Blog for August 2007

Thursday, August 30 2007 01:33 PM

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Thursday, August 30 2007 01:33 PM

Subject: Base Weblog Greg irons 2 Irons felt that the reason he never received the recognition enjoyed by some of his contemporaries in the comix world was because he did not have a continuing character for readers to follow, such as R. Crumb's Mr. Natural or Gilbert Shelton's Freak Brothers. Irons's did have Gregor, the Purple-Assed Baboon. This was a character that Irons felt was a metaphor for him. However, it wasn't until his later years that he used Gregor in his art. In an interview with Cascade Comix #19 Irons talked about Gregor: "His name is Gregor. Like Gregor Samsa in "The Metamorphosis". He was a cockroach, but this guy is a baboon. He's not really a baboon, he's a mandrill, but I call him a baboon. A lot of the writers and people that I like talk about monkeys in different places, like William Burroughs.... it's just an image that struck me." By the mid 1970s, the underground comix business began to fall off and Irons started doing more book illustrations. This work paid better than comix and during these years Greg worked for Troubadour Press and Sunset Books as well as doing a series of coloring books for Bellerophon Books. It was around this time that Irons began to move into the tattoo business. He had been tattooed many years earlier and admitted that tattoos had always fascinated him. His first tattoo, done in the 1960s, was the word "tattoo" on his left forearm Guitarist Peter Kaukonen recalled returning from a Jefferson Starship tour in 1972 with new tattoo work from Thom deVita of New York City. Peter said that when Greg saw this work and heard what Peter had paid for it, he began thinking about doing tattoos for a living. Greg's first tattoo equipment was mail ordered from Spaulding/Rogers around 1975. His first tattoo (that he did on himself) was crows and a skull on his right ankle. Peter is the proud owner of Greg's second tattoo, a Japanese style frog. Greg was doing this tattooing at his house but soon realized that he needed to get into a shop situation to really learn the art. This led to the start of his professional tattoo career in 1980 at Dean Dennis's shop at #394 Broadway in San Francisco. The leather jacket as seen above was painted by Greg. Dean Dennis had learned the trade from Lyle Tuttle in the mid 70s at the #30 Seventh Street shop, before opening his own place at #1523 and later #1543 Webster Street in Alameda, California. This location was just minutes from Dean's San Francisco home, as well as being home port to many navel personnel. Dean worked in Alameda for several years before leasing the #394 Broadway shop. To the left is an acetate stencil of one of Greg's designs. At this time I (C. W. Eldridge) was working in Calgary, Canada with Paul Jeffries. I left there on Christmas Day 1979 to work with Dean when he offered me a job at his new location. We started to work on the shop right away. The #394 Broadway storefront doesn't exist today, but at that time it was located between the Mystic Eye (occult supplies) and the Tibet Shop (Himalayan head shop). Affording views of the Transamerica Pyramid, San Francisco Bay and the topless clubs of North Beach, we thought it to be just about the perfect tattoo shop location in the world!

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Thursday, August 30 2007 01:32 PM

