Standing Like A Stone Wall.

This past weekend I was lucky enough to have a painting hanging At Punkrockfish Gallery in Ocean City MD. A good friend (and a hell of a good tattooer at Black Cobra in MD) Little Chico invited me to be a part of his show titled 8x10.

As you may be able to guess the only real requirement for the work, is that it fit into the 8" x 10" size requirement. There is a newspaper article about the show and about Chico here... Having the freedom of subject matter allowed me to put the time into an idea i had been kicking around for a bit. I have been on a bit of an American Civil War kick lately and wanted to do a piece about the great Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson. I had recently finished reading/listening to a brilliantly written bio about him called "Standing Like a Stone Wall" by James Robertson. In the book Mr. Robertson gets fairly descriptive in Stonewall's personality and history. Jackson was an eccentric to say the least.

To do a painting of him, it was impossible to simply choose one or two key elements of his life to focus on. Instead I tried to focus on various stages of his life, and tried to use imagery to point out some of the occurrences and traits that i thought defined him as a man and as a General. With his unwavering faith in God's will to his brilliance and bravery on the battlefield, it is easy to miss the more bizarre and quirky parts of what made him the man he was. For instance: He would hold his hand up, palm facing forward, at random points during the day weather he was in the middle of a battle or not. He would do so either in prayer (as he was commonly heard mumbling to himself), or because he insisted that one of his arms was actually heaver than the other and he wanted to get the blood to flow out of the raised arm to balance himself out. I could go on and on but have not the time to explain it all. A few folks have specifically questioned why in the painting he has a Northern Pike draped across his lap. The short version of that image is: As a child Thomas was paid .50 by a local townsman for each pike he caught that was 12" or larger. One day he caught one that was at least 36" and as he carried the massive fish through town, another shopkeeper offered Thomas $1 for the fish. When Thomas declined the man offered $1.25. Thomas declined again explaining the fish was owed to the other fellow at the agreed price of .50 and if he himself wanted a taste of that fish, it could be had through the other gentleman. When Thomas got to his destination he was offered an extra .50 because the fish was so big. Thomas said the original agreed price was all he would accept. He was sure the man had paid full price for a few fish that fell short of the 12" mark, and he was grateful for that kindness.  

Anyhow, I can nerd out all night but i doubt most of you care enough for me to bother. If you are truly interested drop me a line and i will explain further what all of the silliness in the painting represents. As for the painting itself, it is mostly done as an ink wash painting on stained hot press watercolor paper. the highlights and limited color were added at the end with colored pencil. It is an approach to painting I've been working out for a bit now and I'm slowly getting more and more comfortable with it.

Here is the finished piece. Click on it to see it larger. It is set at 72 dpi so it can be viewed reasonably clear, but i am making prints available, so if  you really want to see the detail you could always contact me and ill happily trade you $40 for a limited Giclee. haha sorry for the shameless promotion but i gotta pay for more firewood.
If you got this far, thanks for caring enough!!
Scott

3 steps to a better tattoo community

So today at the shop we had a nice talk about the state of tattooing. More specifically, we discussed the fact that the whole trade seems to be going into the shitter. Yeah I know that is sort of a wide range statement so I’ll try to specify as much as possible without getting too down on everything. Honestly it was a pretty upsetting conversation.

The whole lovely conversation started when Joy pointed out a statement “Inked” magazine had made in their recent issue. Apparently they plan to open 400 tattoo studios in malls across America. Now I would have figured that statement alone would be enough to strike fear into the hearts of every tattooer. It seems I was wrong. I tried to find more info online and found a bunch of people in a forum trying to defend the move. Many of those arguments were from either folks that worked in malls already, or defended the decision as a brilliant business move. It all actually made me sick to my stomach. Talking about that bit started an afternoon’s conversation that covered all, but not only the rant below…

One of the main things that got me interested in tattooing in the first place was the idea that it was still a craft and not a business. It is steeped in tradition and a sense of integrity that gets lost in mainstream art. It has done that by staying, as a business, extremely small. Amazing really, considering it has been around for as long as it has. That small size has kept it manageable and able to be policed by the few individuals that paid their dues to the craft. It was inevitable that tattooing would grow to the gross proportions it has today. Within that growth there has been progress undoubtedly… but I fear it has grown too far past its ability to self govern. There are magazines that publish darn near anything sent their way (or so it seems… id hate to see what they turn down), there are conventions that seem to only have a criteria of affording the booth fee, and there are shops being opened left and right as “business ventures” where the owner has never even held a tattoo machine or if they do indeed tattoo they are green as hell (can you say blind leading the blind). It seems every time you turn around mediocrity is being rewarded and recognized as greatness. If you add that to the overblown sense of entitlement that has swept the nation, you’ve got a perfect storm of bullsh*t.

I don’t think its possible to ever get the good old days back, but if we are going to still have a hand in our own industry we need to take some steps to keep it ours. Simply complaining isn’t worth the time to write, so here are a few ways to start getting a grip on the industry we have built:

As tattooers we need to take responsibility for our trade, our art, and the service we provide.
1. If you are new to the trade, it is important for you to keep yourself in check. Unfortunately as pointed out, you will be told how awesome you are by magazines, show promoters, and customers. Don’t be fooled. You still shouldn’t be attempting that color portrait as a tattoo. If you cant draw it, you cant tattoo it. Self govern.

2. If you HAVE been tattooing for years, HAVE paid your dues, and can tattoo better than everyone on your block… good for you. Now accept the responsibility for your work. Stop with the how to videos, the online step by step tutorials, and for all our sake stop trying to ride this wave till it crashes. You are killing your own industry. Self govern.
lastly (for now)

3. If you don’t tattoo at all… stay the fu*k out of my business. I have worked too hard to watch you run my passion into the ground. You have no right owning a tattoo shop just because you have the money to open one. (let alone 400) I cannot stress enough the damage done by you and your kind. Leach.

I do apologize for the complaining, I usually try to keep this blog positive. Next time will be more pictures and good feelings I promise. Now I gotta get some sleep so I can get up early and draw my ass off. Long day tomorrow.
-Scott