Ed Hardy: the Godfather of Tattooing

of the sea when the American flag was a sheet. that was in the window of the Fred Thornton store that I was obsessed with as a little kid because of a Grimm from the 50s, I'm sure this was my earlier Ed Talbot stuff from 1968, Vancouver stuff, it was kind of story of everything that It was interesting to me, you know about

tattooing

Doug, I'll get back to you later and yeah, Mark, and I'll go out and then we'll see what happens and then on Sunday we'll have lunch there. Yeah, sure, thanks, okay, cook. yeah, yeah, I'll see you oh, this is very early, yeah, this is a first album, yeah, 74 to 77, yeah, these were all very early, from realistic days.

I mean, of course, I could tell boring stories about most of the people there. Remember that a lot of the people were friends and it was important to preserve these photo albums and stuff so that when people could come in and see what was possible, instead of having Flash on the wall, these books go back all the way. and this was a guy who was a doctor in Texas and he came and said: well, I want to make a full body suit with scenes from his magneri and opera, that's Bob Roberts who I worked with edit realistic tattoo 1976 77 78 I was there everything was custom there he could take these ideas and he could make it work drawing, you know, he just had a real natural talent for it and he used to surprise me, man.

I mean, I thank my lucky stars that I got to work with him, there's a baked potato. I love that thing, but it drove me crazy because she came in. I started. The first thing is like she let out a piercing scream and I was like, "Wow, I said I can't tattoo you like that, so she buried her face in it." the pillow and it's like that, that was not the most relaxing tattoo I had ever gotten and I did it very quickly, people brought me these concepts that I would never have tackled on my own and it was a challenge, you know, and I accepted. about a lot of things that I know someone else could have done better, but it comes down to what it is, you just say, well, they want this and I'll do the best I can for them.

This guy was really interesting. I was obsessed. with his tattoos as a spectacle and as a way to make fun of people, he would put this makeup on his hands and he kept going further and further wanting his tattoos to show and for someone to choose, you know, this was his fetish and then I found these things that It would turn black like a pigment and I think it eventually disappeared. I know, I don't know when he died, but suddenly, at some point, no one saw him anymore. This is all of Japan, all the rockabilly kids in Japan, great haircuts.

Mind you, that's me

tattooing

in Tokyo. This guy wanted to. bullet holes three steps to heaven because to them American pop culture was their exoticism in the same way that the Japanese were to mine, you know, so it was really interesting to reconnect with things that were kind of my heritage, we always said the old saying, in the old days, You didn't want to be the only tattoo shop in town because you wanted to have someone else be your dumpster. You meet a guy on the street and you could have troublesome people coming in and out.

I would love to do that, but Understood, my machine is not clean yet you have to go send them out. You know a guy with a come-on attitude or some slacker who just isn't it. You know everyone has a sword attitude. The tattoos came early, but I really know. is drawing and I encouraged him to draw since he was three years old, you know, this is actually from a shot of the dragon scroll that is part of the painting on the scroll. In a way I pay attention to the Asian Saudi who acts just as a hobby, there is an animal for each year I thought the Millennial here would be a dragon, ok I'm going to make two thousand dragons and in one continuous piece, a friend of mine built like a rolling easel and you started it on New Year's Day 2000, the dragon scroll was a big breakthrough for him when he started doing that, it started with big tight dragons, but then it started getting big and loose with a lot of things, some of They were super abstract, like big splashes of colors.

I thought okay, this is my chance. to free myself, I always wanted to be more of a free painter and that gave me the opportunity and I was starting to throw some paint around and say, well, that's a dragon there, I think it's just giving in to the subconscious of it. Wow, do you know this? came out, it wasn't really me who did it. I'm channeling the freedom of being abstract when you're tattooing, you're working on this very tight render all the time, but it's interesting because in the abstract work that he does, he's able to keep the cores of these icons that he's used over and over again. .

This shape was just a shape that I started using and I do the black correctly like a tattoo and I advance it and very quickly and then I figure out where to build it. So on this one I built it like an American Indian thing, you know, so I put the beads on the moccasins and whatever I came up with, the feathers, that kind of thing, I just like to isolate some of these elements and try to transmit to them the strange. the energy they have for me, you know, and then this, a late Kuniyoshi of a magician from the Suit Code n series and this was a drawing for a guy's stomach piece in the early 1970s, it was a key image for me and did this.

