2011 Announcements!

Hey kids!

Happy New Year, & hope that your 2011 blows 2010 out of the water. We have been slammed ever since the holidays ended, thanks for everyone's support! We've neglected the blog somewhat, but Matt promises that he'll have updates on his visit to get tattooed by Josh Fields, & his trip to the Richmond Tattoo Convention up here soon. Even though the year is just getting started, we have a few announcements Seppuku Ronin may find interesting.

For starters, Johnny & Matt are in yet another book: 

Cranial Visions is a high quality, hard bound coffee table book published by Memento Publishing that is 8 inches wide by 12 inches tall, all 240 pages are printed in full color, featuring 258 artists with over 800 photos.

Here is a portion of the artists that have art in Cranial Visions...

Jeff Gogue, Shawn Barber, Nick Baxter, Alex Grey, Paolo Acuna, Dave Nestler, Cam De Leon, Jesse Smith, Mike DeVries, Bob Tyrell, Aaron Cain, Nikko Hurtado, Josh Winton, Victor Portugal, Simon Hayag, Alex De Pase, Nick Chaboya, Bez, Jeff Johnson, Volko Merschky, Jeremiah Barba, Jeff Ensminger, Ryan Smith, Julius Motal, Sean Herman, Durb Morrison, Tom Strom, Jeffrey Srsic, Benjamin Moss, Carlos Rojas, Bobby Hollond, Mike Chambers, Chris Dingwell, Juan Salgado, Carlos Torres, Chet Zar, Elvin Youg, Thomas Kynst, Guy Aitchison, Don Mcdonald, Ryan Hadley, Josh Duffy, Aaron Bell, Ray Villafane, Peter Forystek, Nathan Kostechko, Mario Rosenau, Dan Hazelton, Joey "skullmaster" Williams, Cory Norris, Sven Gnida, Craig Driscoll, Christian Perez, Kore Flatmo, Mick Squires, Jodi Fry, Jason Vogt, Bugs, Kari Barba, Spiro Kambitsis, Tim McEvoy, Roman, Will Gonzalez and many more! 

Matt & Johnny have nearly a dozen submissions, pick one up,... 

http://www.mdtattoos.com/Tattoo-Books/item3197.html

For second, Matt & Johnny will be gone all this weekend for,... 

The Hatter Remains 3rd Reunion of the Mad Hatters Tea Party

Friday, February 4, 2011 - Sunday, February 6, 2011

Best Western Merry Mannor INN, Portland, Maine

Reservations 207 774 6151

Phone: 407 568 9200

http://deanaskinart.com

From Chris Dingwell's press release:

HEY EVERYONE, WE ARE AT IT AGAIN!

For the third year in a row, Deanna Lippens is hosting the MAD HATTER REMAINS Tattoo convention; a reunion of the long famous MAD HATTER TEA PARTY tattoo convention. This year the WET PAINT PROJECT will be there. We have several amazing artists lined up already, and more to come! We will be working side by side on original artwork all weekend long, so come out and join us for this amazing and uniq...ue view of the artistic process in action!

Participating artists:

CHRIS DINGWELL- Sanctuary Tattoo, Portland, Maine

CANMAN - Visions Tattoo, Medway, Mass

HOLLY AZARRA - Visions Tattoo, Medway, Mass

MATT LUKESH - Sepukku Tattoo, New Jersey

JOHNNY THIEF - Sepukku Tattoo, New Jersey

TEE JAY DILL - White Tiger Tattoo, Rochester, NY

BEN RIEGEL - Off The Map Tattoo, Easthampton, Mass

CHLOE VANESSA GIROUARD-MARTEL - Off The Map Tattoo, Easthampton, Mass

KELLY JO SHOWS - Kennebunk, Maine

Stay tuned for more artists and more details to come!

Cheers!

http://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=1849719920157&id=1155506340#!/event.php?eid=191734240837250

The WET PAINT MANIFESTO!!

It's simple really.

As tattooers, we are first and foremost, artists; and while the work of the tattooer has always been somewhat public, owing to the fact that it must be created directly on the clients living skin, the work of the artist, at least in this modern age, has always been a hidden, more secretive, and very private experience.

The Wet Paint Project intends to shatter that privacy, and expose that secret by providing a stage for artists; both tattooers and otherwise, to perform their work in public. Working side by side, these artists will create their own uniquely personal work in a distinctly public arena, allowing viewers, patrons, colleagues and anyone passing by the chance to watch this process unfold and evolve: the chance to watch art being created right before their very eyes.