Subject: Base Weblog Greg Irons-1 Gregory Rodman Irons was born September 29, 1947 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His father was in advertising and his mother was a registered nurse. Greg attended Upper Marion High School up until the 10th grade and was involved in just about every aspect of the school newspaper. Greg's brother Mark said that Greg displayed intense interest in art at an early age, even at the risk of spankings. "He used to scribble all over the walls when he was young, and mother would wash them off and tell him to stop. Then one day, she moved the bed to vacuum under it, and she saw that Greg had crawled under the bed to draw all over the baseboards there." Greg was a self-taught artist, whose early influences were the Mad pocket book reprints featuring Kurtzman, Elder, Wood, and Davis. Irons moved to San Francisco during the winter of 1967 and created a rock poster for a band playing at the ballroom, The Western Front. With this printed poster in hand, Irons went to see Bill Graham and got an art gig for an upcoming concert at the Fillmore Auditorium. Ultimately, Bill Graham Productions commissioned Irons for a series of posters for great bands of that era, including Moby Grape, Paul Butterfield, Jefferson Airplane, Crosby-Stills-Nash & Young, Albert King and Santana, to name just a few. Many of these posters can be seen in the book The Art of Rock. 1968 found Irons in London doing animation and working on the Beatle's classic animated film Yellow Submarine. On his return to San Francisco in 1969, he resumed his work on rock posters for Bill Graham's Fillmore Auditorium and Chet Helm's The Family Dog and began designing album covers for Mercury Records and Bill Graham's Fillmore label. During this period he produced promotional material for Jefferson Airplane's label, Grunt Records. One of my favorite album covers was the one he did for Jerry Garcia's bluegrass band, Old and In the Way. This album has been re-issued with the original Irons's artwork. Look for it! Poster and album work eventually led to Irons being published in Yellow Dog, a Print Mint commix where he was invited by Bob Rita to do a comix of his own. This resulted in Heavy, published in 1969 and a second comix Light, followed soon after. A Yellow Dog cover is seen to the right. The 1970s found Irons illustrating Tom Veitch's stories. Ron Turner of Last Gasp published a lot of this material and it was there that Irons began producing regularly. Last Gasp's first book, Slow Death #1, which came out on the first Earth Day April 1, 1970, featured an Irons's cover. One of the more obscure collaborations with Veitch was The Mick Jagger Story, about Jagger's testicles being snipped off by a groupie. The story was ready to be published by Rolling Stone when Jagger got wind of it and put a stop to it. It was eventually published in the newspaper Organ. Although Irons took a lot of heat for the sex and violence in his work, he was not afraid to tackle social issues. His Auto-Be Recycled was a commentary on the wastefulness of the auto salvage industry, cover seen below. The Legion of Charlies tackled the Charles Manson story and the Town That Fought To Save Itself was commentary about the environment. He also did a piece on the horrors of whaling and Slow Death #10 was about cancer.

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Thursday, August 30 2007 01:30 PM

Subject: Base Weblog Don Ed Hardy Don Ed Hardy, born in 1945 in Southern California, pursued his childhood determination to become a tattoo artist. In 1967 he received his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in printmaking from the San Francisco Art Institute where he learned classic intaglio techniques. During that same year he began tattooing as an apprentice. From early on, Asian art and culture have been Hardy’s primary guiding light. In 1973 he lived in Japan, becoming the first non-Asian to study with a traditional tattoo master. More recently he has focused on the history of Chinese and Japanese brush painting. His paintings and prints are informed by a wide range of world art history; iconic, amuletic, and decorative forms developed through years of tattooing; and surf and hotrod culture from his youth in Southern California. Since 1982 Hardy and his wife, Francesca Passalacqua, have published twenty books on alternative art under their “Hardy Marks” imprint. Hardy has had extensive solo and group shows in galleries and museums and in 2001 was the sole U.S. representative at the 7th Biennial of Painting in Cuenca, Ecuador. Additionally, he has curated a number of exhibitions for both private and public spaces and often lectures at museums and universities. Although currently living in Honolulu, he continues to operate Tattoo City in San Francisco’s North Beach.

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Thursday, August 30 2007 01:29 PM

