THE BEGINNINGS

For as long as I can remember I have always done art. My earliest memory of it was when I was about 5 years old, just starting school, OP or open plan at Tahunanui School. We were read a book "Everybody knows what a dragon looks like" and were then given the task of drawing a dragon and who ever was judged to be the best won the book, and maybe something else I can't remember. 

One even earlier expression of art, which I don't remember, that my Dad   told me about a few years ago was when I was very young, in nappies, and how after Id pooed myself I then reached into the back of my nappies and scooped some out then preceded to paint the walls with it, Nice, my Dad didn't think so because he had the envious job of scrapping it off the walls with a putty knife. 

The rest of my schooling as far as I can remember was relatively uneventful. I vaguely recall doing art at Broadgreen Intermediate, I remember painting a tree, but paint or even colour has never been a medium I've enjoyed working with. I also remember, at woodwork, making a chopping block and then wood burning a dismembered person on it, which would have to be my first ever wood burning, a far cry from what I can do today with it. One other thing that really sticks out in my mind is when we were given assignments to work on. I wouldn't call myself a very clever person but when we were given an assignment I'd do all the usual research etc but then I'd really go to town on flashing the whole thing up with fancy pictures, borders and titles etc, and this earned me quite good grades. I still have a few of my old assignments that I did and looking at them now they don't look particularly flash but I spose for a kid of 11 or 12 they were quite good and I clearly remember being pretty proud of myself at the time.

Next was college. I spent the first 3 years of college at Nelson College which I didn't particularly enjoy because most of my friends went to Nayland College and because living at home was becoming increasing unbearable. Art at Nelson College, as I recall, wasn't particularly exciting, draw bowls of fruit etc. I don't really remember much and I havn't got anything Arty from that period. I do recall doodling and drawing in my spare time in a book and defacing my school books. One book I remember drawing heaps in was thrown out by my step-maggot, because it had, according to her, objectionable material in it. Id listened to a variety of music up till then (some of which I'm to embarrassed to mention) but in about 3rd or 4th form I started getting into "The Devils Music" or Heavy Metal as its commonly known to normal people. My Father and step-maggot were at this time going through a Christian faze, as you do, and my bedroom was referred to as a shrine to satan not to mention my poor taste in music. The reason I've brought this up is because I still have drawing from that period in my life and the music I listened to clearly influenced what I drew. 

I also got my first couple of tattoos while at Nelson College, well not really I got 4 dots on my right wrist and a big dot on my left arm, all these were done with a home-made gun. I can't really recall expressing that much of an interest in tattooing at that time. I got my first professional tattoo while there as well and can recall the experience fairly well. The tattoo shop, which I won't name, could be compared to a dimly lit Medieval Dungeon, cigarette smoke clinging in the air, cigarette butts in overfilled ash-trays, black walls lined with cheap tacky flash designs. I'm sure this was fairly typical of Tattoo Shops of this period, and I know they still exist today. Anyway I found a design I liked of an eagle and took that into the tattooist, made the appointment and got it tattooed, simple. I don't recall the pain or much of the Tattooing process in general but I do remember asking a million and one different questions about Tattooing. "You must have been a good artist when you were younger" to which he replied "No not really". All together he didn't appear to be that enthusiastic about tattooing. Another thing I said to him was that I'd like to be a tattooist and he answered that by saying "Don't open up a shop in this town", I was 16 yrs old at the time. In my opinion there are two different kinds of tattooists, there are those who are just in it for the money and those who are in it for the art, and then there are a whole different sub-categories within those two. The guy who first Tattooed me was your typical "Biker Tattooist", a fairly competent artist but I think more interested in the money, girls and status of being a tattooist rather than someone who just loved art. No doubt he did some good tattoos but I've been told if he was into what he was doing he'd put a lot more effort into it and not much effort into something he didn't really give a toss about. Its true that its hard to get into every tattoo you do but I firmly believe you should put your all into whatever design you do because your scarring someone for the rest of there life and to me that's quite a honour.