With this project, we intend to bring tattoo artists who are serious about their work in other mediums together with eachother as well as with artists from outside the tattooing world. We intend as well to bring these tattooers outside of the world of tattooing, and introduce them to an entirely different audience. We intend to travel beyond our own borders, and to invite artists form all kinds of cultures and countries to participate. The directive is simple; make your own work, and share that process with eachother and with all of us.

It began in Phoenix, Arizona, at the Hell City Tattoo Fest in August of 2010 with twelve artists; each one personally selected to participate. In January of 2011, we will bring the Wet Paint Project to the Surf-N-Ink Tattoo Convention on the Gold Coast of Australia. From there we hope to go to Toronto, Seattle, possibly Berlin. We are also working on creating Wet Paint events at major art galleries in Los Angeles and New York City.

With Talented and highly respected artists like Chet Zar, Nick Baxter, Chris Dingwell, Jesse Smith, Cory Norris, Damon Conklin, and many others, the work to be created from these events will no doubt be phenomenal. Professional photos and DVD interviews and will be collected all along the way and compiled at some later date to document these events.

Jamison Eckert will be at the shop all weekend long to field any requests you may have. 

And finally,... 

The 16th Annual Motor City Tattoo Expo

Feburary 25th - 27th 2011 

Matt Lukesh & Josh Fields (http://platinumrosestudio.com/) will be special guest of the 16th Annual Motor City Tattoo Expo.

From the Eternal Tattoo website: 

This year if you haven't already checked out our artists list please do and you will see once again we have brought in the best of the best tattoo artists in the industry. 

Also by clicking on the artists names you will be hyperlinked to their web site so you can view there work and also get a contact number or email address if you would like to contact them to pre book an appointment with them. We also have a special guest artist attending this years convention. Corey Miller formely from LA Ink will be attending and working this years convention so be sure to stop by Corey's booth and check him out. We hope all of you attending our convention  enjoy it and find the right artist you arelooking for and thank all of you for attending and making the Motor City Tattoo Expo  one of the best  tattoo conventions in the USA. Any comments or questions please send to eternaltattoos@aol.com

Hours of Convention

Friday: Noon - 11:00pm

Saturday 11:00AM - 11:00PM

Sunday 11:00AM - 7:00PM

http://www.eternaltattoos.com/

Not a bad way to start off the year. We have a lot of irons in the fire & will announce which of our best laid plans we'd like to include you in on as soon as we are able. Thanks again for your loyal support,... namaste! 

Scratcher Hotline!

There isn't a week that goes by at Seppuku Tattoo where someone walks through the door with some nightmare that was done out of a house or a trailer that they need repaired or covered up. This is fatiguing to us that this is still going on in the year 2010. There is so much amazing talent exploding through the tattoo scene, there isn't any excuse for terrible tattoos anymore. It should be a thing of the past. 

If you've been the victim of a terrible experience at someone's house, & think there's no accountability because it's someone's house, & not a real business, you're wrong. Each city has a health department with officers willing to enforce current tattoo laws. In Bloomingdale, its this number: Health Officer Peter Correale : Tel 973-838-0778, Ext 237. You can do a web search for health department and the name of your own city & locate the officer in your area. 

We hear a lot of kids trying to justify kitchen tattooing. Illegal tattooing does a lot more than just make everyone look like they were tattooed in prison. It breaks zoning laws, business licensing laws, health department laws, & bio hazardous waste disposal laws. The tattoo industry JUST legalized states like Massachusetts, South Carolina, & Oklahoma. We'd like to keep it that way.

It was one single case of hepatitis transmission that made it illegal to tattoo in New York City. All five boroughs of the city were outlawed from 1961 to 1997.

If you think the idea that ONE bad tattoo could make tattooing illegal statewide, consider this. Tattooing is still illegal today in many cities in New Jersey, like Clifton and Cranford. http://www.nj.com/cranford/index.ssf/2010/06/cranford_committee_tattoos_tab.html. 

