I had such a pleasure interviewing tattoo power couple Michele Wortman and Guy Aitchison of Hyperspace Studios for the January issue of Inked magazine's Icon feature. [It's the one with Kat Von D and Deadmau5 all lovey on the cover (pre-breakup).]

In the interview, Michele and Guy share how their distinctive artistic styles developed, some of the controversy behind their approaches, how one can be a better artist through attitude adjustment, and their most cherished collaboration: baby Kaia Rose.

Here's a bit from our talk:

You're both renowned for your distinctive styles. How would you describe them?

GUY: I work in abstract style--a lot of different abstract styles--but generally it's earned the definition of biomechanical. This can take many forms as long as it's a nonrepresentational kind of tattooing that flows with the human form. it could be something that is either kind of robotic--imagine a Transformers style--or it could be something a bit more organic, like an alien exoskeleton with all kinds of crazy textures. or sometimes you get a mix. People who get tattoos from me generally just want to get tattooed. a lot of people feel like they need to have a pretext for their tattoo that symbolizes something, but people who have collected enough often will arrive at a place where they are getting tattooed because they're getting tattooed. They like tattoos. They are looking to be decorated. That's the number one rule of this style. Make it attractive, make it flow well with the body, make it sort of exaggerate the musculature a bit. it's meant to be flattering but also meant to instill a sense of, "Wow, I've never seen anything like that before." When people come across it, they should be stopped in their tracks a bit.

Guy Aitchison Tattoo above.

When you first started tattooing and developing this style in 1988, it was really new and innovative.

GUY: Well, I wasn't the first person to do this stuff. I was attracted to H.R. Giger's paintings. That was part of what got me interested in tattooing initially. I wanted to tattoo stuff like that. For those not familiar, Giger designed the sets and monsters for Ridley Scott's Alien movie. It has this look that just has a natural flow, great depth, and a sense of realism to it. I thought it would look great on skin. in my first year of tattooing, I came across a few people who were actually doing Giger paintings as tattoos, and a few had done a really nice job of it. It definitely proved the point that it was a viable style. I then started hanging around a few of these tattooers: Eddie Deutsche, Greg Kulz, aaron cain, and Marcus Pacheco. These are the ones who were really exploring the abstract style at the time. We started working on each other and collaborating in various different mediums, and then diverged away from being Giger clones, and each of us looked to redefine what we were seeing. In particular, I was looking for ways to make it look stronger as a tattoo. I was working with bigger shapes that flowed with the body as the structure for the whole thing. and then you have basically this infinite variety of textures and effects, lighting, things that you can apply to it. So it was definitely influenced by H.R. Giger and by these other tattooers I worked with, but at this particular juncture, 23 years later, it's certainly taken on its own look.

Michele, how did your style develop?

MICHELE: My style originated from being a collector and not necessarily resonating with the early work I collected. I started to assess it more and realized that I wanted something that was more unified, that had less weight to it, and that reflected more of how I was feeling rather than the styles that were available at the time.

Around when was that?

MICHELE: It was around 1995 when I first got a half sleeve. I know that's not very much coverage, but at the time it seemed it, because you didn't really see women with the coverage you see now, and it felt like a big step. Then I got a chest piece a year later. My work had a fair amount of black in it, and I wanted something that felt lighter and a little freer. So I started getting lasered, getting rid of all the black in my ink so that I could reconstruct it, and during that period of time, I became a tattoo artist.

 
Michele Wortman tattoo above.

Would you say your style is more feminine?

MICHELE: It's interesting you should say that because originally I had wanted a half sleeve of flowers, and this girl looked at me, rolled her eyes, and said, "You would get that. How typical of you." That bothered me, so I decided I would rebel against my feminine nature and get architecture, which is very masculine in my opinion, very manmade. The fact that i rebelled against my feminine nature in the beginning only to come back to it later was an interesting lesson for me--to be comfortable and enjoy things that might be associated with having feminine qualities and not try to fight it and be someone I'm not. That had a lot to do with the energy i was putting into my tattoo work, and that became my defining style.

