Sideshow Body Art...Austin, TX

Well, after a few more months in crazy Manhattan, New York...I decided to move again, this time down to Austin, Texas...where i'm now working for a new shop that my amazing friends from formerly Voodoo Tattoo in Iowa have opened here in Austin called Sideshow Body Art. We're right down on 6th street, which rocks and reminds me of how the East Village used to be...now that CBGB's closed, and the Continental is gone, and the city has become so gentrified that I have decided...New York is dead, L.A. is dead, Seattle is dead, so the next haven for musicians and artists is now Austin. The city motto is "Keep Austin Wierd" how perfect...so, I will post my Austin adventures here, or perhaps even create a whole new Austin blog to keep my exploits on...so stay tuned, as there will be much to see and read on here as I begin a new experience down here in my home state of Texas!...peace...elvis

Another Taste of Ink

So, I've spent the last couple of days wheezing and sneezing and sleeping and freezing. You guessed it, this cold snap (snap, my ass!!) is still kickin' our butts here in the High Desert of California. Out here on the ranch the pipes are still frozen under the house, and we're sharing a flu-bug.
I haven't gotten much of writing done, but I've been trying to get this BLOG hooked up with my Homeplace, with My Yahoo and trying to get RSS feeds everywhere, so all of you art and ink enthusiasts (and dare I hope readers of varied interest??), may have easier access to my ramblings.
So I'll be honest. I'm posting another (short) slideshow of pics from Friday at the BAE that I missed in the first one. I'm doing this solely for content. I'll get down to the real stuff soon.

An interesting life...

   Isn't that a curse?? "May you live in interesting times". Yep. I think that's it. Well, we are definitely living in interesting times. I'd say it's interesting when I can spend an entire weekend at the Body Art Expo, come home to freezing weather and frozen pipes at the old family ranch, and then sit around bitching because I have it hard.
   Hard compared to what?? Compared to the families of the over 3,000 troops killed so far in Iraq? Compared to the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi citizens killed so far?? Compared to kids suffering, orphaned, wounded, starving?? I dunno. But, that is a rant for a different BLOG, so let's keep this about tattoos today, okay? Okay!

       So We attended all 3 days of the Body Art Expo in Pomona, California this weekend. It was a blast as usual, and we renewed friendships and met new friends and saw a whole lotta awesome tattooed freaks! (Just like us).

      Friday started off slow, with the ice and snow storms in the pass (Cajon, 4,000' elevation), but we made it down and got checked into our hotel in Ontario and made it to the show by 1:p or so.


      The Group: Me; my partner/lover, Tam; and our good friend and client, Brad. We were ready. Sadly for me, the artist of several of my tattoos including my back piece in process, Judy Parker of Pacific Tattoo , was not there. Seems the promoters changed the usual date of the first weekend of the month for the show to the second, and it was a conflict for her. Bummer for me. (Not to mention that the first weekend in Jan was a beautiful, warm, sun-shiney one! Darn promoters) But I was prepared for a good time nonetheless. Shopping for supplies, and maybe, just maybe, a lil black work from Su'a Freewind of Black Wave Tattoo.

      And, I was determined to be brave and stand by the sidelines while a couple of my clients entered my/their ink in the contests. *shudder, shivvver* I was nervous!

      Friday was slow, wandering around the mnay stations and checking out the retail goodies. Where to start shopping?? Jimmy from Technical was his usual stylish, self with a great selection of Millenium (Moms); Intenze and Starbrite inks, machines and tubes and more...Superior Tattoo Equipment with its friendly sellers, lots of medical supplies, machines parts and power sources and "starter kits"...(And that, my friends, is a topic for another article in itself) Mithras needles, Iron Horse tattoos and machines, and lots more!


      There were alot of great artists present, but if I start naming names, then somebody'll be pissed cuz I left someone out, so I'll just say go HERE for a list of exhibitors, shops and artists. One of my favorite portrait artists was there, B.Z if you can dig that, and another one sharing his booth that I can never remeber his name, but I wanna say the shop is "Sin City"...I could be wrong, tho...


      More about the show, later. I gotta go edit and upload pics to go with the BLOG.

Shaping the concept

I've been surfing around exploring the possibilities of making money blogging. I've also come upon some very creative barter sites; most notable is One Red Paperclip . As much as I love to write, I'm thinking of trying something with one or both of these concepts. Combined?? Not sure about that.
So my first idea is to BLOG about my experiences as an artist and ultimately as a tattoo artist. I know there is a big taboo in the industry on giving away information, but having taken the long road, so to speak, I'm not so sure I believe that a good thing. I think I could offer a valuable service with FAQ's, perhaps do some research on different licensing reg's for different states, counties and cities, offer advice, a calender...who knows what else would evolve??
I'll add this BLOG to the advertising sites and partnerships and hopefully through linking with other tattoo and art sites and BLOGs I'll be able to build traffic and interest. Of course, I'll link to my studio website as well, and perhaps that will generate more tattoo business.
I'd like to do a trade-up BLOG like One Red Paperclip, too, and I have some ideas about that, as well, but knowing my propensity for taking on too many things at once, I think I'll work on getting this one up and running first.