Really, we do not care what you do in the privacy of your own home. If you want to get stoned out of your mind & pay some ex con with anal sex so you can look like you were tattooed by Helen Keller with a weed whacker, surprise! WE DON'T CARE. I mean, without your terrible decision making skills, we wouldn't have this cringe worthy website for our amusement: http://ugliesttattoos.failblog.org/

But we have made incredible sacrifices & dedication to make this business safe, reputable, & legal. Actually, we work hard to elevate the business away from the stereotypes of tattoos being just for criminals & druggies, & up to level of museum quality art, the same as any other fine art medium. We do not want all that work that thousands of artists cross country have sweated for to be undone by one post teen rock star kitchen magician who doesn't want to work a real job.

If you or a friend are thinking about getting an illegal tattoo, let me tell you a few things about what you may be in for.

For starters, doing a 'clean' tattoo at a house is nearly impossible. This is a line we get all the time,... 'Well, I saw he had all his stuff in wrappers!' Yeah? Did he sterilize his house? Rugs, carpets, wood, porous material, these cannot be sanitized. They will hold on to bacteria and viruses for weeks. There is no way to dispose of fluids in any sink that can be considered clean. The atomization of blood & body fluids that occurs during tattooing must be localized, which is why tattoo shops are sequestered into tiled booths built from top to bottom with sanitizable surfaces. This is why clients are never allowed into a tattoo studio's clean room where the ultrasonic & autoclaves are. If there are animals in the house, its impossible to eliminate the dander, saliva, urine, feces, or other body fluids these creatures are going to spread or track in.

That's assuming said untrained, unprofessional rock star has had any level of cross contamination, blood borne pathogens or sterile chain of events training at all. Most have not, & there are no shortage of photos online of tattoo parties that feature 'artists' with no shirts, no gloves, no barrier film, no clip cord covers, no lap cloths, no plastic on chairs, arm rests, stools, tables, spray bottles, lights, or anything else they've been contaminating with who knows whose blood. They do not use single use set ups, & often have one giant jar of Vaseline open to dip into, which is disgusting. Porous materials like towels, blankets, or bed sheets are being used & these items are nothing but portable bacteria farms. (Hell, I saw shots online of one guy working on newspaper.) Often their 'work area' is strewn with food, beer & a big old ashtray, again, not the kinds of things you really want to see injected into your bloodstream. They certainly do not have an autoclave which is required in order to sterilized equipment.

The really gross scratchers are reusing their needles & tubes. Its easy enough to slip used equipment back into 'wrappers'. Looks great, doesn't it? 

Just like safe sex, you are now under serious risk of being contaminated with every disease that every other person who has been tattooed there is carrying. Tattooing is a medically invasive procedure, & you could catch the same diseases you could from unsafe sex, including staph, Herpes, HIV & Hepatitis C. If there are children in the house, they are now exposing their own children to all these germs & bacteria as well.

Let me say that again,... in a worse case scenario, a tattoo done by someone practicing illegally can kill. This is why there are are laws regulating tattoos. 

For second,... where did they get their equipment? True, just about every tattoo magazine runs ads & sells equipment, but there are two things that amateurs are not going to know.

A: Any supply company that is going to ship to a house or private residence is a scam company looking to profit off of scratchers. Their ink is watered down garbage made with plastics, metals & unsafe filler ingredients, their needles were jigged by blind monkeys, & their machines are ratty meat slicers at best. Just as not all tattoo artists are created equal, the same is even truer for so called 'supplies'. No professional would ever use supplies bought from a magazine, & its a running joke to people who know the difference.

Tattooing for generations have closely guarded the trade secrets that make for excellent tattoos. The genuine supply companies will only ship to authorized studios, with legal & current business licenses, & monitored by the local health departments.

B: Without a proper apprenticeship, how is said garage hero supposed to know if he has quality equipment? For all he knows, he's ordered supplies that were made by guys who just got out of prison & are taking him for a free ride, & wouldn't know the difference between a hand crafted original Jonesey Squareback machine, & an electric steak knife. If there is a serious problem, like excessive bleeding, client passing out, an infection, broken lines, spotty shading, busted fills, or just a terrible looking tattoo, how does he troubleshoot the problem? The answer is, he doesn't. He simply has no idea of how wrong things can go, or how to deal with them when they do. 

During a real apprenticeship by a world class master, artists will learn every single aspect of the tattoo process, from the metallurgy of machine frames, collapsable magnetic field theory, electronics, frame geometry, spring tensions, spring cutting, coil winding, machine construction, fine tuning, needle & needle bar making, pigment grinding & ink mixing, sterilization, skin anatomy, skin tension, skin texture, & a complex array of techniques to assure that no damage, tearing, cutting, scarring, or overworking of the client occurs. This information has been handed down for generations & modern tattoo artists dedicate years of their lives to perfecting these techniques. 

