Farmer Joe’s dahlias.
- In brag, clients, female tattoo artist, flowers, hobo, tat zap wizard, Tattoo, travel, true stories,
Otherwise known as Bill the Butcher vs. Amsterdam
Te voy a enseñar a hablar Inglés con este cuchillo.
I’m learning instagram! Also, man tears and logging tattoos.
This is Cody. He’s teaching me to instagram. (my name there is resonanteye)
this isn’t political or anything, I just have a fetish for eye-water.
simple tulip I colored in.
just some sky.
a gang of doglets.
added on to an older tattoo I did years ago.
how that tattoo looked all healed up before we added the text and sunset colors.
an inch.
apprentices.
I'm learning instagram! Also, man tears and logging tattoos.
This is Cody. He’s teaching me to instagram. (my name there is resonanteye)
this isn’t political or anything, I just have a fetish for eye-water.
simple tulip I colored in.
just some sky.
a gang of doglets.
added on to an older tattoo I did years ago.
how that tattoo looked all healed up before we added the text and sunset colors.
an inch.
apprentices.
why does everything have those three lines and/or dots in it?
I always use three lines/three dots on anything I do. Sometimes they’re front and center, the focal point of the art, and Sometimes they’re obscured- hidden in the backdrop or repeated in a pattern so as to be less noticeable.
I began doing this because of the greek character Ξ, Xi. There’s a few layers of meaning there, and all of them combined made me interested in the symbol/shape, and that interest led to me using it as a part of my signature for a while. After that it migrated, getting further detached from my initials, and becoming more a part of the artwork. And from there it just sort of infiltrated every piece I make.
Back in the 80s-90s I was really interested in mindhacks and psychedelics and pTv and related art and music.
I did some work with sigils. I’m not a believer, not even agnostic, but I do know that our subconscious is a strong force, and that affecting it, changing it, tinkering in there, can bring some odd results. Working with visual symbols is one of my ongoing experiments- using an eye as the main focal point in a painting that is smaller and might be stolen from a gallery (even the most abstract eye affects the behavior of the people around it- see this study for details) or using hands, in various gestures, to suggest action to the viewer.
So while I have an abiding interest in all these things I am not any kind of believer. I do entertain the idea that Jung may have had a good point about how symbols and visual cues lead us, and have an impact on our lives, so it’s always been my effort to find ways to incorporate these things, at least subtly, into my work. The three lines/dots is a personal symbol, though, which I use in my art to influence MYSELF. So in the sense of it meaning something to the viewer, maybe- it’s done intentionally as a prompt to myself while working, though.
skulls, bones, dead things, and where they come from.
Originally published on 11/16/2013
I want to talk a little bit about my materials. Mainly because I read a lot of forums and craft and art blogs, and tend to see the same comments over and over about artists that work with taxidermy or animal remains.
Nature isn’t cruel or kind; it’s just hungry.
I get a lot of questions about various things I use- mostly about bones and skulls, but a lot of people have asked about other things too- plants, rocks. Usually people are just being dense- “did you kill all those raccoons?” or “who do you have buried in the crawlspace?” or, even better, “ewwww it’s dead!” A lot of people saying this also eat fast food, buy meat at the grocery store, and let their cats roam outdoors…
I work humanely- in a sense. I don’t kill anything to make my art but yes, they are real bones and skulls. I get them from a lot of different sources. Most of the game animal bones and skulls I get from hunters- I have friends who hunt for food, and who will give me remains to work with. Most of the deer, elk, and turkey skulls and bones I use come from these sources. I also get bones from family farms- chicken, pig, and goose or turkey bones, even a few ostrich and cow remains. Most of these animals are also killed for food.
I don’t use anything from factory farms, just farms where the animals are treated well. I know this is enough to upset some people but since I also eat meat I don’t feel bad about it- I WOULD feel awful using factory-farmed items. However if I came across some, or had a source, I might use them; that piece would probably be pretty damned dark though. I tend to work with the feelings the animal’s remains give me, to make a piece that expresses the creature’s life.