Incidentally I passed school certificate in Art as well as Geography, Science and English much too a few peoples surprise, and I didn't study at all for it. After 3 years at Nelson College they had finally had enough of me and I ended up shifting to Nayland College for my 6th form year. As well as doing Art I also took Journalism. I had the opportunity to do an article in the college newspaper so I choose Tattooing, and looking back at the article now I can laugh at some of the advice I gave readers, little did I know. I also did some artwork for a story on drink-driving.

In the same year I did some work experience at two different sign writers because this was an avenue I thought I could go down. I knew I was good at art so it made sense to me to me look for employment in something Artistically related, nothing eventuated and at that time I thought it would be great to be a Tattooist, but how the hell do you go about doing that!!!???

​​Art at Nayland College wasn't too bad, apart from drawing the accursed bowls of fruit again. I accept now that the tasks they give you in art class are good for you to develop basic skills and touch on a wide range of subjects and mediums, although I didn't think so at the time. After a bit of the usual crap you do in art I just started doing what I wanted, and still have a few of the pictures I drew at that time. For some reason I never really embraced the pencil but rather the biro or ink pen, of which both in my opinion severely limit what you can achieve. I did a series of drawings a named "Death in Forms". The first was "Death on Horseback" riding a skinny stead and that was supposed to represent the Great Plague. The second, was named "Humanity's Death-take as many with you". The graveyard in the background was from another picture unrelated, but the skeleton rowing was supposed to represent the pollution of the Thames. There was a third but I cant remember what it was.

 Another interesting point to make about the drawings I did round this period is that for some reason I made poems up about pretty much all the pictures, weird, but I won't bore you to death by reciting those, not yet anyway.

Also in this year, I left home and I got another two tattoos. The second was something I stupidly picked off the wall of the Tattoo Studio (I steer people away from making the same kind of mistake I made) of a dragon and castle which a friend of mine paid for for my birthday (she paid $100 which paid for the outline and I got the shading done at a later date when I could afford it). The third Tattoo I got was of a tribal S which was the symbol of a Brazilian Metal band Sepultura, which I still enjoy listening too. Lastly the picture below is quite a cool one I think that I drew totally outta my head, which is sort of unusual cause most of my pictures have been inspired/copied from someone elses art. It's pretty self-explanatory, a battle between good and evil with another force coming to join the fray from the mountains in the background.

That concludes my Art at school level. At the end of six form at Nayland I had my whole year cancelled because I hadn't attended often enough, which is true enough. Id left home permanently, had been granted a benefit, and was boarding with an old lady in Tahuna, so the fact that I attended school at all was quite an achievement in itself I think. 

DRAWING ON SKIN

After I left school I did a couple of courses, one was called "Young Nelson" which was ok but I got kicked off it before it ended, can't remember why. Because I got kicked off it I was supposed to get cut off the dole, but they gave me a second chance in the way of another course. "LSV" was its name that stands for limited Service Volunteer, it was an army course based in Burnham Military Camp in Christchurch, yip you guessed it I got kicked off that too.Anyway while I was enrolled on the Young Nelson course a friendand I shifted into a flat together and it was in this flat that I did my first few tattoos, it was a bit of a dive in a row of flats but at 18, unemployed, useless and not much hope for the future it was home sweet home. I occasionally used to doodle and draw on my flat mate and other friends with vivid's and biro's. I drew a demon on my flat mates arm one day and he asked me if I wanted to tattoo it on him. You see there was a backyard tattooist living next door, he was a good artist, tattooist, painter and carver, and my flat mate suggested to go and ask him and see whether I could borrow his boob/homemade gun, so I did.

The guy was more than happy to lend me it so I took it home, had a scribble on my leg with it then proceeded to tattoo my friend. That was how I did my first tattoo. After that first tattoo, I looked how he had built his then proceeded to build my own gun. I continued drawing on people/friends/victims arms with my newly built toy, the art of tattooing isn't quite as simple as that so as you could probably guess all the work I did round that time was not the greatest. In those first few years I was never really happy with anything I did with it, maybe the odd one but it wasn't until I went to jail that for the first time I seriously thought "Hey, I'm not too bad at this and I wanna open up my own shop". While in the centre-north wing of Paparua Prison, Christchurch, I was fortunate enough to meet another tattooist, Mark Campbell, and got celled up with him. He showed me how to wood burn and more importantly showed me how to do circler shading. That little bit of knowledge proved to be invaluable, and I owe him a lot for that, straight away I went from being say 20/100 to 60/100. From that "the world was my oyster" as they say and I improved my tattooing ten-fold, but not just tattooing benefited but my drawing and my newly learnt skill of pokerwork/wood burning. I did a couple of tattoos while in that wing but it wasn't until I got transferred to East Wing that my tattoo career really took off. I was the main tattooist in that wing for the duration of my time there, which about 9 months.

