If you live in Alaska, you’ll no longer have to go south to Canada for a quality big dipper tattoo (I know that’s what you do. Don’t even lie). The Inked Monkey just opened this past weekend in south Anchorage – an “upscale custom tattoo shop” owned by local artist and entrepreneur Isidra Castro.

The shop opened to meet the demands of Anchorage’s many tattoo fiends. It seems the city’s legendary Anchorage Tattoo Studio is booked months in advance and those people who just aren’t willing to wait are forced into scuzzy shops with alleged dubious health standards.

The Inked Monkey has been given the thumbs up by local tattoo artist Matt Wasdyke, who called the it “one of the nicest shops I’ve ever set foot in.” So if you’re in Anchorage, head on over and check it out.

Around this time of year, the best of and worst of lists tend to make their appearance.  I’m a fan of those lists, be they music related, film related, whatever.  While a tattoo best/worst of list for 2008 would be interesting, I’ve decided to up the ante and instead bring you my pick for what arguably amounts to the worst business strategy in the history of tattoo artistry.  

Thirty-two-year-old Lee Black, resident of the London, England borough of Enfield pleaded guilty this past September to charges of arson and manslaughter.  Black broke into a tattoo parlor he had been negotiating to buy in August of 2007, doused the premises with gas and started it on fire.  The fire quickly got out of control (as fires started with gas tend to do), exploding out of the front of the shop and consuming the first two floors of the three-storey building.  The end results were grim: two women and a man were taken to hospital suffering from severe burns, while a fourth man died of smoke inhalation.

The kicker in all this mess is that Black apparently started the fire as a way to lower the asking price for the tattoo shop.  Figuring that some small fire damage would work in his favor during negotiations, the idiot was even recorded by surveillance cameras three days prior to the fire at a nearby gas station, buying 18 liters of gas.  Dude!  You seriously thought you’d start a small fire with 18 liters of gas?  Are you fucking kidding me?

The fire also destroyed the neighboring Nightingale Community Hospice Trust , which provides therapy and care for cancer patients.  NCHT was only able to reopen its doors this past November 20^th.

As of November, Black has been convicted of murder, grievous bodily harm and arson.  He’s to be sentenced on December 18^th, but so far there has been no further word of the prison term.

Unreal.

A few weeks back, I posted a piece about the Singapore tattoo convention and how great it was to see places like Singapore opening up and accepting tattoos.  Well, I don’t know…maybe I spoke too soon.  Recently, thirty-five-year-old Masazlie Mohamed Salleh was asked to his tattooed arms during an evening out at The Living Room, a bar inside the Marriot Hotel.  The management was even kind enough to offer him a jacket in order to expedite the request. A spokesman for the bar has since apologized to Mr. Salleh for the manner in which he was treated, while adding that the Living Room “…certainly does not have a policy against tattoos.”  Sure, that’s great to hear.  But if that’s the case, then why was Masazlie asked to cover up his arms in the first place?  Sounds like a policy against tattoos if ever I heard one.  I mean, asking someone to cover up doesn’t exactly demonstrate any sort of tolerance toward tattoos, does it?  What, were they worried that his tattoos were so rad that everyone in that posh-pit would get jealous if they saw them?  Somehow I’m thinking no.

As if ignorance in one country wasn’t enough, it appears that a chain of UK clubs by the name of Oceana have been enforcing a tattoo ban since August.  Oceana limits its ban to “unsightly tattoos”: that of the sleeve variety, as well as those with offensive words.  Bigot General manager Steve Saunders was quoted as saying “…there is nothing wrong with fashionable or discreet visible tattoos’.”  Oh, okay, I see.  Thanks, for clearing that up, Steve Saunders.  Good to know that you make the decisions as to what sort of tattoos are or aren’t acceptable.

Oceana’s ban has prompted a strong general outcry, as well as the creation of a Facebook group, dedicated to reversing the nightclub’s policy.

The upside to all this is that any establishment that requires the covering up or banning of its tattooed clientele is really not worth the time, anyway.  As much as it bugs me to know that there are places that behave this way toward tattooed customers, there are a million and one places out there that welcome tattooed patrons.  A cool place to hang out has a mix of people, opinions, lifestyles and styles.  Boring places limit their patrons to a certain type.  It’s your choice to decide where you spend your hard earned money and believe you me, the establishments that prevent tattooed folks from entering are the big losers in the end.  If a bar wants to refuse someone’s money simply because they have a particular tattoo in a particular spot, then that’s just bad business.  So the next time you’re sitting having a brew or a dance at one of the millions of tolerant pubs or clubs out there, consider offering a cheers to people like Steve Saunders.  They make picking a good place to hang out that much easier.

