A New Tattoo!

Since it's been so rainy lately, business has been pretty slow. At least I ended up with an awesome new tattoo that I love. Jeremy did it for me, it's a Mitch O'Connell piece. This was the first time in a long time that I've let ANYONE tattoo me, the reason being other than the Hello Kitty Robot my friend Bryan (from the video) did for me, the last few pieces I've gotten have ended up disappointing at best, and just plain garbage (to me, at least) at worst.

So that's my Lucky Bunny. I'm somewhat obsessed with his little nub. The experience of being on the other side of the needle was needed; It's easy to forget just how it feels, transcending pain can be an uplifting and educational experience, helps to put things into perspective.

Sometimes, especially lately, I've been getting frustrated. Because business has been slower than usual for the time of year, I haven't been tattooing as much as I'd like, and I can feel the muscles in my hands getting weaker. I'm trying to compensate by working on paper, but it's just not the same. I know that I'm harder on myself than anyone else, but I don't want to devote my life to something and only be "okay" at it. I wish there was more time and less stress in the day, but until then, I'll just keep plugging along..

Video - Tag Team Tattoo

This video was shot sometime between the end of '07 and the beginning of '08. The other two artists are Casey Schwartz and Bryan Holland. Our brave subject, Jake, will be starting a full-leg sleeve themed "Zombie Apocalypse" in the near future, more about that soon...

Tag Team Tattoo

Portfolio!

I'm working on getting my own webpage up and running, but in the meantime I'm using DeviantArt to host my portfolio. Check it out!

My Portfolio!

Greetings!

Greetings to anyone who may stumble across this blog, I should have done this a long time ago, but I've never been good at "beginnings". I'll get into my origins at some point, but the basics are that I'm a tattoo artist in Upstate NY, I've been working professionally for 5+ years now, and this is meant to be a chronicle of my journey through tattooing.

I started working out of Express Yourself Tattoo in New Paltz, NY back in April 2004, and remained there until April 2009. It was time for me to move on in order to further my career. The next step came as a job working for Bruce Bart at The Woodstock Tattoo Company, in Woodstock, NY.

Woodstock seems like a nice enough place. Unfortunately, whether it's because the economy is presently in the shitter, or because the one artist that's been there for the last year more or less by himself has a less than congenial personality, either way business has been less than stellar at a studio that was making money hand over fist just a year or two ago. Apparently I was taken on in the hopes that my presence and personality could help bring clients in, not to mention they haven't had a piercer in house for the better part of a year.

At the moment, I'm working on a series of flyers featuring $20 coupons, promoting myself, the studio, and that once again the studio has a piercer on staff. Hopefully it will help, or else I'm going to end up having to get a real part time job soon, which as we all know, pretty much sucks.

Sometime in the next year or two I really want to relocate, but I have no direction where. As I lack the funds to get anywhere at the moment, I'm putting it out into the universe that if someone out there wants to help me relocate, I'll go pretty much anywhere for work! Not only do I have over 5 years professional tattoo experience, 7 years piercing, and 2 years managing a studio in a busy college town. I have references, and a portfolio available online, which I'll post a link to momentarily. Just putting it out there, universe...