Cell 48 was my home for that time and it was here that I created my first business card and shop name which was "Totenkopfverebaende Tattoos" or "Totenkopf Tattoos" for short. What you ask does that mean, it's in German, Toten means Death, Kopf means Head and Verebaende means Division/group. You see I read a book in there called "Curse of the Deaths-Head" which was a book about originally a Concentration Camp detachment that was later formed into a Waffen SS Division in World War II. It was a really good book written from a none biased point of view, but I'm not writing this to give you a history lesson. I wanted a slogan as well, something catchy, and it took me ages to come up with one but I finally settled on "your Final Solution" which is my new business slogan still. 

I was in East Wing in 1997 when a group of lifers took some screws hostage and held the wing to siege. That's rarely happened before if at all, there were about 80 of us inmates in control of the wing, it ended peacefully although I think one of the screws threw up. The main reason for me remembering it was for the fact that the first time since Id improved at tattooing I could tattoo at my leisure without having to look over my shoulder or set a watch on the door. You see, you aren't allowed to tattoo in jail, in order to do so you have to do it in between hourly board checks and set a watch on the door or the other option is to do it out in the exercise yard. At least in East Wing that's how it works but in all the other wings you 2 up in a cell so all you did was get celled up with a tattooist, that's how I got my arms and throat done. While alone at night in my cell in East Wing I did wood burnings and tattooed myself. I tattooed most of the front of my legs while I was in there. Before I went to jail, I got involved with a bike gang, silly boy, which is why I went to jail in the first place. It all seemed pretty cool to begin with, but alas that was not the case. 

It may sound silly to most people and I agree with them mostly but going to prison was one of the best things that has ever happened to me and I'm not ashamed of it and if I had a choice of doing things differently I wouldn't change a thing. You see life, with its ups and downs shape us into who we are and without these experiences whether they be good or bad were nothing. For some reason when I was in my late teens I wanted to go to jail purely for the experience, although I didn't make a conscious effort to be put there. I thought that if I was going to go to prison then I should go for a decent amount of time which is why after Id been sentenced and everyone else appealed I chose not to, and I think it was a good decision. All my other co-offenders got 6 months reduced of there sentence, but a lot of good things happened for me in that last 6 months of jail so if I hadn't of been there then maybe things would have turned out differently. Anyway back to the story, the gang I was in I left in jail and as I said before, for the first time in my short tattoo career I seriously thought I was getting good enough to do it for a living. The future was looking brighter.

HOME SWEET HOME

After I was released from jail I hung round Christchurch for about 6 weeks, then my Dad came and picked me up and took me back to Nelson, I was 21. I lived with him, my younger brother and younger sister and the step-maggot. Everything was alright, for a few weeks at least then it all turned to shit because of the step-maggot, but I'm not going to bleat about that. Before I shifted back up to Nelson I had scraped some money together and brought all the necessary bits and pieces to build another tattoo gun. After I shifted out of my Dads I lived for a few months at some friends of the family (who were gracious enough to let me stay there, good people), then with some friends for another few months and then a flat very briefly, I started falling back into the same habit of hanging out with dickheads. Around this time to I had my first opportunity to tattoo using a professionally made tattoo gun. I hated it, I didn't know what the hell I was doing with it and subsequently went back to using my boob gun. 