All of this should be considered long before you even question whether or not this person can DRAW. Which is another topic entirely. But if you're ever wondering why you don't see a lot of neo-Rembrants coming out of a trailer or winning awards, that's because tattooing is far more difficult than it appears.

Like I said before kids, I'm not trying to tell you what to do with your lives. And, if you really love tattoos, & the amazing art tattoo artists have created, do you really want to disrespect it so badly by keeping it in the basement like a kidnapping victim? But whatever you do, just know that your actions have consequences. It may be as inconsequential as just having a shitty looking tattoo. It may be the reason tattooing becomes illegal again, or stays illegal in places like Cranford. It may be as serious as threatening someone's life with a fatal incurable disease. 

Play hard, but play smart.

Hell City Phoenix August 2010

"Lucky for you it's down right frigid out today!" said client Sandra Rodegher. Flying into the Phoenix airport Thursday afternoon, it was 107 outside, down a good 13 degrees from the average. You'd think that was the reason that promoter Durb Morrison tags the convention with the line 'Let it burn!'. But really most of the heat that weekend came from inside the hall. 

Hell City Phoenix is held at the Biltmore,... some pretty swanky digs for tattoo people. http://www.arizonabiltmore.com/ Check it out if you're old enough to ooh & ahh at things like amazing architecture & posh landscaping. Hard not to love a joint with eight swimming pools, pool side swim up bar, & a number of putting greens right outside the doors of the bungalows. Late night fire pits where people were roasting marshmallows added to a summer camp vibe. We were also spoiled with hot waitresses cruising the convention hall taking food & drink orders. 

And exceptional roster of talent for this show. Sean Karns, Jess Yen, Juan Salgado, Kari Barba, Toxyc, Josh Fields, Josh Woods, Sean Herman, Megan Massacre, Scot Winskye, Dan Ross, Steve Soto, Mick Squires, Monte, Mike Cole, Big Gus, Tim McEvoy,... just a stupid amount of talent. Anyone who knows how hard Durb works to maintain such a smooth running show knows he hand picks the talent to assure a quality event.

Matt only tattooed on Friday, spending the rest of the convention on stage doing live painting as part of the twelve person team chosen for Chris Dingwell's Wet Paint Project. The full line up included: CHET ZAR, CHRIS DINGWELL, JESSE SMITH, NICK BAXTER, CORY NORRIS, DAMON CONKLIN, MATT LUKESH, JASON MAYBRUCK, CHRIS REED, CARYL CUNNINGHAM, DEE DEE SERUGA, and PAOLO ACUNA. Each artist was exceptional & each had such a different technique, approach & subject matter, it really was just mind blowing. It was difficult to man the tattoo booth, all I wanted to do was vacate my post & sit at the feet of a dozen masters & absorb everything they were throwing down.

Traditionally, this much talent usually also brings along that many egos, stilted personas, & clashing rivalries. Maybe I was stoned on the wave of creativity knocking everyone on their ass, but all that kind of petty shit seemed to be absent from the entire weekend. All I experienced was encouraging words, serious fucking around, & people working to raise the bar across the board. Just a stellar time. 

Our clients kicked ass, everyone got some great pieces, & everyone was a delight to meet. We couldn't ask for a whole hell of a lot more. 

Sunday Johnny was asked to get upon stage & be one of the judges for that day's tattoo contests. He was duly impressed at the set up. The stage is equipped with giant video projectors so attendants can see all the entries on big screens. The judges each have a laptop with software that divides all the contestants into groups, lists them by number & name, provides a photo of the tattoo, allows you to judge based on three sets of criteria, & then tallies the data online. Pretty genius. Even the judges do not know who was won until the numbers have been crunched & the winners announced. Very impartial & as about as fair as its going to get, another way Durb simply outclasses everyone else. 

Live entertainment included live music, sideshow performers, & an art fusion stage, where a number of artists would work in charcoal & then switch to work on each other's art. The Arizona Roller Derby was there & put on bouts of all girl boxing. 

As the event was winding down, having put as much of ourselves into it as we could, it did feel like summer camp was coming to a close. Great way to end the summer. We noted how hard Chris had worked all weekend long to make sure the on stage artists had everything they needed to be comfortable, & had been shooting video of everyone else all weekend long. So we shagged his camera & decided to turn it around & interview Chris himself. 

