These letters provide some idea of a part of Tattoo history. Here’s one letter from Lift Trucks Friend James Hawk with a little about Owen Jensen, a tattooist, with his wife Dainty Dotty, a 580 lb circus fat lady who was also a tattooist. They were originally circus folks who were good and true people and lived great lives except for an untimely death for one, and another under poor, actually awful, circumstances.

Tom,

To start from the beginning of Owen Jensen, remember, Owen married Dainty Dotty when he was traveling tattooing the Circus circuit, Dottie, the circus fat lady at 600 lbs passed and left Owen with Butch before he was 4 years of age. When this happened Owens life kicked into a full gear, he’s around 60 years old and devotes everything to his Son, sending him to private schools, keeping a lovely clean and good home environment and never remarries and does it all with his tattooing and supplies and all alone . Tragedy strikes yet again after he does a fine job raising Butch when Butch is killed in a car accident at the age of 18 in 1967, Owen is then around 75 or 6 years old. Owen lets go of his home for an apartment and settles in to work tattooing on Chestnut in Long Beach until tragedy struck him again after working the late shift of 6pm-1am when he was mugged and stabbed for 30 bucks by three thugs on July 5th 1976 at the age of 85! Now that is a true tale in tattoo history. The man made his own way through so much tragedy and still would have kept pumping smoke to tattoo at the age of 85 if some thugs hadn’t done their deed. These photo’s are a wonderful piece of history that adds to the life and times of Owen Jensen, one hellova Man.

One letter I have is written in Owens hand just 53 years ago this month and establishes Dotties death at Dec. of ‘52, Charlie Wagners death earlier that year (Jan. 1st ‘53), Charley Barrs living in ‘53 but not tattooing, Joe Liebers death, and Butches birth date of Aug. 12th 1949. This is not to add that Percy died in ‘52. It also establishes Berts first move to San Diego in ‘53 before his return to open the Nu-Pike shop after making up his mind to leave the shop in St Luis to Tattoo Faye and long before he was working for Bert much less Leroy Minough. Owen had a fantastic travel schedule working with so many others of the era that it’s hard to count them all, and after serving in WW-I . What a guy!

This trade of tattooing that I entered has it’s rewards, it just takes time to pass and the Gods shine on you if you do it well and treat people well. My whole business has relied upon the return and good customer treatment. I grew up in the “Service Station” business of my Fathers, Son of a “pump jockey”. It paid the bills and raised four kids. When my Parents gave me the opportunity and offered the Chicago Art Institute to me, I knew how heart felt they were to obligate to me to such a task and payment. But I’m getting off track, “the customer is always right” was always the motto and the way of the Gas Station business, one unsatisfied customer would create a chain reaction, like it takes a barber 100 haircuts to make up for the 1 bad haircut.

So now I have third generation of customers who “wouldn’t go anywhere else”, ha! My organic canvases have traversed all points of the globe. I got a call from Frank Fritz from the History channels program of “American Pickers”, I have tattooed him up one side and down the other and he still calls, but the point is that he said they have been filming in upstate NY for a few weeks and he was there complaining of how they had him up and filming every day and day after day and he was saying how he wanted to get back to relax, all I could think about is how much I wish I could get just a few days to come and visit people there! Hell, it was everything I could do to refrain from calling you up off the business card you sent! I figured that I best respect the e-mail aspect and not interrupt you through the day and how you probably prefer to use the mail vs the phone call. My calls generally come at the most inopportune time, like today, I dialed the Health Dept. to speak with the certain so and so as I had the receptionist pick up the phone and my cell started ringing, ahhhh! a restricted number, so I asked the Lady to hold for a moment and it turned out a friend of mine had dialed me by mistake! Just an irritation that cell phone. In fact the guy who has my number is one whom I swear is the reason we lost the Vietnam war, he went in on the last year as UDT Seal and that was the end after his tour, he made his number restricted and if ya call him, this cryptic message of “Blue is Blue” comes over the phone message recording, I figure it’s a Moody Blues thing but I’m never gonna ask him about it. I love the guy but it’s weird how bad things happen when your around him, one time I got a couple stitches in my head from it. I used to keep count but I gave up. But todays call was just another “ping”, not to mention that today was definitely a Monday, had a troup of Zanex Mommies roll in for a 30th Class Reunion, singing show tunes to each other, etc. etc., Ed Young had an emergency to go to in Bloomington Illinois and his appointment showed who didn’t get the message that Ed wasn’t making it, I heard Cat talking with him as to how he had to ship out Wednesday to Afghanistan and that he had only returned on an emergency trip home to bury his Mom after she lost the fight with cancer, I HAD to fit this kid in and I did him a good one, dude, his Mom tribute told the tale of her birth of 1966, Wow! That is hard luck and I felt all the better for sticking him in and getting him stuck, good kid.