I thought, well, I'll put it on its side, you know, so this is basically that picture where you see the hands clasped. I mean, it's not like tattooing, yeah, you start tattooing and then you get into it, you do it and that's it, but with paints, you know, the paper doesn't care, but it's working better for me to slow down and take my time on some of them and really thinking about what's going to make that end because no one has held a gun to my head to do it. It doesn't have to make sense. I don't want it to make sense, you know, and I don't want it to be a relatable story.

I wanted it to work too. What's that? And well, it's a painting. That's all. I do not do it. I don't do them to save the world or anything like that. I just want to do this anyway. The printmaking I started in printmaking in Chicago revived after being away from it for years and was actually done in Japan with Paul Milani, his master printer. I became interested in a lot of printmaking techniques that could be done more like brush strokes and I just made it up as I went along. I've always loved this one about the gorilla.

You know, this is from Bud Shark. This is a lithograph. I still think it can be seen. It's awkward, it's not like someone's not right about it, but there it is, this is a painting that I did that I really like and I actually regret selling it because it was kind of a breakthrough in making a figure out of a traditional American tattoo that was my The idea of ​​making things up from opponents to get the shape that you would need for a forearm or whatever and then this was largely based on Burt Grimm style shots.

What Burt would do is frame a lot of his back pieces, all these things. They were drawn in a single take. I just said, oh okay, I'll do this, there were no prep drawings, it just came out of my head, they're all responses to whatever's in front of my face, I guess when I'm, you know. By creating the plate, I am aware of my age and what I have done with my life and then of course I have accumulated this enormous amount of things that I have done. Don't make this something selfish that you want to see. it was passed down, you want to see other people exposed to it, it's not fame, it's just to pass it on, but my teachers passed it on to me recently, I had the idea to call this talking foundation that prints and draws on the Legion of Honor.

Museum where I studied a little bit when I was in art school and they loved the idea so we are essentially giving a print of every print I made and it will be great for me to have that legacy of having it in a place where people can see it is the biggest thing that has happened to me in a long time the fact that the Aachen bak is interested makes a lot of sense with Hardy's work and also shows the caliber of his printmaking. I am very happy that some of his work is preserved in this way because he is a very historically significant person in this art.

It's wonderful to try these things I posted last year. This was the question it's based on, yeah, the temple breaking rotation and all the drawings he made and the flash art they made, I hope people pay attention to it too and don't just know his quote-unquote fine art because you probably he would get mad at that term because art is art to him knowing now that he's working with some people to get some of his artwork and some of his prints to museums and things like that, I think it's incredibly important, you know, I'm totally in favor of private property and I'm also delighted to be able to go to museums and see things or invoke things that you know, studying the senators Gordon Cook was a master of the medium and really bold all the silver and all this architecture of the different textures, I mean, how am I really able to grasp different things. waves and stone and being an Ed Hardy, this obviously, on the other hand, is deeply rooted in the iconography of the very lesson of his that I am so accustomed to.

I've actually done tattoos derived from that figure, you know, but maybe I put them in a different way. The work context of course in Goa and Rembrandt were two of my main inspirations who have referenced a lot of this deep art history so that you know the legitimate art history through my own paintings which are like a thank you to these people that I did this and I want to try to, you know, transmit some of that energy, so we're all just transmitters. You know, as far as me and my art, and passing on whatever you've been able to discover for yourself, it just does. better, I'm not a big fan of the idea of ​​original things or you know, a big ego or like I started all this, you know, no one started anything, you just know it continues, we are absolutely excited about this, it opens up so many opportunists and we need to do some great stuff with that nobody traffic and it's good that it enlightens other people and Bobby, the young people come in, oh my God, you need to get the Prince here and then start, yes, exactly my father, the stork, must be met. as people interested in this beautiful and strange arts and crafts they were involved in should know and I'm glad he's that good guy.

I think it's really cool to see that childlike joy in a man who's had a career. he is illustrious he is his he is a collector he is an archivist of that you already know the history of tattooing he is a walking Smithsonian when it comes to him and his compatriots everything revolved around what they did no one does more for the promotion of tattooing throughout the world. every artist wants to do something original and advance their art and their craft and they know it and he did it he the leader this drawing I found that my mom saved I think there were maybe three or four when I made this my masterpiece was made by Donald, He said it is one of his best masterpieces.

Retirement doesn't mean sitting around, you know, I'm watching wrestling. Retirement means more time to make my own art. I'm excited about everything, I'm proud of everything I maybe had. a little hand to bring things for people to develop the personal, you know like one of my cards, where your dreams are, you know, that's what you want to do, there's nothing more important than creating as much art as you can before. you croak I think that's the meaning of life you you