tat zap wizard - resonanteye

Photos from Vancouver, WA Ink Traveler’s tattoo convention, 2009

16th of February 2009

In clients, conventions, events, female tattoo artist, photography, pictures, tat zap wizard, Tattoo, tattooing, travel,

"I'm here with Bob, but I love my wife"

burning it at both ends

What a great weekend! Lots of awesome art, prank wars getting started, screwdrivers and paintings. I had a wonderful time, and I also had one of the best valentine’s days ever. The Vancouver show is really fun. I’ve worked it a bunch of years in a row now. Felicia is super sweet and she’s in charge, and Scott does the announcing and contests.

,This year they had a pirate theme, personally I think that should be the theme every damn year, since the hotel is pretty much built for it. The hotel bar has the shittiest music loud ever, every damn night, the worst service, the weakest drinks…but the whole thing is built to look like you are drinking on the deck of a tall pirate ship…so who fuckin cares??? Plus there’s a slew of great artists every year.

Vancouver itself is a gritty little industrial ghost town. I took some time to wander it this year and discovered a wealth of weird industry and strange buildings, pawn shops selling giant 1930’s machine guns (sadly, non functional) and a few odd spots around town. It’s not exactly a haven of beauty but it is a weird little town and fully deserving of the few hours it took me to roam and take some pictures.

It’s the unofficial tradition that everyone goes to the crab shack on sunday after the show ends, and has a bucket of crabs and some beers. This alone make sthe show worth going to, since the raucous atmosphere of a cheeseball crab restaurant after hours cannot be explained- especially when you roll in to a crowd of starving tattooing artists all sitting around fucking with each other. The service in that place, by the way, is excellent.

more after the jump

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classy

18th of January 2009

In dos and donts, ethics, female tattoo artist, how-to, learning, old school, pictures, tat zap wizard, Tattoo, tattooing, travel,

sharp I was on the road once and stopped to visit Gil Montie. He’s a very helpful guy to younger artists; I really liked him once I spoke to him a few times. I stopped at his awesome shop (Tattoo Mania) in Texas, just to say hello, after seeing him and hanging out with him at a convention. He took a look at me- in road gear, dirty shirt, busted up cowboy hat, tired, bedraggled. and he told me that I had to make myself look better.

That I should respect the work I do enough to be professional about my appearance, and that I was better than that. That tattooers are important people, that we do useful work, and we should care about ourselves, each other, and the work we do. That what we do, who we are, means something. And that it should be taken seriously by us (if not by the world at large)

It kind of stunned me because I’d never thought of it before. I’d been a crusty like punker when I was younger and went through years of politically-charged poor hygiene…but now I was a professional.

He was right. Ever since then I’ve tried to maintain at least some semblance of good hygiene. I usually dress down for work but I wash my face before I go in. Anyone that’s worked with me will tell you that I have good days and bad days…I tend to the smelly side, always have, even when I’m clean. But some days I can manage to do it right. I’m not usually in a three piece suit, but it’s not unheard of. So here are some pictures from work yesterday…that sum it up well.

squid vs whale, collaboration

4th of December 2008

In collaborative work, learning, pictures, tat zap wizard, Tattoo, tattooing,

spent the night at work doing a collaborative piece with splat, hanging out with jason, our new artist, and making erok cry. A good time was had by all.

I have been doing collaborative work for a while now. As long as both artists are really communicative about the plans for the piece, things work out really well. You can use all your own strengths and ride on theirs, to compensate for your weaknesses.

For this tattoo, we each drew a side and then tattooed there mostly. But I’m sure once we get into the color we’ll start jumping back and forth.

He sat for two hours. Not a bad sitting for having two mean artists drill on you at once. Of course, this happens to one of my coworkers, too, so he knew what he was in for.

The hardest thing in a collaborative tattoo is getting a decent grip, enough to hold em still when your collaborator moves, stretches, lets go. That can be a pain in the ass. Sometimes you can have just one person do the outline on their own then both jump in for color, but with this tattoo we both worked the whole time.

More pictures after the jump.

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