Subject: Base Weblog Charlie Wagner Much has been written about this New York City tattooist. He seems to have been the focal point for the press for his generation of tattoo artists. Wagner worked the Bowery for over 50 years starting in the1890s until his death in 1953. This fact alone may explain the amount of press coverage that he received. Wagner was not undeserving of this attention, based on the quality of his tattooing alone. To his credit, he tattooed some of the major attractions of that era, in addition to other claims to fame. One of Wagner's more important contributions was his tattoo machine ideas that he patented in 1904. This patent was the first tattoo machine patented with coils in a vertical position, that is, in line with the tube assembly. This was a major improvement on machine design; in fact most machines built today use this alignment. Another of Charlie's endeavors that is not well known today was his supply business. The patenting of his machine idea in 1904 may have been the spark that set off his supply business. We don't know if this 1904 tattoo machine was ever manufactured in any numbers and to date, none are known to exist. With the expert help of Bill Jones, Wagner should have been able to sell many tattoo machines throughout the years. A few years ago, the Archive came across a Charles Wagner Tattoo Supply pricelist! (as seen below) It was mailed to Fred Marquand in the 1920s. It resembled more of a list of items and prices rather than a catalog. Handwritten on an 8.5 x 11" sheet of paper, it was a mimeographed copy of an inventory of items. There were no illustrations and no photos. There were a few flash samples enclosed but they were poorly printed in gray ink on thin paper. This is a bit of a surprise coming from the man who was billed as the "Michelangelo of Tattooing". Other suppliers of that era, like Waters and Miller, sold their wares through very fancy multi-paged catalogs showing photographs of their machines and pages of illustrations of the flash that they offered. In a 1925 letter, Wagner seemed sure that he did not need the added expense of the fancy catalog to sell his items. This is a far cry from what his competitors were turning out. In this direct quote from his letter, and note the spelling and choppy sentences, Wagner said, "Eventually you will buy frome (sic) me as I am the only one having a U.S. patent tattooing machine and electric devices issued by the U.S. Patent Office, no other supply house can show you these machines, (they) are the best, none better at any price anywhere. This letter was signed, "I remain Prof. Chas. Wagner, 208 Bowery, N.Y. City." Albert Parry in his book Tattoo, notes that there were four suppliers who advertised during the Depression, but Wagner was not among them. The tattoo legend has it that Wagner lost a small fortune in the Wall Street Crash of 1929. In the years after the crash, Wagner could be seen at the front of his shop in an effort to pull in potential customers. By the 1940s these supplier ads were back, along with Wagner's good fortune. In formulating this article, a couple of questions came to mind. Why does a simple mimeographed price list seem out of place for a tattooist who worked so hard to cultivate an urban sophisticated image? And why, if his supply business was so successful, have so few of his wares survived? Charlie Wagner, one of America's great tattoo legends is seen below tattooing Andy Strutz in the early 1900s. Wagner tattooed in New York City from the 1890s up until his death in 1953. Working on the Bowery in lower Manhattan, Wagner took over the shop space at 11 Chatham Square that Samuel O 'Reilly had occupied for many years. As a matter of fact, Charlie Wagner really carried on where O'Reilly left off in more ways than one. They both patented a tattooing machine, and both became very famous for tattooing sideshow attractions. Samuel O'Reilly patented the first tattooing machine in 1891 (patent #464,801). Wagner improved upon that design and received his own patent in 1904 (768,413). Would-be sideshow attractions flocked to O'Reilly after hearing about his new tattooing device, believing that it would be faster and less painful to acquire the necessary coverage for show business work. The list of attractions tattooed by O'Reilly reads like the who's who of the turn of the century sideshow: The Howard's, John Hayes, The William's, The de Burgh's, Calavan, and Melivan. The list goes on and on. After O'Reilly's death in 1908, Charlie Wagner took over much of this attraction business and went on to establish himself as one of the major forces in the tattoo world.

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Saturday, August 18 2007 11:47 AM

Subject: Base Weblog Bob Shaw Bob Shaw was a beloved tattooist who, at the age if sixteen, had a full set of sleeves from Bert Grimm. Bob learned the art of tattooing from Bert, and after getting out of the US Army in 1946 Bob went on to work with Jack Tryon, Earl Brown, Col Todd and many others. Following is a timeline of Bob Shaw's life. 1926 - Bob was born June 22nd. 1934 - The future Mrs. Wanda Shaw was born, February 13th. 1941 - Bob moved to St. Louis, Missouri to live with his older brother. Bob's first job was a dishwasher just around the corner from Bert Grimm's shop on Broadway. Soon Bob was hanging out at Bert's shop late in to the night and couldn't get up in the morning for his dishwashing job. When Bob was fired from this job, Bert gave him a part-time job helping Julia (Bert's wife) with their photo business. Bob asked Bert to teach him tattooing and Bert said yes. By September 1941, Bob had done his first tattoo. 1942 - Bob was 16 years old and he already had a set of sleeves by Bert Grimm! Bob first met Milton Zeis in 1942 at Bert's shop. 1943 - Bob enlisted in the United States Army in October. 1946 - Discharged from the Army in March. 1948-As Bob put it, "In 1948 I had the pleasure of watching Coleman work." 1949 - Bert got Bob a job in San Antonio, Texas working with Jack Tryon, who at this time, was working out of a circus wagon. 1952 - Tex Rowe visited San Antonio and stated, "Jack Tryon was semi-retired and Bob Shaw was working his joint." 1955 - San Antonio was closed to tattooing and did not open again until 1975. 1958 - Bob worked with Earl Brown in Biloxi, Mississippi. 1959 - He worked with Col. Todd in Clarksville, Tennessee. 1960 - Bob moved to Hopkinsville, Kentucky to work with Col Todd. 1964 - Bob moved to Long Beach, California to work with Bert at the Nu-Pike. 1969 - Bob bought Bert's shop at #22 Chestnut, Long Beach. 1972 - Larry Shaw, Bob youngest son, started tattooing at the Long Beach shop. 1973 - Col. Todd moved west where he and Bob Shaw took over management of Bert's Nu-Pike shop. That same year when Bobby, Bob's son got out of the Army, Shaw and Todd opened a shop in Santa Ana so Bobby and a new guy on the block Bob Roberts, could learn to tattoo. 1976 - Shaw and Todd bought Bert Grimm's San Diego shop. 1978 - Shaw and Todd bought Bert's Portland, Oregon shop. 1983 - The Shaw family moved to Aransas Pass, Texas. 1983 to 1988 - Bob was vice-president of the National Tattoo Association. 1989 - Bob Shaw was interviewed for Tattootime #5. 1989 to 1993 - Bob was President of the National Tattoo Association. 1993 - Bob died on March 17th. 2002 - Wanda died on April 26th.