I need to take some pic’s of my old mobile station from when I traveled, I was very surprised when I found the pic of Jack Redclouds and they were very similar, I have it upstairs over the shop in storage. Maybe I should have done more to preserve for others in the coming generations, but I feel selfish in saying that when my memory is gone, so goes what I can relate even to myself. I’m not writing any books, I don’t procrastinate anything, so people ask me nothing. I just love some of the stories in the backgrounds, stuff that would burn off both ears that I would have to relate only off line and not in print, Ha! It all comes with the history, like the difference of knowing birth dates and death dates vs what they were like, the untold obit,ha! Sure, Van Gogh cut his ear off, but what was Gauguin doing to the chamber maids at the hostel? Ha!
I have some pictures to burn onto a disc for you of Berts work. It’s crazy how much the real life examination vs a picture is though, the iron oxide, everything! I noticed on the early stuff before the Broadway and Market shop burnt down had allot of spit shading quill pen ink to it’s shading, some didn’t photograph well because of the lighting even after I got rid of the flash.
It probably is no secret as to the Bill Moore being the man who owns allot of the early art, he worked with Tattoo Faye when she was still alive and he is very much a character, loads of BS you have to sift through, but I wanna hug him for not being the a self promoter type, he’s just Bill or better known as Bondage Bill in the tattoo area. Just for laughs, I have to tell you one of his BS stories, he was in the Navy and claimed that he shared a room with Joey Ramone, I remained silent until I couldn’t take it anymore and asked him what his real name was(like I couldn’t remember), he said “Joseph”. Ha! I let it go, but DeeDee Ramone had done a short trip through the Marine recruiting office and a five mile run and was turned out or down or whatever really happened. But one could say that he really did share a room with a person named Joey Ramone…….just not the one people remember.
The guy stays up til 3am every night, and sometimes tattoos till 3am. He comes up and stays the night every now and then, it was once every month for awhile, just a real character. What worries me is how he will cart stuff back and forth and sometimes I’m the one covering the art from the rain. Some of the flash originals are watermarked from the fire but there doesn’t need to be more! The one “pork chop” page with Air Force 2 and 3 dollar tattoos just makes me wonder how many eyes combed that page in it’s existence, the photo faces of all who combed it would be like a collage of something Diane Arbus would do, all walks combing it knowing it couldn’t look back in judgment, “just a couple bucks and it’s mine” rolling behind those eyes. Like a cigar store indian of sorts.

Damn it will be good the day we can get together, I certainly appreciate our correspondence. So much more to talk about just let me know if you get tired of me rambling.
Have to go and get some sleep, cutting weeds out of the horse pasture tomorrow before work and it gets messy and I get hot, love my coffee in the morning, just hate sweating the stuff and a coffee/water number is still a watered down dehydration combination.
Sincerely,
-Hawk-

Thanks Hawk, Great letter more? Regards,TC

Tom,

I just had to get that off of my chest and send you the tid bits in hopes that it may add to your collection towards the understanding of life with the circus tattooers and the devotion that many through those years and changing era’s of popularity of tattooing endured for the sake of their trade and craft. Some very amazing people.
I took my guff when I first began in a not so popular era, but I never and can never put in what that man did unless I surpass his years of tour of duty.