Black is really part of the old-school tattoo tradition, black and bold. Have you ever been criticized for not following these tattoo tenets?

MICHELE: Absolutely. I've been heavily criticized for my style. I've had people come up to me at tattoo conventions, slam my portfolio down, and tell me that what I was doing wasn't tattooing. So I had a steep hill to climb, and I still feel like I'm climbing it. But if you believe in what you do, you need to stick with it.

Do you have a response to the technical critiques?

MICHELE: I do have a response. Early on there was some validity to their assessment because I was just learning to tattoo and my work wasn't as developed as it is now. It was definitely very experimental, not using black outlines. The black has a boldness to it, and it does seem that it stays in the skin better, so I can see their point. The thing is, work that is soft in contrast with a limited use of black needs multiple passes. If someone has a piece that doesn't look so hot, it's not necessarily because it won't work. You really need to get that saturation and develop contrast over multiple sessions, since you don't have a strong, bold line holding your design in place. It's a different approach to tattooing, so it has its own flavor of rebellion in there, even though it may be viewed as a stereotypical feminine aesthetic.

Read the rest of the Q&A here. 

Also check Guy & Michele's online resource for tattooists and collectors:  Tattooeducation.com.

Photo of Miya Bailey by Nick Burchell.

Atlanta-based tattooist and painter, Miya Bailey of City of Ink, is no stranger to this blog. Last month, we posted on the screening and DVD of Color Outside the Lines, the first documentary to explore the experiences of professional black tattoo artists in America -- a film I highly recommend. And back in 2009, Miguel Collins interviewed Miya about his art and career, and also techniques special to tattooing black skin.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Miya myself a couple of months ago for Inked magazine, and that Q&A is featured in the August issue, on newsstands now and available as a digital download. Let's just pretend that "television personality" JWow-whatever from the Jersey Shore is not on the cover (classing up the image of tattooed women, of course) and focus on our talk, which touched on how art got Miya out of the projects, how he developed his tattoo craft, racism in the tattoo community, and what Color Outside the Lines is about.

Here's a taste:

In the film, you also say that you were really attracted to tattooing artistically and even took a needle and thread and starting poking your own skin at a young age. What was the main attraction?

It wasn't just one thing. I'd see my father with tattoos growing up and that was really the spark of it because every young boy wants to be like his father growing up. As I got older and came into my own, I was really into music and the first people I noticed who had really artistic work on them was a rock group called Fishbone. When I saw these brothers, it blew my mind. I'm from North Carolina, this country boy, seeing a rock band that's black with tattoos that weren't just names or stereotypical stuff. And just imagine what they had to go through from their own community. People didn't have sleeves or work like that in the eighties in the black community. When I started tattooing in the early nineties, the people dogging me the most were my own people saying, "Why are you doing that?" "Are you trying to be white?" Wow. But it's part of our culture. Tribes did it. I always knew this.

What was your start like, professionally?

I started off as a scratcher like everyone else because I couldn't get an apprenticeship then, but I wasn't satisfied. So I moved to Atlanta, which I considered a big city at the time, and took a chance and knocked on every tattoo shop I found. Everybody told me no until I got to West End and Julia Alphonso said, "Come on in; let me see your portfolio." She trained me for three years. Back then, I didn't understand none of the stuff she was putting me through, but I appreciate it now. She gave up so much. She was blackballed in the industry for teaching black people how to tattoo. I would hear at tattoo conventions, "She's a nigger lover." This was in the nineties! When we'd go to conventions, they would call us so many racial slurs it was unbelievable. That was some Rosa Parks shit. The first time I ever faced hard racism at a convention was in Philadelphia in '95. The people who stood out were the people who were nice to me. Paul Booth, out of everybody, was super nice to us. He said, "Y'all can sit and watch me work." And Cap Szumski too. He made me watch him do a portrait for two hours straight at the tattoo convention. He said, "I know Julia. She told me to keep an eye on you. Sit your ass down and watch me do this tattoo." You had to see people's facial expressions when they saw black kids, teenagers, sitting in his booth and watching him work. The looks on their faces inspired me forever.