I know a lot of artists who work with animal remains are a bit more humorous than I am, or more light-hearted about it in general. I do see the remains as a medium but at the same time I don’t feel good making jokes at the animal’s expense. Very rarely I get a skull or part which is light, and happy- I will sometimes make a brighter piece with those. Usually though animals live difficult lives, and their bones speak to me about this, so I don’t work very light very often.
I get questioned partly I think because of artists that do slaughter animals in the context of their work. While I don’t do this, I don’t find these artists offensive at all, it’s just not my own way of working. I don’t think it’s horrible. I have hunted for food myself, and been present for slaughtering at farms. Again- I don’t think it’s awful if you eat at KFC, either. I just personally don’t.
Some of my pieces come from road strikes. I have been working steadily on a series of photographs and an extended essay about roadside nature and roadkill, about human safety and how highways affect the animals that live near them. As a consequence of this work I have come across a LOT of roadside remains. I did get a license to collect roadkill in several states (not all states need one, but some do) and have spent a great deal of time working with these remains. A lot of these wild animals are obvious survivors of repeated injuries (fractures and old healed injuries in their skeletons attest to this) and the way they interact with the road fascinates me.
No, I have not used anything I myself ran over.
Most of my feathers come from friend’s farms. Almost all of my plant matter comes from my own place- I live on the edge of the Siuslaw, and not only the yard/forest of my house but the clearcuts nearby furnish most of my lichens, moss, and wood. I do a lot of beach collecting too. I live in Oregon, and it is legal to collect many things here, since all beaches are public. I do refrain from collecting in park areas, since those are restricted. I also don’t collect or mess with the remains of pinnipeds, or vertebrate fossils- just invertebrate fossils, collected in nonrestricted areas.
I have a few skulls and things which I have purchased. A few mink, fox, and beaver skulls which I am certain are fur trade castoffs- these items have a very dark feeling to them, and so the pieces built with them reflect that. I also have used vervet monkey skulls- the importation of these was a pain in the neck, and they are killed as a nuisance animal- so they too have a very dark feeling. Like I said, the horrors of life, death, the hard times most animals go through, are the reason my work is not light-hearted and silly. I don’t use anything illegal, and I avoid using items which may violate CITES or the MBA. (More information on the legality of animal remains is available here, if you are interested.)
I don’t work much with animals that are domestic pets, but I occasionally get some materials this way. Usually these are used for commissions for the previous owner. Some of these are more light and happy. I’ve worked with a very battered stray-dog skull, just making that piece was very upsetting. It wasn’t a joke to me.
I’ve worked with human bones too. This is where people tend to be most alarmed- although in reality it is easier to buy human bone than many animals! I get most of my human bone specimens from places which sell vintage anatomical displays, or from places such as necromance (among others) which sell oddities. Yes, these bones are legal. No, I didn’t kill anyone to get them. And YES, they are expensive for a reason. Again- most of these works are dark. I don’t get silly feelings from death.
I’ve sold work and done commissions for vegans- for people who are animal and conservation activists. My work is intended to speak about the way people are oblivious to the natural world. Nature is full of drama, death, struggle, and strangeness. I try to use the materials I have to portray that. Reminders of mortality are not for everyone. Horrific art is not for everyone. There are people who cannot sit through a horror movie and people who cannot listen to a description of how their hamburger was made. My work is not for these people, really- although knowing that my work may have given them pause or made them think about these things, about the darker side of life, is kind of the point.
Originally Published on: Apr 19, 2012
Bus to CA, poetry from my book “Tar and Gravel”
- In geek, hobo, money, travel, true stories,
from tar and gravel
bus to CA
There’s something beautiful and comforting about grey vomit stains barely scrubbed from velveteen seat backs and
something about the dense air and useless frustrated wanderlust of the greyhound station and the greyhound itself, this universe of breakdowns
in Pierre North Dakota and Weed, CA that makes me calm. Patience. It makes my mind shut tight and arrange itself compulsively. checking
repeatedly for wallet, keys, ticket, the automatic functions of the reptile brain fully involved;
Making sure nothing is lost, nobody touches me, children don’t climb and I
in the meantime have killed the upper brain.
