TATTOO ART 101 WITH MR. G
By Mr. G
THE KOOL KAT, KANDY-APPLE ORANGE, GHOST-FLAMED, LOW BROW ART OF ST. JOHN MORTON
Triangle Tattoo & Museum is so very far away from the bright lights of urban kool; actually hundreds of mountain road miles from our closest city, San Francisco. We are located in the isolated boondocks, a zillion miles from Miami, Vegas or Los Angeles. Yet here, in our little tourist town at the left end of the continent, our shop is witnessing a retro ’50s fad of epic proportions.
Tattoo Paintings
Amazingly, this summer’s impromptu tattoo-style show unfolds as countless tourists visiting our shop display nostalgic tattoo art. Our guests and customers are oozing large Sailor-Jerry-this and even larger Sailor-Jerry-that. Not so many questions anymore. Everyone seems to know it all. Plus, we are witness to an overwhelming display of bigger side burns, larger tattoo designs, older glasses, strong, lined tattoo coverage on nubile young flesh―fast and simple antique tattoo designs. There are necks, hands and face tattoos with this summer’s catchwords like “Respect,” “Bitch” or “John Deere.” Script neck tattoos with what I think are three-letter stock market ticker symbols (probably not) or maybe area codes. I say, “Sorry, I don’t do hands and faces.”
It is no surprise that we are noticing a growing number of fair young maidens with giant, bold-lined, old-style, green zombie tattoo skull motifs shoulder to wrist. Necks and shoulders peppered with deck monkeys blowing sticks of dynamite out their asses. Great, tall, old sailing ships the size of small cars crashing into the Rocks of Ages, quarts of black ink shaded into the corners of each sail. Three-color tattoos, simplified by using only black, red and green pigments the size of a barn, just like in the ’50s, only ten times larger.
Von Dutch Box
I am being a little sarcastic about the design content, but I bet that many tattooists have noticed this nostalgic style regaining momentum in their neighborhoods. We all know that what appears in the media is usually good for business. Also we know the media has a great influence on the tattoo choices of many of our customers. I am getting an overwhelming number of young Kat Von D lookalikes―black hair, bangles, chains and ripped jeans―wanting their knuckles tattooed with LOVE and HATE, not to mention the teenage girls sincerely asking about an apprenticeship. That’s okay. You have to start by wanting and asking.
I don’t want to appear to be complaining or passing judgment. I am just noting a swelling social trend that has evolved over the past two decades. This nostalgia over Americana has been perpetuated through our own tattoo taste and a constant interest in modern tattoo history. In fact, this style of work is what most tattooist enjoy doing. Large, fast, clean lines. Hard-hitting, solid coverage with a touch of nostalgic design and rebellion. This is a style we all revere and strive to keep alive. Good tattooist did not forget their roots or their teachers’ lessons.
The early electric tattoo style which flourished around World War II is here to stay. The farther we travel in time away from the mid-twentieth century, the more we often lose understanding of an era and what really went on in the heart of the ’50s-’60s alternative art scene. This need to search and grow in historical perspective of our tattoo past is why I bring up just one of many obscure artists of the Oakland hotrod beat era, St. John Morton. I have never met St. John Morton in person, but through his connection to the tattoo world we have crossed paths over the past two decades via his art, his writing and our mutual connections to the Oakland/San Francisco scene.
Joe Lieber Case
Today, there is an ever growing fountain of historical tattoo information being published and shared. When I see the sometimes overlooked or buried self-published books and pamphlets that discuss post-World War II era tattooing, I find it hard to decide what to read for inspirational insight. St. Johns books still give me a unique look into how the world turned decades ago. They fill the bill when I need a fix of inspiration to keep rolling on.
Most recently, I was studying an antique tattoo case offered on eBay. As usual, I was outbid for this unique collectable treasure, but the auction item sparked a renewed curiosity in old work cases. Until recently, old wooden cases or tool boxes were common for all trades. Today, mass produced plastic boxes have become the standard inmost trades. Fewer and fewer craftsmen still make or use custom wood cases that are art in themselves. In this quest for a refresher in kool kustom boxes, I rustled through my library for my collection of St. John Morton books and correspondence. I also remembered that he had built some custom tattoo cases, so I sat down for research and enjoyed re-reading all of his books.
It not just what he is writing about but how he writes it. Pinstriped, candy-apple, tangerine tattooist of the ’50s, low brow kat, hanging lean with the Oakland roadster chop-and-channel scene. St John also collected tattoos and tattooed for a couple years with Bay Area tattoo legends of that era. His writing can provide some inspiration and shed inside knowledge of the current bold times of retro, prime, red roadsters parked in front of a the many freshly sprouted tattoo shops of the world.
St John is still kicking and his books unveil an inside perspective of the Frisco Bay low-brow art scene. His book titles include Tattooing as Art, It Ain’t Gonna Work, an autobiography, Kenneth Howard–Von Dutch, a photographic essay and Candy Apple Mother of Pearl Painting and Pinstriping. For me, his writing refreshes and unveils the custom rod builders of my youth, the chopper-motorcycle innovators, pinstripers and wild custom car painters and hard-partying crazy poets of North Beach.
St. John Morton’s writing will appeal to those who are already curious about tattooing or familiar with Oakland roadsters, airbrushing, custom car painting and pinstriping. If you dig the writing of Ken Keasy, Jack Kerouac or Hunter S. Thompson or if you have even heard of Von Dutch, Joe Lieber, Pop Eddy, Duke Kaufman or Lyle Tuttle, you will enjoy the hidden jewels of insight that these books hold.
Tattooed Chopper
St. John’s books are self published, anti-establishment, vernacular reading adventures into a world of hot rods, tattoos and left-coast styling. St. John writes about the real behind-the-scenes lifestyle of many of the pioneers. A lifestyle that has broken many artists while starving the rest. In the end, this artistic life has eaten innocence, as well as the lungs and livers of the few who persevered with their offbeat vision of what seemed far out at the time, but we now revere as “low brow art.”
I was heavily influenced by the California hotrod, surfer, beatnik scene as a teenager. They kicked me out of school for drawing flamed dice, flying eyeballs and Rat Finks on books and desks. St. John Morton and many of his peers such as Von Dutch, Big Daddy Ed Roth and Robert Williams helped subvert me when I was a budding teen into my present state of grace, a sarcastic practicing tattooist.
Tangerine candy apple mother of pearl ghost flames rule! Thank you, St. John Morton for writing it all down.
Tattooing; as ancient as time, as modern as tomorrow.
―Mr. G
g@triangletattoo.com
Visit our website at www.triangletattoo.com