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Saturday, August 18 2007 11:46 AM

Subject: Base Weblog Bert Grimm Bert Grimm started hanging around tattoo shops in Portland Oregon when he was about 11 or 12 years old, and the shops of Sailor Gus, Sailor George and Charlie Western became his home away from home. Bert was given his first tattooing outfit in 1912 and for the next 70 plus years Bert Grimm was a fixture in the tattoo world. Early in his career, Grimm spent a season with the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show. Throughout the years he operated shops in Chicago, Honolulu, Salt Lake City, Las Vegas, Seattle, Los Angeles, Long Beach, St Louis, Portland and Seaside Oregon, and China. The photograph below shows Bert in St. Louis. Bert worked with some of the greats in the business, including, Domingo Gulang, Charlie Barr, Tatts Thomas, Red Gibbons, Walter Torun, Bob Shaw, and Col Todd, to name a few. Bert is probably best remembered today for the shop that he operated at the Nu Pike in Long Beach, CA from the 1950s to the late 60s. The Nu Pike was a large amusement park that goes back to 1897 and was home for dozens of tattooists. Bert Grimm's World Famous Tattoo was historic. It was the oldest continuously operated tattoo parlor in the continental United States where generations of sailors got inked up before shipping out. Today the Pike is only a memory but I am glad to say the Bert Grimm tattoo shop located at #22 Chestnut Place, which was in jeopardy of becoming part of a Long Beach condominium development, was purchased in March of 2004 by Kari Barba and two silent partners. Barba plans to turn part of it into a museum about the shop and continue operating it as a tattoo shop. Bert was inducted into the Tattoo Hall of Fame, then located at the Lyle Tuttle's Tattoo Art Museum at #30 Seventh Street in San Francisco. The photograph to the right shows one of Bert's masterpieces as worn by Lyle Tuttle. In the later years of his life Bert retired in the small Oregon town of Seaside. He was not able to stay away from the tattoo business so he set up a small tattoo shop in his home. In a letter written to Paul Rogers during this time Bert stated that he did about 10 tattoos a week out of his house.

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Saturday, August 18 2007 11:45 AM