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

Jesus Tattoo
Josh Woods

Marco Cerretelli
West Hollywood Tattoo
8206 Santa Monica Blvd
West Hollywood, CA 90046

Mike Parsons
Las Vegas Tattoo Company
1829 E. 7th Ave. Tampa, Florida 33605
Phone: 813.248.3004

Nate Beavers
Mary
Off the Map Tattoo
March 12, 2009 – March 16, 2009
Easthampton Ma 01027

Nikko Hurtado
Jesus Portrait
Ignition Tattoo
APPLE VALLEY , CA US

Paul Booth
Last Rites Tattoo Theatre
511 west 33rd st. suite 3N
NYC, NY 10001
(212) 529-0666

Steve Moore
Jesus

Tony Ciavarro
Pizza Jesus
Stinky Monkey Tattoos
Kingston, Massachusetts

Just about any artist out there will tell you that to become a tattoo artist the first thing you need to know is how to draw. Many of today’s tattoo artists have come from backgrounds in other art forms, graphic arts (I went to school and was a graphic artist for several years in the 80’s myself.), advertising, classical art, etc.

I took art in school, and was lucky enough to have been apprenticed as a tattoo artist before I got into graphic arts. Even Corey Miller, who readily admits to a scratcher background, learned the real deal from artists like Bob Roberts at Spotlight Tattoo, and eventually his all important meeting with Jack Rudy.

Even for well trained artists there is the time it takes to learn to tattoo well, so if you add it all up they have quite a few years learning art on top of the traditional one year apprenticeship needed to learn to tattoo. So what?

The problem is the popularity of tattoos has created quite a number of wanna be’s who are desperate to break into what they perceive as an easy way to make money, (Yeah, I can hear the snickering from anyone who has actually worked the job now.), and they are willing to do anything to become a tattoo artist. Anything but what they need to do that is.

Enter the “Tattoo School”. These rip off artists say that they can teach you to tattoo in about three months. One web site, (And NO! I am not about to provide a link to this jerk.), even says that you do not need any artistic talent in order to go to their school, or become a tattoo artist. WTF??!! You don’t need artistic talent to be a artist? I don’t know where this guy is buying his stash, but I’m pretty sure it’s laced with PCP!

The site, as most of them do, hypes it to the hilt and make claims so outrageous that it was enough to make me want to kick someone’s ass. For one thing, unless you happen to be the second coming of Sailor Jerry, there is no way in hell you are going to learn how to tattoo properly in three months. For another, I can’t think of a single good tattoo studio that won’t laugh your ass right out the door the second you show them your good for toilet paper “diploma” and refer to a machine as a “gun”.

Even dumber than a bag of hammers are the prices on some of these “schools”. A traditional apprenticeship is going to run the would be tattoo artist around $3,000. Assuming they show enough talent to be accepted in the first place. Enrollment in one of these tattoo schools averages out at around $6,000!! Twice the price for just enough knowledge to get your ass in deep shit.

And we thought the learn to tattoo books were bad.

Check out some of the dialog about this crap on Tattoo Now, or Tattoo Info for a bit of the buzz about this rip off.

What could make this more dangerous than scratcher with a list of coke whore clients longer than a gangster’s rap sheet is the diploma. I’ve noticed that as a culture we tend to be a bit too impressed by “credentials”. Never mind if the jerk can do the job, or not. He has a diploma. This is where it could get out of hand quickly. Especially in states where the tattoo laws are less than what they should be.

As wildo has said repeatedly; if you want to be a Tattoo Artist, put in the time. Learn to draw and draw well. If you can do that much and show a bit of love and respect for the art you want to be a part of, then it’s not really that hard to find someone willing to apprentice you. Do you love the art, or is it just a quick “easy” buck to you? If you’ve been turned down for an apprenticeship, ask yourself why.

A lot of people out there think they can draw. Just like a lot of assholes trying to get on American Idol think they can sing. Just like a lot of assholes think they can write, despite the fact that they couldn’t even turn in a single B graded paper in English class. Having a tool chest full of the latest equipment does not mean your much more than Tim Allen. Talent is what you need far more than anything else.

Don’t spend twice the amount you would for a solid apprenticeship, and be honest with yourself. Show your art to strangers instead of just your ass kissing friends. Examine the reasons why you really want to be a tattoo artist and make damn certain that “for the money” isn’t in the top ten of that list.