The inimitable Pat Fish -- "The Queen of Celt" -- is internationally renown for her powerful and intricate Celtic knot work tattoos. She is also known for being quite outspoken, calling bullshit on issues she believes harm the tattoo industry and collectors. Pat does just that in our Icon Q&A for Inked mag.

In the interview, she raises some of those controversial issues, like potential dangers in color tattoo ink as well as the ethics of giving clients exactly what they want. Pat also shares some of the lessons she learned from her mentor, the legendary Cliff Raven, who changed her life, and how her pet mule, Tobe, has done the same. Here's a taste:

[...]

Read the rest in the latest issue of Inked and see more of Pat's work here.

Pat Fish
Tattoo Santa Barbara - LuckyFish, Inc.
2007 State Street
Santa Barbara, CA 93105
(805) 962-7552

In the Dec./Jan. issue of Inked magazine, you'll find my Q&A with the inimitable Ed Hardy, a man who inspired fellow artists and tattoo collectors to move beyond the tattoo "menu" on shops walls and pursue custom, personalized art. For those outside the tattoo world, his name is associated with everything from trucker hats to condoms, and because of his Ed Hardy clothing line and merchandising deals, the Californian native was able to retire with a sizable nest egg and fully return to painting, ceramics, and other mediums after 40 years of tattooing. Of course, Hardy remains connected to tattooing, largely through his Tattoo City studio in San Francisco, Hardy Marks Publications, and the occasional tattoo souvenir for a lucky fan.

In this interview, Ed talks about the documentary "Ed Hardy: Tattoo the World" [recently released on DVD], the tattoo impulse, his fine art, and he briefly addresses the haters. Here's an excerpt:

Do you think the whole popularity of tattooing will dissipate?
No, I don't think it will ever go away. My standard points are: I don't know why people get tattooed. I don't think there's a good answer. It's like, Why do you like art? It's just something that's a total mystery. That's part of the attraction. I think that for whatever reason, it's an impulse for our species--not for everyone, but certain people are just Bam!

Almost like a tattoo gene?
That's exactly it. Knowing how science has advanced over the centuries, maybe they'll figure it out, and at some point go, Yes, this is what it is. But right now, the best we can do, and what we all have done, is emphasize the positive aspects and put it into a better social context. That's much more important than who is the best tattooer. We have to look at the bigger picture. Of course, that's important too-people striving to further the art and do stuff that's going to be more interesting.

It's interesting how the Ed Hardy brand and unexpected commodification of tattooing has freed you up to do fine art. It's seems at odds with commercialism in some way.
Before Christian Audigier, I was approached by two guys who had a cool business; their whole thing with clothing was introducing an Asian feeling to their casual garments. They actually responded to an article about a painting show that Bob Roberts and I had at Track 16 in Santa Monica. I don't remember if it was 2003 or 2004, but they had seen the paintings and dug the Asian references in them. So I got into it, and that's how it started. Then Christian saw it and just went ape shit. He said, "I must have this license!" He's really from a different world. [Laughs] He said that he'll make this huge thing, and of course I was like, Right, take me to the moon. And then it went. But he did have that genius eye to recognize that people would respond to it strongly. Really, all the stuff we were using was essentially classic flash. A lot of the images I originated and a lot were reused from old classics. It was just like that bold, beautiful, well painted, heavy shaded, Sailor Jerry aesthetic thing. Everything that makes classic tattoos cool or makes them appealing to a wide body of people. Then of course I started getting shit from all kinds of people. I loved hearing it.