Subject: Base Weblog History Lesson 1. August "Capt." Coleman was born in 1884 near Cincinnati, Ohio. Although Coleman claimed his father was also a tattooist, his name has not surfaced as part of tattoo history. In fact, Paul Rogers was always a bit skeptical about that story. It is of course well known that Coleman settled in Norfolk, VA around 1918 and quickly became a living legend in the tattoo business. It is unclear who did Coleman's tattooing but some of it was probably done by hand. Many of Coleman's tattoos, which included the large eagle, the flag chest piece, the ship on the stomach, the sun designs on the kneecaps, and the fancy socks design, could be seen on the small statue that was displayed in his shop window in Norfolk. This statue is now part of the Mariner's Museum collection in Newport News, Virginia. When Coleman set up shop on East Main Street in Norfolk VA, it was one of the more "colorful" streets in town. Norfolk was a major seaport at this time with ships from around the world arriving and departing daily. The street was lined with tattoo shops with plenty of sailors to fill them. Coleman's shop was located near the old Majestic Theatre, later known as the Gaiety Theater, a favorite striptease and burlesque house frequented by sailors. A sheet of Coleman's flash is featured below. Coleman's business card stated that he offered cover work, supplies including needles, designs, colors, stencils, and machines. Coleman used this card for many years, but his approach to the supply business was very low key. Coleman seemed to be very sure of his position in the tattoo world, as was noted on his elaborate two-sided business card. The card shows two photos of him and mentions all the magazines that had featured articles on him. He didn't even think it was necessary to mention his address, and simply stated, "Look for Coleman's place on Main Street." August "Cap" Coleman (1884-1973) August "Capt." Coleman was born in 1884 near Cincinnati, Ohio. Although Coleman claimed his father was also a tattooist, his name has not surfaced as part of tattoo history. In fact, Paul Rogers was always a bit skeptical about that story. It is of course well known that Coleman settled in Norfolk, VA around 1918 and quickly became a living legend in the tattoo business. It is unclear who did Coleman's tattooing but some of it was probably done by hand. Many of Coleman's tattoos, which included the large eagle, the flag chest piece, the ship on the stomach, the sun designs on the kneecaps, and the fancy socks design, could be seen on the small statue that was displayed in his shop window in Norfolk. This statue is now part of the Mariner's Museum collection in Newport News, Virginia.

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Saturday, August 18 2007 11:44 AM

Subject: Base Weblog MySpace Ok so I started promoting my profile on myspace to my customers. I even offer them deals an shit special through myspace right? So why the fuck is it that I have my profile for here and there on my business cards and only 2 people have bothered to add me as a friend? Seems like a fucking waste of time. I just don't understand people. I am nice as fuck to them when I tattoo them. I don't rape them on prices. I do a good job. All I am asking is add me to your friends list and maybe let some of your friends know who did you tattoo. Is it too much to ask? Fuck. OK done ranting. Someday I will post a blog about happy flowers or some shit.

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Thursday, August 16 2007 10:16 PM

Subject: Base Weblog When You Have Nothing To Say, Rant On Forever. I am bored. Not in the sense of at this moment (though I am) but bored with life. I have a wander lust that can't be fulfilled. My poor decision making in life has seen to that. The road calls, but being responsible turns a deaf ear towards it. A weary family man is what I am. Mid life crisis long before mid life. At times I am expected to hold the world on my shoulders, as many parents have to. Decisions must be made, unwinable battles fought. At the end of the day your just another average person. I believe they call that being an unsung hero. I believe it's just being a person. Average, ordinary, forgotten before your even gone. For the record, I never write these things when I am in a good mood. I am not always so glum.

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Wednesday, August 01 2007 09:42 AM

Subject: Base Weblog Need a New Perspective I have been tattooing since the age of 15. Now at almost 28 years old I realize I didn't know jack shit. Yeah I thought I was so cool tattooing so young. And I let people know that at the time I was the youngest professional tattoo artist in Cincy. I thought that I knew what I was doing. The first thing that began to shatter this point of view was when I learned to see a good tattoo. I knew what a good tattoo was and I sure wasn't doing them. Sure my client's loved what I was putting on them, but not to sound like a dick, but they didn't know jack from shit. The second was death. I almost died at 20 years old. This forces you to respect the nature of our universe. I was humbled. My mind was open. I learned more about tattooing at that period in my life than I had before that. I was open. After my father died, I quit tattooing and went to college. I was gonna be a white collar man. Tattooing seeps into you, grabs a hold and won't let go. I had to come to terms with the fact that my father put me on a path and there was no going back for me. For better or worse this is what I do. College did open some newly undiscovered artistic talents. I learned to draw. I learned to be neat clean and perfect as my teachers said. Meanwhile the industry moved on from what I had known. The ante was upped. The new talents rising within the industry were amazing. It just so happened that one of the talents I had discovered at school was an affinity for realism. Ironically realism and portraits were becoming more and more popular within tattooing. Had I found a niche? I believe so. So I am embarking on the path to become a portrait and realism artist. I still have much to learn and with each mistake I learn more and more. I have recently come to notice that while my abilities as an artist grew, I have stagnated as a tattoo artist. I know I can do better. I just need a new perspective again.

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