Great turnout for our 10 Yr. Anniversary at the Arts Factory Bar + Bistro in the Las Vegas Arts District. This event was a big reunion for all our friends, clients and employees. Thanks to everyone who spent the night celebrating our 10 years of “Blood, Sweat & Beers”, your support of our family and business is priceless.
Tattoos and military has gone hand in hand through the history of time, from the fighting sailors of the Pacific landing in the ports of Honolulu in Chinatown, to present day branches of military personnel acquiring tattoos. Although the conditions of tattoo shops and the industry today has changed dramatically since the rough and ready times of the old sea dog legend, Norman “Sailor Jerry” Collins’ tattooing, military was synonymous with getting inked. Bob Baxter post an interesting blog on the military’s changing views on tattoos.
http://tattooroadtrip.com/blog/army-set-ban-tattoos-elbow-knees/
Another little history of maritime tattoos.
There are a lot of tattoos out there that tattoo enthusiasts have acquired through their lifetime that they regret, or wished could be improved. There is hope for some of those situations, it just takes a little time to consult with your artist and figure out a solution. Whatever the situation, do not rush the project. Research and due diligence is worth your time and effort. Our studio handles all kinds of issues and problems with existing tattoos. The key is trusting your tattoo artist and being open to suggestions. Total cover-ups may be the answer to some projects as opposed to re-working an existing tattoo to look brand new. Don’t loose hope if you are in that situation, often solutions are there, you just need to find the right tattoo artist for the project. Keep in mind there are some projects that an honest artist will admit that he cannot work with, it happens, so listen up. This particular tattoo circulated the internet and had a happy ending for the customer and his artist, thought you might find it interesting.
http://www.needlesandsins.com/2013/02/worlds-worst-tattoo-fixed-says-all-news-media.html
When you sit around the old timers and listen to them talk about the old days of tattooing, they give vivid descriptions of typical sponge and bucket shops located on busy, seedy avenues populated by sailors, prostitutes, drunks, and bums. Throngs of young men wearing white “dixie cup” hats and dungarees on liberty packed shops on paydays, and the drunks formed endless lines through the door. The tattooers worked with handmade equipment: hand cut stencils; tubes made from car antennas; needle bars made from bicycle spokes; a bucket for the water and sponge; and, a set of twelve needles to last the year. Only flash hung on the walls, and perhaps a sign saying “No Minors” or “Pay in Advance.” There was no sanitation. It was Spartan and gritty.
Sailor Jerry had a small, but modern tattoo shop at 150 N. Hotel Street in Honolulu, Hawaii. It was modern in that it was a sterile shop with individual servings of ink for each customer, and nothing was reused unless it was sterilized. Tattoo tubes and needles may have been used several times, but they were washed, scrubbed, packaged, and autoclaved. Sailor Jerry wrote,
Today, all across the United States, most of the remaining shops that are in operation work clean, using sterile gauze sponges rather than toilet paper or a rag for wiping off the surplus ink and color, autoclaved sterile dressings in place of the old paper napkins, and they change the tube and needle on the machine after every job instead of just rinsing it out in a bucket of water.
This was a necessary departure from tattoo practices that spread communicable diseases, caused infections, and cross contamination. Tattoo shops not adhering to these practices were eventually shut down by health inspectors.
The display of the old shop front at Studio 21 Tattoo can be viewed from the parking lot. Phil Luck, who tattoos at Studio 21, set up this display to look like Sailor Jerry’s shop on Hotel Street. Although this is not Sailor Jerry’s original equipment, these are some of the items tattooers operating a sterile shop would have used. There is a sterilization desk with separate drawers for dirty and clean tubes. There is not an autoclave in this display, but there is a pressure pot to sterilize tubes and needles. Also, there are a few pipes for a hand free smoke while tattooing.
On the walls of this display are several examples of pre-war flash, and flash from the 1940’s. These were bold tattoo designs with a few colors that would take minutes for Sailor Jerry, or any tattooer operating at the time, to tattoo on hundreds of customers a month. In the corner of the display is an antique business cards from Brooklyn Blackie in Coney Island, Joe and Mable Darpel from Texas, Mildred form the Bowery of New York, to name a few. Crazy Philadelphia Eddie estimates that there were three hundred tattooers around the globe at that time. If his estimations are correct, these ten cards represent roughly three percent of all the tattooers in the world at that time!
If you are ever in Las Vegas, or if you live in the area, come by Studio 21 Tattoo to check out the display. It is visible twenty-four hours a day. Although we have progressed with the times at this tattoo shop, our cleanliness and sterilization practices were developed from the same practices as the tattoo pioneers and their modern shops. We hope our display gives you an idea about the state of the art in tattooing at that time. As the old saying goes, “we are as ancient as yesterday, and as modern as tomorrow.”
– Eric Foemmel
An innocent moment of joking around with a fellow tattooer and creating a challenge between the two of them morphed into an Instagram live stream of drawing battles amongst tattoo artists in the USA. The idea was born thanks to Austin Spencer of Studio 21 Tattoo Gallery and Jonathan Penchoff of Black Lotus Tattoo. The rules were created and the battles began on Instagram @TattooFightClub. The enthusiasm and frenzy of participation has been overwhelming, 10,000 followers in less than two weeks is an exciting marketing accomplishment for the two artists. The elevated artistic level of tattoo artists has always been out there, but not everyone has had the opportunity to be exposed to it. Through Instagram, anyone can follow the feed to see all the crazy creative talent posted by tattoo artists. The Tattoo Fight Club has captured the attention of both artists and fans. For more information on the brilliant idea of Austin and Jonathan, the Las Vegas Weekly was on the stands last week.
http://www.lasvegasweekly.com/news/2012/sep/24/week-old-tattoo-fight-club-running-wild-instagram/