I’ve studied the rhythms and trends to the point of understanding how when tattooing first started off with the upper class in private settings when it was popular among the elite, then it’s turn in popularity when it became common and at the circus level when everybody could have and would get one and the elite turned on tattooing and was quoted as saying that it was the most barbaric form of art that man could have dreamt up, Ha! “In Vogue” turns to “Trendy” and once it becomes a trend, trends get put back on the shelf until the next resurgence much like the hip huggers and bell bottom jeans, however tattooing has always carried a “rediscovery” theme. It has always repeated it’self with the line “It’s not just for Sailors anymore”. I denied interviews for ten years and had Ed Young do them because I became tired of the people wanting me to give them all the reason why it was “OK” to get tattooed “Now”. They never wanted the true history, just some short answer as to validate it being “OK” for “anyone”. It got to me to the point that I had to start having fun with it all and wrote down thirty valid points of psychology of motives for tattoos and to then ask the customer themselves why they were getting tattooed, it was the better to record than a write up in a newspaper as those men who came in wanting Bill Goldbergs tribal tattoo in the same place of the arm that Goldberg had his, whether left or right, it was interesting to get the explanations and reasons. On the average the answer would be that they were “body builders” or “big fans”, when actually the true average was Crypto Homosexuality and that admiration of another mans body. Now you can imagine how a muscle headed man would react if I were to have countered by telling them my observations, not to mention how my business would falter after they went about saying I was “callin’ ‘em some sort of queer”, Ha!
It really helped me to cope and the fact that no tattoo magazine or article has ever printed such truth that would somehow undermine profit is no real surprise to me. The reasons and actual counter of category was very interesting, those who claimed allegiance to a group were often afflicted by the peer pressure motivation, etc.
A well rounded tattooist should have understandings of Dermatology, Medical knowledge and it’s teachings/understandings, knowledge of electricity and current for power, mechanic’s of the machines, Chemistry of the pigments, all the understandings of art from breath to stroke, a jewelers eye for pins, etc., but Psychology and understanding is something that will come like it or not, ha! I once spotted the “regret” individual, someone who wanted to get full circle to “regret” in a tattoo asap. This is to say that the individual wanted to be the one who sits with the neighbor lady in a scenario of something like this;
Jill: “Barbara, I think I’m going to take the plunge and get me one of those tattoos, everybody is doing it”.
Barbara: “You don’t want to do that Jill…..”.
Jill: “Why not?”
Barbara: “Well, if you MUST know, I have one….”
Jill: “You do???”
Barbara: “Yes, only my husband knows about it and I regret that I ever done it, I had it placed in a spot where it could never be seen, and I wished to gawd I had never done it and I have regretted it ever since { emphasis on drama }.”
Wow! To think I have been at it long enough to spot that motive was clear to me that I am not without understanding of the human mind and not one who mindlessly would do anything on demand for money. This particular lady was turned away, I had called her right and she knew it. The full story is much better and with lots of insult to the tattooer who “had to be some kind of illiterate drop out” due to “such a trade”, which would have helped validate her future pain had I gone through with it. I turned her into my entertainment without insult to her and with decorum in turning her down as to not fuel a solitary thing to her favor. I love my job.

Marty Coressel, who is now retired from working with Sailor Bill Johnson, and I have had lots of correspondence that’s interesting reading and very trade related. Dale Kellett is a close friend and I found some serious discussion there too.
Reading some of what I had written and forgot about showed me how much of the tattoo community leans on the other for support in times of need. Economy and the 50 dollah tattoo kits play hell on those with families. Some get away from ya with what’s between their ears and loose it, the mortality rate of tattooers in the past is pretty heavy stuff. I went on in one conversation in an e-mail and named quite a few who took the E ticket out of life by their own hand, surprised myself as to how many I could name right off the top of my head when I typed it.
Some of the stuff is too personal and other stuff is to opinionated, but if you really want a look, you can see and read what I’ve said. The historical study stuff is good reading, like when I wrote about all the people who bragged that they “knew” Charlie Wagner were what had become his competition that set up shop all around him and referred people away from Charlie and degraded him as a wino. How the tattooers of today would have ran away screaming for their lives if they had tried to stay just one day in Bob Oslands shop in 1979 Chicago and never looked back at attempting to deal with such a trade that is so opposite of the boutique studios of today.

Lend me your thoughts Tom, it’s getting late and I did a bad thing today when I went and mixed the coffee with water when I went out to take down the weeds in the pasture, didn’t listen to my own advice, ha! Still went in and created feeling a quart shy and made people happy. This heat will bring in some strange people sometimes. Used to be that all I had to look for is fuzzy eyes that meant they were stoned, weaving back and forth meant they were drunk, but the Meth Heads are an unreadable sort, ha! Add dehydration to somebody who hasn’t eaten anything but poison for three days and you have something that is not of the gene pool anymore………..

