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Tattooing is design in a shoebox. Forget the careful discussions and numerous iterations that we, as designers, are so familiar with. Forget the thousand sketches, the myriad considerations behind each line we draw, each color we choose. In the end, it all goes down real fast, with very little room for mistakes. Some people are turned off by that do-or-die aspect of tattoo art, but I love it – no command-z, no re-design six months later. A baseball-sized custom tattoo can go from concept to completion in an hour or two, with a sales technique reminiscent of the carnival sideshow barker. It’s amazing how something that happens so quickly can have such longevity – if you lay it in deep enough.

I am also drawn to the rich and colorful tradition surrounding tattoo art. It’s one of the few things out there that isn’t killing itself to “revolutionize.” The mechanics of a tattoo machine have stayed the same since it was invented. Most of the machines I like to use are based on designs from the ‘40s and ‘50s and run ten times sweeter than the modern, anodized aluminum, machine-made junk you see on eBay.

My interest in the field began young – I remember first walking into a tattoo parlor when I was twelve, driven by a preteen fascination with its general air of seediness. I was quickly kicked out by a long-haired biker with a tattoo of a teardrop by his eye. But before I hit the door, I caught a glimpse of the walls of images: flesh riddled with drawings of skulls, dragons, panthers, roses, anchors, and bald eagles. I had always drawn pictures, but until that point they had been limited to hot rods and Cowboys and Indians battle scenes. Those walls of flash tattoos showed me a whole new genre that I couldn’t wait to lay down in lead.

Years later, when I moved back to my hometown of Austin, Texas, I found that an old art friend of mine had become an accomplished tattoo artist. It didn’t take long for him to get me into the chair. I’d get one and before the bleeding had even stopped, I’d be thinking about the next. I started drawing flash and eventually learned how to watercolor “tattoo style.” After showing some of these sketches to my friend, he asked if I wanted to learn how to tattoo – and without thinking, I said “Hell, yes!”

The collection of work shown here is a mix of paper and skin, and offers no consistent conceptual basis. Tattooing is an art form of quick one-offs, developed around your mood, your thoughts, your client’s interests. I think if you take it too seriously or overwork an idea for a composition, you kill the nature of tattooing. Like life, tattooing is a mixed bag: a little pleasure, a little pain, creation born from destruction. And you’re best off embracing the spontaneity of both.