What kind of shit?
Well, "Hardy's really sold out." I'm like, What do you think this is, the Sistine Chapel? Relax. Get some humor about it--as long as things are being presented right. We had some problems when my designs got screwed with for a while and some legal things about that. Essentially, it is just a facet of my art, and I'm proud of all the flash and all the classic tattoos I did.

Read more in Inked.

UPDATE: The full article can be found online here.

In this latest Inked magazine (the Rock-n-Roll issue), I interviewed veteran tattooist (and rock star in her own right) Annette LaRue of Electric Ladyland Tattoo in New Orleans. We had a fun time chatting about everything, from inking her first tattoo at 13 years old to handling French Quarter drunks to her upcoming retirement. Here's a taste:

You must tattoo a lot of characters. Any favorites?

Well, we had this one guy we called "The Sheriff of Frenchmen Street." He sat outside on the bench all day long and drank draft beer. I had an apprentice and told him, "You got to go out there and tattoo that guy. He's out there every day, he's got tattoos and you can do better than what he's got." So he went over and got the guy, Dave (The Sheriff), to come in. He became one of our favorite customers. All our apprentices tattooed him. For every five apprentice tattoos, I'd do one good tattoo on him. He was awesome. After Katrina, he moved away and couldn't get back. We found out a couple of years later that he drank himself to death. There are a lot of characters like him who we don't see anymore.

With Katrina and the oil spill, and the people of the Gulf experiencing a lot of heartache, how does this translate in the tattoo business? Do you see a lot of people getting memorial tattoos for example?

Oh yes. People here like to wear their strong emotions. And they do it through tattoos.

That's got to be heavy.

It was horrible the first year or two after Katrina. Everyone who came in had a tragic story. Three guys who worked for me lost everything they owned. So yeah, it changed everything. But it made business great. We never had an appointment book before that; we were a walk-in shop. A couple of guys would have appointments a couple of times a week, but now over half of our tattoos are by appointment. It shocks me everyday just how many people come in. I'm not trying to brag, and I'm sorry for other people not doing well, but we've been blessed and really lucky. It's also been a lot of hard work. I'd like to give my crew the credit. These guys are really the life of the shop.
...

Read more in the latest issue of Inked on newsstands now and available for download online.

For my latest Icon profile for Inked Magazine, I had a blast interviewing Baba Austin of Vintage Tattoo in Los Angeles. Baba is a great storyteller, and in this Q&A, he shares what it was like apprenticing under the legendary Jonathan Shaw, touring with Vanilla Ice at his prime, and evading cops while executing a graffiti throw-up at the age of forty-three. Here's a taste from our talk:

When did you start to learn the craft yourself?

When I wasn't working, I was at Jonathan's. We basically became friends. I drew some graffiti designs for him. I became Jonathan's little slave. I'd keep asking, "When am I gonna learn to tattoo?" and he'd say, "Fuck off. I'm teaching nobody." At the same time, he's teaching me about tattoo design, placement, and tattoo history. I was just learning all this stuff without even realizing it. He was teaching me how to crawl before I could walk. I wanted to just run, like anyone else who picks up a tattoo machine, but he wasn't interested in any of that. He was interested in keeping the tradition, love and respect alive for tattooing.

Then around 1990 or 1991, Filip Leu came around and did his spot at Fun City. Filip was the same age as me but he was already an accomplished tattoo artist. He was doing this amazing shit already. Now Jonathan had a new pet project who actually tattoos. I wasn't blown off, he just moved on. And I didn't care because that's when Vanilla Ice hit me up for airbrushing and said, "Do you want to go all over the world?" Fuck yeah.

What was that like, going on tour with Vanilla Ice?

That was amazing because it was at the height of his career. Everyone knew who he was. It was before the whole In Living Color infamous Jim Carey [skit] making fun of him. I did the costumes and stage sets for his tours. I worked on his movie. We did the American Music Awards together; we did the Grammy's together; we went all over to Australia, Singapore, and Japan. All first class, limos, five-star hotels. It was amazing.

Read more in Inked's "Sex Issue" on news stands now or download the digital edition.