Thanks for listening Tom,
-Hawk-

So maybe it’s not entirely true that a shallow thought rules but maybe immediacy and a good and true first impulse? The show at Brooklyn Museum of Warhol and Basquiat is a good example. We all rate Warhol now as the most influential artist of the 20th century. Even though he seemed to be a little out of ideas and digging through a 1960’s playbook for these late paintings from the 80’s. Basquiat was chock full of exploding themes involving black culture, hip hop and a rock out Jimi Hendrix like painting style. Andy who did so much for us in the 60’s: the invention of Pop, the Coke bottle silkscreens which just grow better and carry more import, producer of ultra superstars, and the Velvet Underground now seemed to be on cruise control tracing Yamaha motorcycles and steaks on canvas waiting for King James’ nitro energy blast.

In his last years we used to see Andy, scouring the Sixth Ave flea markets, a lime green jump-suited assistant in tow carrying multiple shopping bags filled with never to be looked at again collectibles. “Don’t care if it is Andy Warhill, he ain’t getting this for $50!’ swap venders would cry as he left their stalls on Sunday mornings in the underground garage.

Andy’s idea of shallow, one famous quote proclaims “I am deeply shallow” on a pillow case for sale at the Brooklyn Museum store, is fine. But only goes so far. You have to be a naive or a naturally gifted genius to pull it off. Which he and Basquiat were. Today we like them but universally hate trendy poseurs like Richard Prince and Elizabeth Peyton. Ask any one from Sotheby’s auctioneers, gallery owners to art mover guys and street artists working in Central Park, they tell us Basquiat’s work just gets better and better while others from that 80’s era just look embarrassing. One huge and horrid example of this decade of excess, taking into account not even Schnabels’ drek, is the David Salle painting with the giant word King Kong lettered in, some figures stumping away and a 50’s chair glued on the canvass. Stays with you like a large, free cheese sample from the flea market.

We now think vapid/trendy is bad, but shallow can be very good. If done by a true talent. And only if the artist is just painting and not thinking about it too much.

Aren’t we all just a little sick of meaningful art and the headache inducing chore of trying to figure it out? Basquiat’s work can be just enjoyed, great colors, black and white rhythmic patterns, the cool words written all over. His paintings are fresh and look like he was having fun. Yet the art critics (actually in the Brooklyn Museum book, which in the end is redeemed by great art reproductions) insist on saying things like ” Close inspection reveals that this head, unlike a skull is alive and responsive to external stimuli; as such it seems alert to our world while simultaneously allowing us to penetrate it’s psycho-spiritual recesses.” Too much thinking, college boy!

A piece arrived at Lift Trucks Project of some oranges on a table. And how relaxing! No meaning at all. Not painted like Zubarin or some famous art dude but just competent. Like opening a window during a stuffy art history 202 lecture by an Art Forum imbibing boor. And maybe that’s why Warhol gets better and better. The Cambell’s cans at MoMA? Stunning. They get more groovy with every new visit. Shallow? Well, yes and no. When asked how he arrived at that particular subject, he answered something along the lines of “I like soup”. Basquiat liked music, boxers and skulls. So he painted them. ‘Nuff said, said SAMO.

There are some rewards for embracing shallow thinking. Much easier that way really. Don’t analyze it; just go. Like a bronc rider; just climb up on the dang bull, hang on for 8 secs. Although a more obtainable goal for us might be to watch an entire NASCAR event without fidgeting, texting or doing anything. Falling asleep during the broadcast would be ok as you wouldn’t really miss the crashes. Instant reply is bully.

Many of us are coming around to believe that the less one thinks about it, the better. Never miss an opportunity to do nothing, to miss the next book reading by some famous author or the next hot must see group show in Brooklyn. Skip the grand gesture, the unnecessary e-mail and why not,not send another twitter message? Just stop. No one really wants to know what you are up to. Although they do seem to want you to know what they are up to.

Carries over to the music world: why are songs by Cool and The Gang still great? Raise your hand if you like Catch the Wind by Donovan. We do. But all the deep and meaningful, the politically charged stuff by sincere folkies like Joan Baez are now entirely unbearable. Keep it shallow, shallow is good.

CROTON FALLS, NY — Up to 20 up-and-coming artists observed over a significant period by independent curator Kara Lenkeit will be exhibiting at Lift Trucks Project in the Northern Westchester town of Croton Falls beginning June 12th.

Figurative and abstract works, wide-ranging and experimental in their approach to drawing and painting, installation and sculpture, will be on display. Watercolors, pencil line drawings, site-specific conceptual pieces, geometrics, and Neolithic nudes will be included.