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=470793655785&ref=mf

Thanks to everyone who was so great to us. Thanks to Durb for being the classiest gentleman in tattooing. Thanks to Chris for breaking molds. Thanks for the blood & skin, & for the loyalty of the scattered ronin. 

Check out the photos. 

Next up for Seppuku, the Richmond Tattoo Convention in November. We still have openings, let us know if you're going to be there to schedule work! 

Paint Jam Finals

Below are the final works Matt & Johnny created at Keith's for the Paint Jam.

Matt's painting is entitled 'Mary and the Millipede': Oil on Canvas (24"x30")

Johnny's painting is entitled 'Beautiful Music' : Acrylic on Canvas (18" x 24")

Paint Jam @ Kustom Kulture Ink

Sunday, July 18th, Baldwin, NY, out on Long Island sandwiched between Valley Stream & Freeport is Keith Ciaramello's Kustom Kulture Ink Tattoo & Fine Art Gallery, the east coast's answer to Ed Roth & Ed Hardy's studios. 

Both Matthew & I played hooky from the shop & loaded up the car with easels, paint, brushes, canvas, & other weapons of mediocratic destruction. Wisely deciding to journey out late at night after fielding a day of work at our own studio, we found that the choice of hotels on southern Long Island to be somewhat wanting. Three hours later, with poor Matt crashing on a couch that was rescued from a dumpster & me hogging a bed made from the hides of wet dogs, we caught a restful five hours of sleep, more than enough for the challenges of painting shoulder to shoulder with a handful of the top peers on the tattoo industry. Although I fear that the ghosts of the poor souls who had been killed in our room in the weeks prior to our visit will haunt our sleep for decades. 

Keith had put together this Paint Jam months before, trying to untangle the mess that is a tattoo artist's crazy schedule,... seems like all of us had just moved, open a shop, just got back from several trips, gallery shows, conventions, & personal onslaughts. The final roster stacked up like this,... the two members of the Seppuku shogunate, our beautiful host & beat poet Keith Ciaramello, Scott Winskye, who came up from Kentucky, but is talented enough so we forgave him for that, Chris Dingwell, who I fear is secretly cheating on my partner behind my back, & I fear may start cheating on my partner in front of my back, Keith's lackey Jared who was stripped of a last name by the courts, & a camera crew who were recently fired from the offices of Screw magazine. 

The idea was to blow through a full painting in the course of one day. In this day & age of a saturation of mad talent & overachieving artists stacked up like cordwood, this is no longer as challenging as it would have sounded just ten years ago. On one hand, we have canvases hanging in our studios that have over 100 hours into them easily. On the other, we have people like poster guru Stanley Mouse & tattooist slash fine artist Jeff Gogue doing live alla prima oil paintings from start to finish in less than two hours. So, the idea that we'd lock ourselves up on a stunning Sunday afternoon walking distance from some of the nicest beaches littered with the nicest bikini models in New York, crammed inside an art studio with all stars who's skid marks are more detailed & refined than an hundred other artists, seemed like an exercise in masochism. 

But we are not your femmey emo hipsters wearing girl's jeans two sizes too small. We are Seppuku Tattoo. So we manned up & gave our brothers a little sample of our Wu Tang Style. 

To keep us off our game, during the paint jam we were dragged out of the studio & into a small interrogation cell where they sweated us under the lights & beat a confession out of us. A squad of thugs that the Soprano's casting agent rejected for being too comically stereotypically guinea to be believed tried to throw their weight around & pry the darkest secrets of our scarred psyches out of us. I know that right now in a basement hideout somewhere off Sunrise Highway, Ciaramello is ripped out of his brain huffing painting solvents, watching these tapes & laughing at my pain. 

Ten hours later, we tapped out. Chris & Scott finished their paintings, Chris proudly bragging 'last one to arrive, first to finish',... talented and superfast,... Matt, Jared & myself came damned close,... & Keith,... well, he barely started, preferring instead to spend most of his time shoving everyone in a barrel & verbally assaulting them sexually. But we all are confident that his painting will look stellar,... this October. 

Here's a sample of the shenanigans. Or at least the images we cam post without a flurry of injunctions or divorce papers. Can't wait to do it again. Just need a few months to heal so I can sit down comfortably again.

kustomkulturegallery.com