Feet automatically avoiding the sprawl of wild loud children with sticky fingers and dirty pink too-tight shirts where they sit on the floor at the entrance
to the terminal; thirteen slightly torn and stretched garbage bags full of towels, clothes, toys, no books but I can see the handle of
a cast-iron fry pan
clearly outlined in the plastic, spilling around the children is the detritus of people who don’t
realize that frying pans are available at thrift stores in duluth as well as southern california.
Bus to CA, poetry from my book "Tar and Gravel"
- In geek, hobo, money, travel, true stories,
from tar and gravel
bus to CA
There’s something beautiful and comforting about grey vomit stains barely scrubbed from velveteen seat backs and
something about the dense air and useless frustrated wanderlust of the greyhound station and the greyhound itself, this universe of breakdowns
in Pierre North Dakota and Weed, CA that makes me calm. Patience. It makes my mind shut tight and arrange itself compulsively. checking
repeatedly for wallet, keys, ticket, the automatic functions of the reptile brain fully involved;
Making sure nothing is lost, nobody touches me, children don’t climb and I
in the meantime have killed the upper brain.
Feet automatically avoiding the sprawl of wild loud children with sticky fingers and dirty pink too-tight shirts where they sit on the floor at the entrance
to the terminal; thirteen slightly torn and stretched garbage bags full of towels, clothes, toys, no books but I can see the handle of
a cast-iron fry pan
clearly outlined in the plastic, spilling around the children is the detritus of people who don’t
realize that frying pans are available at thrift stores in duluth as well as southern california.
Magical books and helpful ghosts.
My partner, Hawkins, likes magic. He has a vast library of books on it, and is really interested in magic. Not “wizard” magic- stage magic. Magic tricks. Cards, rabbits in hats, Penn and Teller…that stuff. You know, the Tony Wonder kinda thing.
He has this book, which he bought in the fall sometime.
an “all right” book on magic.
Tonight, as we were reading before bed, he remarked that this particular book was full of very helpful notes. One that explained a trick, and another without which the trick in the book couldn’t even be done. “Whoever owned this before was awesome,” he said. I asked to see the book- every page had highlighted notes, little margin scribbles, every page. I flipped to the front to see when the book came out and saw this at the top of the page, as well as an embossed monogram “JMH”
why I’m even making a post about this.
Now, I’m curious as hell about everything. So I turned to the internet and searched.
this guy.
“Wow, he was in the Army, and he had a lot of family. Hey he did magic as a hobby and liked books! Sounds like you!” I said. “I guess that’s why they sold the books, he died in June.”
“So his kids probably sold off his library,” Hawkins said. Then he looked thoughtful. “I wonder how many other dead people’s books I’ve got.”
I looked around at the shelves full of old, dusty books on every wall, and said “All of them.”
Things your tattoo artist doesn’t tell you. (Part Two)
hourglass and burnt candle. two things.
Part one is here.
You can only get one tattoo at a time. I can only do one tattoo at a time. I know you have ten things you want to put into a tattoo- but that’s ten tattoos. And we can only do one thing at a time. Each important concept should have its own singular tattoo.
Most of the time, you can pick two things. One object and one word or phrase. Two objects. And a color or mood for the background. That’s the limit, pretty much, for coherent, cohesive art on the skin. How big or small the tattoo is doesn’t really matter too much, with this. Good tattoos have flow, and are good to look at. Adding too much subject matter to any one space usually ends up terrible.
You have six siblings and you want to get a tattoo that represents ALL of them. So you think of six tattoos, and then ask us to somehow make that into one tattoo.
NO.
You can only get one tattoo at a time! If you need a tattoo for each of your siblings, I am sorry but you will either need to pick one thing that represents all of them, or get six tattoos.