Featured artists include Scott Daniel Ellison, Nick Greenwald, Scott Goodman, Daddy, Ellen Guhin, Christopher Manning, Mark Nilsson, Gil Riley, and Milton Stevenson, among others. Read the rest of this entry »

In the huge center area at MoMA sitting in a cordoned off area at Marina Abramovic’s feet was a well behaved gaggle of earnest and intent art lover type folks. There she is, they say, pointing and with hushed whispers. That’s really her, the artist sitting in a chair and in a robe, good posture not even.  She is the art.  What she does here is lean forward a little and look at you in a creepy stare down kids game. I have to admit I don’t find this interesting. Yet. But there is something great about the idea of not doing anything. I have tried it at home ever since I was young and although I try it a lot now, it just seems to get everyone in the house very angry.

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Smoking a pre-Castro Cuban while vacationing in Castiglioncello on the Italian coast, our good friend Charles suggested that we all extend our relaxing vacation and remain here, comfortably ensconsed our haunted rented villa on the sunny Tuscany coast. Safely ride out the Great Recession currently ravaging the good old US of A.  And what a great idea!  Haunted house, perhaps being an overstatement as ghosts only appeared one night in a severe dry mistral wind with no one in the 38 room manse restfully sleeping, all of us wandering at various hours unbeknownst to the others, passing each other as if in a trance, up and down the hallways of the centuries old villa, big green shutters abanging and doors flying open, various musical instruments scattered about the villa being softly plucked and the  woodwinds whistled, played by otherworldly spirits. The eyes in the old portraits followed us just like in old black and white horror movies. Ancient marble statues seemed to come to life as we floated down gravel paths through the overgrown gardens on this fully moonlit and owly night.
The local barfly Desiree D’Arbanville, former model and 60 something flower child, recalls the haunted villa well from the summer the Rolling Stones rented it and recorded the now lost tracks from Goat’s Head Soup in the hot basement; alternate tracks numbers 13 and 48, the acoustic versions (Mr. Jagger and Mr. Richards were not at those sessions).

Haunted or not, still a very good idea; hunker down overseas, kind of let the whole thing blow over. Very much an old school thing to do, like packing many large monogramed steamer trunks and embarking on a slow ocean voyage across the Atlantic in the days long gone. But as business and family matter are wont to do, our presence was indeed required back in the States. And return our friend did to his mission, his lifelong driving quest.

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this’s like a sneak peak at the upcoming summer sho @ ltp

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Everybody makes fun of the Whitney Bienial.  But the big surprise this time is they got a couple of things right. Like the hauntingly sad photos of the returning Iraq War vet who, blown up by a crazy Jihadist’s bomb, is returning as a monster with an awful, huge reconstructed head to marry his waiting-for-him, high school sweetheart. She, dutifully committed, does indeed marry, then seperates right away. It’s too much. You can’t really blame her and seeing the photos of his return to her from the war will stay with you forever.

On a lighter note one of our favorite artists, Mr. Rbt. Williams got in. Good for you Rbt. Williams!

Even if they did choose to exhibit some limp watercolors (or maybe Prismacolors) it’s still great to see someone who actually deserves recognition get in the Whitney. His big paintings might have been a better choice but would have put all the rest of the junk in the Read the rest of this entry »

As an artist you are also an art salesman. Especially if you are trying to get in a gallery by going to Thursday night openings. If an art opening starts at 7 get there at 7. The owner will be anxiously milling about wondering if anyone will show up and there you are. Dress noticeably well. Look like you walked out of the pages of Vanity Fair magazine. Do not dress in a painter’s uniform of Dr. Marten’s, tee shirt and paint splattered pants. That look is over. Get a nice suit from a thrift store and have it tailored for about $14. If you are female do not show up in clothes you have made yourself. Do not try to look “interesting”. Get a perfume spritz and buy something hot at Bloomingdale’s. Return it the next day.

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Otto's Shrunken Head - One of the Best East Village Dives

Listening to Sergio Mendez “Brasil 66″ inspired me, you are right of course, it doesn’t take much, to find a decent Tiki Bar in New York City. For some reason all that’s left of the great ones are in places like Munich, Hamburg and SF’s Tonga Room, home of the floating barge in the indoor tropical rainstorm at the Fairmont Hotel. Germany seems to be where the last of the legendary Trader Vic’s survive and trust me, they are still very Fab! We sadly lost ours here when that awful vixon Ivana Trump tossed ‘em while shredding the Plaza.

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