Above all avoid the Tattoo Schools like a case of the clap. Even if you pass you’ll still be nothing more than a scratcher with a pretty piece of paper that actually says you were a ignorant, lazy jerk. Your “clients” aren’t going to be real happy with you either, and word of mouth can break you just as easily as it can make you.

Words are a motherfucker, y’know?  You ever get a chance to think about the connotation of a word or phrase and it will seriously fuck you up.  Hell, George Carlin had a career based on this very thing and while colloquialism lends itself freely to comedy, it also has started its fair share of fistfights and revolutions.  So what’s in a name?  I asked myself this recently.

Like how come when I refer to myself or my profession with my friends or family that I call myself a tattooer, but when I’m at my kid’s PTA meetings I become an ‘artist’?  It’s a rare occassion when you get to pull your own punk card, but I digress…

At first I thought that this was some horrible ploy by my subconscious to protect me from the almost inevitable reactions of my fellow parents who tend to be uniformly more uptight than I am.  Then it occurred to me, I am an artist.  I am also a tattooer.  Now more than ever before those two things have become interchangeable.

Some of you may think this is a foregone conclusion, you’ve seen what your favorite tattooers can do with needle and skin and you know it’s art, in and of itself.  But for a long time now tattoo has been going through some kind of funky identity crisis.  Allow me to explain:  At one time everyone that tattooed wanted to be called a ‘tattoo artist’ the connotation maybe being that tattoo artists were better than those who just did tattoos.  You see, for a long time people wanted to be called by the thing that they used to make money.  Everyone’s waaay too tied up in their profession, identity being confused with the ‘who’s got the bigger dick’ game of ‘what do you do?’ and all that shit.  So artists were fine artists that made money selling their work to museums, rich people, and guys with funny beards they called beatniks (think Bob Denver).  Graphic artists designed working shit, like billboards and t-shirts and logos for big businesses.  And tattoo artists did tattoos.  Tattooers didn’t make money selling their art (at least they didn’t make a living selling canvas-and-paint pieces) but the fight was on to be recognized as real artists and not just a bunch of foul-mouthed fuckers with hairy knuckles and an over pronounced sense of style.

Fast forward a few years and I’ve actually heard some of my co-workers argue that they didn’t want to be called a tattoo artist, just a tattooer, saying that they made their living doing tattoos and that they’d starve if they tried to sell their artwork to the general public (as opposed to other tattooers or tattoo convention-goers).

So first tattooers wanted respect as artists but then they wanted respect as tattooers, which I guess is understandable considering all the work that’s gone into getting people to realize that tattoo is its own genre.  But whatever happened to just hitting people with heavy things?  And don’t get me started on the disparities between neotraditionalist tattooers and realistic tattooers and the whole flash vs. custom vs. street shop thing, this shit is getting ridiculous.

Seems trivial right?  But in a world where people are either ninja or pirate, republican or democrat, pro-life or pro-choice, and well, you see where things can get a little fuzzy.

So what the fuck do we do Wildo!?  Easy kids, I got it covered.

You do you, I’ll do me, and you can call it whatever you like.  I do tattoos and draw pictures of stuff, but I’m not a tattoo-doer or a stuff-drawer or a picture-of-things-maker or any of that shit.    So what’s in a name?  Only what you let be in a name.

My name is wildo.

“Want art? Get a tattoo. I’d like to announce an offer. A barter? A call for blood? A request for your undying slavish devotion? If you are interested in getting a tattoo of any of the images from my folio, Pact For Adventure, prove it. Get in touch with me, and I’ll send you a clean, clear high-resolution version of whatever image you’ve got your eyes on. Once you get the tattoo done, send me photo documentation (actual prints) of the process. In exchange, I will give you a free copy of the folio. I’m recommending getting the work done by Bill Baker here in Toronto. He’s pretty much a legend. We’ll take care of you.” – Canadian artist Daryl Vocat

Did you know that this art-for-art trade is actually a tradition in the art world? I’m so excited by this prospect I can barely function. Let me tell you how if I’d known this existed I would have gotten the Mark Ryden tattoo I’ve been dreaming of ages ago (although, to be honest, I have my doubts the super reclusive, mysterious painter would honor such a custom. If you know him personally, feel free to ask him on my behalf).

“I joke about it as ‘the blood cult,'” 32-year-old Vocat told the local press. “It’s the ideal place to show art. It’s the most exciting thing that can happen to me as an artist.”

