By Takahiro “Horitaka” Kitamura
It’s no secret that I love books. I collect them, I write them, I publish them… and it’s nice to see that amidst the flurry of Google image searches and technological advances, books are still in use in the tattoo community. I haven’t been tattooing that long, but book collecting was, and is, something all my mentors and role models encouraged. It was about study and reference, doing your homework to make the best tattoo drawing you could!
By Jesse Dolphin
Hello fellow tattooer and close followers. TAM just took part in one of the smoothest running conventions this year. Montreal is a beautiful city with its fair share of beautiful tattooed people. The convention was held a the Gare Windsor, a remodeled, beautiful old train station with the natural lighting and its open concept it gave a fresh and inspiring surrounding. Pierre and his wife Val have been doing this convention for a few years now and have an understanding of what makes a good show…
By Takahiro “Horitaka” Kitamura
It’s already August, and the tattoo convention I throw with Roman Enriquez (Strong Tattoo/45s Forever) is coming up soon! This year the convention in scheduled for October 21-23 and we are returning to the SFO Hyatt Regency. Even with last year’s power outage on Sunday, the hotel is perfect for us and we look forward to a great weekend. Here are some highlights of this year’s show…
You arrive to Melbourne 16 hours after flying leaving Saigon, four and a half hours of which were spent in a Chinese airport where you ate beef-noodle soup that would soon destroy your stomach and have you gassing people out on the plane. The fat pimply, greasy Chinese 20-something sitting next to you keeps drinking milk, after milk, after milk, chugging them down as you fart into the cushion trying to drive the smell deep into foam oblivion… Before landing the flight attendants walk by and hand out napkins to cover your faces while they spray down the cabin in some disinfectant to rid the plane of dangers to Australia’s agriculture. You watch the stewardess walk by spraying the overhead bins and the bathrooms with what looked like air freshener. You fart some more beef noodle gas into the cushion, and the fat kid next to you is sitting there with his mouth open, burps up his milk. Welcome to Melbourne… (more…)
A while ago at a convention I bought a shirt off of Permanent Mark that had a rad tiger design on it from Thailand, but the shirt was too big for me. While I was in Peru last year I cut it out and sewed it on the back of a flannel, which I brought with me, but it got stolen. So I was excited to come and find that design out here. (more…)
To continue with my list of highlights from the SF show… It’s always a treat seeing Thom deVita and, as usual, finding him in the hotel lobby every morning by 7a.m. (He and I are commonly the only people stirring at this hour). Sitting with Thom and listening to a few of his stories each morning was a real treat.
The first morning I asked him what he was doing…”Are you people-watching?”
“Lady-watching,” he said, with a wry grin.
DeVita "Lady Watching" in the morning
DeVita also sold some of his art (which we will soon be featuring on the TAM site) and he did several tattoos on some devoted tattooers over the weekend. (It was the first time I’d seen him wear gloves!)
By Takahiro “Horitaka” Kitamura
By Jesse Dolphin
By Takahiro “Horitaka” Kitamura
Photo by Ken Nagahara
You arrive to Melbourne 16 hours after flying leaving Saigon, four and a half hours of which were spent in a Chinese airport where you ate beef-noodle soup that would soon destroy your stomach and have you gassing people out on the plane. The fat pimply, greasy Chinese 20-something sitting next to you keeps drinking milk, after milk, after milk, chugging them down as you fart into the cushion trying to drive the smell deep into foam oblivion… Before landing the flight attendants walk by and hand out napkins to cover your faces while they spray down the cabin in some disinfectant to rid the plane of dangers to Australia’s agriculture. You watch the stewardess walk by spraying the overhead bins and the bathrooms with what looked like air freshener. You fart some more beef noodle gas into the cushion, and the fat kid next to you is sitting there with his mouth open, burps up his milk. Welcome to Melbourne… (more…)
Thanks for your support!
