Humans of my household: How my father became an artist

 It’s a lot of pain, and a lot of stress. If you don’t think art is stressful, you aren’t doing it right. There’s different aspects. With a tattoo, it has to be crisp, clean and perfect, whereas something on a t- shirt, or even a painting doesn’t have to be perfect. A painting is meant to be looked at from 6 feet back, so if there’s some blemishes it’s okay, and those imperfections sometimes add to the piece. There’s no room for error in a tattoo. 

I started drawing because of my cousins. I idolized them, and did everything that they did. If I saw something really cool, I had to know how to do it, and the same is true now. They used to draw hot rods, dragons — stuff like that. 

School was redundant, repetitive, tedious — it was the same shit every year. I got bored really easily, and I still do. A lot of my teachers had a rule with me: “If you don’t come to class, I’ll pass you.” It was the best way to avoid the chance of me acting out in class or making any teachers angry. I got banned from art class in the 9th grade for supposedly inciting a clay fight and making the substitute teacher quit. I didn’t even throw any clay! That was the one class I wanted to be in because we got to paint something cool on the windows for the whole school to see. But I was seen as the ringleader of mischief. In place of some class assignments, they’d just make me draw them a picture for credit. It all worked out. I grew up in a prison, and I was always in trouble for something stupid. With all of that free time on my hands, I’d just sit there and draw. I’d get lost in it. I used to draw these huge murals on my school desks. I’d come back the next day to find that someone had written, “dude, who sits here?” next to my artwork. 

When I was about 14 I started drawing skulls, roses, and had a big emphasis on album covers — The Swan Song guy from Led Zepplin, and Van Halen logos to name a couple. I never thought about being a tattoo artist at that point. It was weird though because in junior high, I used to take those little felt-tip pens and draw fake tattoos on people in math class. I’d bust out a few of those and have money for tater-tots by lunch. 

I’d draw on anything from envelopes to nakpins. I had a girl that used to pay me to come over to her house and draw on her kitchen table. I had all of these different designs melting into each other, heavily influenced by album covers and the Grateful Dead. When I was younger I never had any money so I’d give drawings as gifts, which is honestly more personal. 

There was a kid who came by my house back in 89’ asking for some old guitar strings. I was like, “I didn’t know you played guitar.”

“I don’t,” he said. 

Then he took some batteries and the motor out of a tape recorder and rigged up a tattoo machine. I drew a little flying eyeball with wings on him, and we laughed our asses off the whole time. No gloves, and ink spraying everywhere. I knew him from school, I think. He was seeing a girl down the road and he always came by, until he owed me money. He later forgot he owed me. I came home one day to find him on my couch, and I promptly tipped him upside down and emptied his pockets. 

There was a Wednesday afternoon I spent with my friend Marcus. I drew this really cool sun on a paper towel, and he dabbled in tattoos a little bit. I wanted him to put me in the chair, but he wanted to go rollerblading. 

“Fuck it, show me how to set it up,” I said. “I’ll do it myself.” 

So I sat there and drilled myself in the side of my leg for 5 hours in Marcus’ kitchen while he was out. I didn’t know any better. He came back and took the equipment away from me, told me to put some bacetracin on it, and blasted me in the leg with rubbing alcohol several times — not for safety reasons, but because he was sadistic and mean. I still have that tattoo to this day. It won’t wash off! 

That sun later became my business logo. I fell in love with tattooing from that point, but I didn’t get serious about it until a few years later. I started going to school for computer graphic design in 97’, and I was really into that as well. I even had a job lined up with Universal Studios in Los Angeles. I was really torn between that and becoming a tattoo artist. I had a kid on the way, and other members of my family counted on me for support. I remember my wife was on the phone one afternoon, and I could hear her talking in the next room:

“He really loves computer graphics, but he loves tattooing. There’s just something about the look in his eye after finishing a custom tattoo.” 

I was sold. 

I started hanging around this one shop, it had a bad reputation though. I think I learned more of what not to do during my time there. The owner wouldn’t believe that I tattooed myself, so I sat down and did it right in front of him. I wasn’t there for long. It started with bb pellets coming through the window, but I drew the line at 9mm bullets. The owner ended up doing a midnight move, ditched town and left a bunch of free equipment on the sidewalk. 

There was a kid that I went to school with, and we both came up in the industry around the same time. He used to disappear a lot though, leaving a list of customers without an artist, and none of the other people in the shop could handle that work. The shop owner gave me a call, asked me to fill in, gave me a job shortly after, and signed for my tattoo license. 

After a few stops along the way, I decided to open my own shop: The Bodies Temple. I was busting my ass, building reputations and earning money for other shops, and I wanted the freedom to do what I wanted. Owning my own place gave me more time to see my family, which was a big factor. 

I started with nothing. I had an old desk held together with drywall screws and caulking, and 50 sheets of flash art — not even enough to cover a whole wall. We had a ton of space — 2300 square feet — with private rooms, clean setups and quality work. I’d reinvest a lot of money into things like complementary coffee, and video games for the waiting room. I wanted my customers to feel at home. The small town I opened up in didn’t want me there though. I wasn’t even allowed to put “tattoo and body piercing” on my sign, so I opted for “dermographics and body adornments.” It took eight years to change that, and I still got some shit for it. Tattooing carried a lot of negative stereotypes at the time. It was associated with gangs, guns and drugs. It didn’t help that there was a kid’s karate studio and a daycare in the plaza. 

I had to, and wanted to do things differently. With my family being there, and all of the other factors, I had to keep a safe and clean shop. I had to be super careful about who I hired. Even though I was squeaky clean, I still caught a lot of flack from the local police. I once had a cop sneak in my back door and harass me when I was right in the middle of an outline. 

I had every force in the universe working against me, but I still made it a point to kick ass at what I did. Even my clientel was atypical. I had a very eccentric school teacher come in every summer to get a tattoo. I had people from the FAA Center who were on duty during 9/11, town counselmen, healthcare professionals, and I was a big hit among the firefighters. 

I helped a lot of people in my line of work. There were some deep conversations that took place during those sessions. It’s an intimate thing. The memorial tattoos were always really tough, but it gave people closure at the end. My buddy Bill lost his 9-year-old, and a few years later it just hit him like a ton of bricks all of a sudden. It really messed him up. I called him up and threw him in the chair, and immortalized his son on his leg. It was a rough session, but it ended on a high note, with Bill grinning from ear to ear. 

Tattooing was never easy, but you have to make shit happen. Go balls to the wall, or life will pass you by. Do a good job at everything you do. If you don’t have time to do it right the first time, you won’t have time for the second. Get things done, and the rest of the day is play time.