Vocat has made good on his word and Guy Bérubé is the proud owner of a Vocat folio, having provided the artist with adequate proof of the tattoo of three Boy Scouts on his forearm that he got this past June. Other Canadian artists such as Micah Lexier honour the tradition as well.

“It’s about friendship. It’s bartering; no money’s exchanged and everyone gets what they want,” Lexier said. “One of the joys of it is that money isn’t an issue at all.”

Love it. LOVE IT! Now to get in touch with Mark Ryden…

There are a few things in this world that I absolutely adore: my family, animals, tattoos and photography. I am happy to say I get to spend my life doing what I love by making sure the abovementioned things are always part of it.

It didn’t take much to mix my love of tattoos with my lovely family – my mother got her first tattoo a few years ago for her birthday from my beloved tattoo artist Wayne, and has been talking about a spanning back piece ever since. My dad is the real convert. When I started getting major work done he was supportive but of the “not-in-my-lifetime” mentality and now he’s in the process of developing a half-sleeve for himself. My husband is currently petitioning to have us head back to Bangkok to Max Tattoos for a family tattoo holiday. If that’s not the best way to combine two things I love and make memories as a family, I don’t know what is.

Every day I mix my love of photography with my love of animals – I currently live in the Masai Mara, Kenya, and spend my days getting paid to take photos of the wildest, most incredible animals in the universe. It’s insane. I hope to eventually take it one step further like my good friend Sarah Skinner, and sell photos that will directly support causes close to my own heart.

It does me good to see other people who have managed to find ways to combine their life loves too. Brandon Bond – tattoo artist extraordinaire and fierce dog lover – has dedicated his life to saving hundreds of horribly mistreated and abused pitbulls and even started his own rescue organization, All or Nothing Pitbull Rescue, in Georgia. I’ve written quite a few posts about other tattoo artists and shops, like Bond and All or Nothing Tattoo, that have found ways to use tattooing as a platform to support organizations close to their hearts. Among them is Precision Ink in Sudbury, Ontario. The tattoo shop will be collecting donations of pet treats, bedding, litter, leashes and collars from now until Christmas Eve in support of local rescue organization Pet Save. Ink will trade tattoo and piercing services for donations to encourage the local tattooed community to get involved.

I also recently discovered Rescue Ink (both photos), a tattooed 10-man  animal welfare team that takes their plight to save the New York Tri-State area’s saddest animal souls seriously. The Telegraph published an amazing profile of the group that is so excellently written that I won’t paraphrase it here. Click here to read it for yourself.

The point of all of this is that there are amazing ways to blend the things you are passionate about so that you can live a happier, more fulfilled life while enabling someone or something else to do the same. If people like Bond can use tattooing to save the lives of pitbulls – if Rescue Ink can use a ragtag motorcycle gang to save feral, abused kittens – hell, if I can get my father to get a tattoo, then the life blending possibilities are truly limitless, no matter what you’re in to.

Just in time for the Christmas season, Psycho Baby has released its first line of customizable tattoo-inspired wall art for the newborn or about-to-be-born rocker baby on your list. The 11″ by 17″ framed tattoo prints are reminiscent of old-school flash – with hearts, sparrows, doves and banners – are fully personalized, and can include the baby’s name, the birth particulars and the parents’ names, depending on which print you choose. 

Each print is made to order, framed, boxed and shipped to your door for under a hundred dollars (a godsend in this time of economic crisis, let’s be honest here). Check out the Psycho Baby Custom Prints Tattoo here and be sure to check out their other really cool tattoo-inspired baby merchandise – including bibs, clothes, diaper bags, the works – for other great gift-giving ideas.

For those of us living in and around the Los Angeles area, the Body Art Expo, held at the Pomona Fairplex, in Pomona, CA will give us SoCal dwellers the perfect opportunity to start ’09 with some new black and grey or colorful lines! The massive event features 200+ globally respected tattoo and piercing artists who will be inking and piercing on-site, tattoo contests, live music, and lots and lots of vendors! They should just market this event as a huge tattoo party, because that’s what the show feels like given the amount of beer and visible tattooed flesh on tap!

The weekend of January 2-4 is right around the corner, so just cross out a few names on your holiday gift-giving list and save yourself some cash for a new case of ink rash instead! Just blame the F’d up economy when you show up empty handed to your family gathering on Christmas morning! Your secret is safe with us!

For more info, point your peepers at www.bodyartexpo.com for a complete list of artists and entertainment on deck for the weekend!