About the Author
About the Author
This site is a repository of my tattoo-related thinkings and makings, and a healthy channel for the ineffable force that compelled me to pursue this bizarre carnival craft… continue
Category Archives: Tattoo
Poppies in Print
My dear friends Meghan and Paul got hitched early this year. Regretfully, I wasn't able to make their wedding but as any good friend would do I lurked their Facebook profiles and have been celebrating their union vicariously through their photos.
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Whale Bone & Human Flesh
Bookmistress recently delivered me a copy of “Skin & Bones, Tattoos in the Life of the American Sailor”, a thin but nonetheless interesting little catalogue for an exhibition hosted at the Independence Seaport Museum in Philly.
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Full Circle
Time, how she flies. This last month has been jam-packed with tattooing: working four days at Tattoo Zoo, my home shop in Victoria, and coming over to Vancouver to tattoo for three days at Sacred Heart Downtown. This seven-day-a-week streak lasted just over a month and has now settled into a comparatively relaxed five-day schedule.
Twenty and Ten
During this evening's LOTR-esque public transit journey from Victoria to Vancouver I savoured a few spare moments (“gift time” I call it) to reflect on the past year. Let me get all scientific-like and suggest that if you take an individual day as a representative sample of the year, today has been solid evidence that [...]
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Thomas Cave, Beanpicker,
and his Social Security Tattoo
I really love the atmosphere in historic black & white photos, especially photos where a bit of an old tattoo is visible. Once you've picked through a handful of historic tattoo photo books (Henk Schiffmacher's "1000 Tattoos" is a good place to start) you realize there are a finite number of vintage photos of tattooed [...]
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Cowboy Ornament and the Tattoo
For me, cowboy hats are so iconically American, iconically Canadian too, really, considering the significance of our Prairie provinces to Canadian identity. It's been my experience that a good cultural centrepiece usually has a lot of power as a tattoo. As an eight-year-old I saw my first episode of Bonanza, in German no less, while [...]
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New York State of Mind
Today I went and got myself tattooed by Chris David at Government Street Tattoo. (I gave the small painting above to Chris, a small token of thanks for the tattoo). I've been wanting to get something by him for awhile after seeing the bold and tidy traditional work he's put on for a couple friends. [...]
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She’s Possessed to Skate
Some stiff competition in tattooland today. Gerry put up a fun challenge to the shop: everyone takes the same flash (pictured left) as a starting point and has to re-draw it, adding their own twist, no looking at each other's drawing! It was great to see what everyone came up with and, despite starting with [...]
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Tattoos by Chris
Did up this little design from some anonymous historic flash during a great painting session at the shop with my ol' pal and coworker Bryan J. Turnbull. Lots of painting going on at the shop these days. It's fun doing something quick and simple to cap off the end of the day before heading home, [...]
Airwolf