

Grime
Skull & Sword
3415 Cesar Cavez
San Francisco, CA 94110
415.552.42897

Heather McLean

Jeff Gogue
Gogueart
Grants Pass, OR US

Bob Tyrell
Eastpointe, Michigan
Private Studio

Guy Aitchison

Heather McLean