I really got on my feet when I shifted in with my Dad, you see he had finally seen the light and found the courage and got rid the dragon. I lived with my Dad for quite a few months not quite a year I think, and while there I tattooed people in my bedroom, mainly friends and friends of friends. I brought my first dentist chair while I was there to. The time I spent their gave me some much needed stability which I hadn't had for a long time if ever and I was able move forward and further myself. Another important thing that happened at my Dads was my shifting out of the homemade gun world and into the professional tattoo gun arena, what a difference!!! Before I brought my first professional tattoo gun I tried, unsuccessfully, to build a professional rotary gun, it can be done. When I got my first pro gun it was so different than what I was used to using, it was much heavier and I didn't understand how it worked, but I'd basically got as good as I was going to get using a homemade gun, and I realized this so I had to persevere with it. Tattooists on the whole, aren't the friendliest of people to you if you're a struggling tattooist trying to learn the trade. "This is my Territory" blah blah blah "don't open up a shop in my town", sounds all very gang orientated. I'm not sure why this is perhaps because a lot of the older generation of tattooists did come from a biker background; it certainly existed back then and still does today unfortunately. Around the time I got that first pro gun I had been getting tattooed my a tattooist in Tahuna called Wok. He did some awesome work on me and helped me out enormously by teaching me a bit about the professionally side of things, his was the first real studio that I visited often and remains to this day the only studio I visited more than a dozen times. I remember being quite in awe of the work Wok was turning out at the time, hes very good and I thought ill never be as good as him. I'm proud to say now that I think I'm pretty damn close to his level of excellence and quality. Most of how I Tattoo and have set my shop up in the way that I have is thanks to him as well.

I love my Father but we don't get on the best living together (turn that music down etc...) so inevitability I moved on but the difference being was I was ready to and in a good state of mind. I shifted in with some friends on Wellington Street, and lived there quite comfortably for a while. I had a room with a lounge on the bottom story of a house so I decked the lounge out as a tattoo studio, sort of. After Wellington Street I shifted into a small 2 bedroom flat by myself, it was really cheap rent that I could just afford by myself, because I'd found living with people can be really annoying. I lived there for just over 5 years and really loved the stability of living somewhere for a decent amount of time.

As I tattooed over the years I just kept getting better and better but something Wok told me really stuck in my head, and that was the importance of working in a studio/shop. He said that you learn in leaps and bounds being in a shop because you obviously get a lot more work and a lot more variety of work. A lot of the work I did early on was on friends and of the Skinhead/Nazi nature and I remember someone asking me if I only did Nazi tattoos, I said no of course not but hadn't really thought about it till then. Back then I refused to tattoo maori designs. The reason for this was because everything I did I put my all into and I couldn't see myself putting the same into maori designs, and I think I might have felt like a bit of a traitor as well. Back then my views on a variety of things were fairly close minded, negative and hateful. I'm glad to say I've grown up a lot since then and while I still firmly believe in what I believed in then I understand things more and are more accepting of other races and cultures.

PHOENIX TATTOOS

I opened my shop Phoenix Tattoos in the summer of 2001. Its 2007 now, 6 years in business and it’s been one of the best moves ive ever done, it’s my life. Firstly, the name change, I decided on the name Phoenix firstly because of a wood burning I did for a German Tattooist friend I met, a guy called Nickolaus Lenk titled Phoenix Rising which was taken in turn from an Ian Stuart song of the same name, I left off the Rising and stuck with Phoenix. I used to get asked a bit what Totenkopfverebaende meant and was sick of explaining that and just wanted something different. It was quite a big undertaking and I needed as much luck and skill as I could muster.

Tattooing generally is a seasonal thing so it was a good thing I started in summer, I recall early on, especially during the winter things being very slow. Now, 5 years on I’m booked around a month to 6 weeks in advance year round. The last few years I have put quite a few hours into tattooing, 11 am till 5 or 6 and then going back after dinner for another couple of hours sometimes. I’m firmly established now and have a very good reputation and name and although I love doing what I do, I don’t want it to rule my life. Nowadays I work generally from 11 till 3 6 days a week and tattoo friends (or certain tattoos) for a couple of hours on Sundays before I play volleyball.

Looking back at the quality of my work when I first opened my shop, it was pretty average and things that look good at the time deteriorate over time I've learnt. It’s all a learning process though and ill probably never be 100% happy with everything I do. I tattoo quite a lot of maori style tribal designs today, mostly freehand and original and also do a lot of Biomechanics.

Since being in my shop I've been fortunate enough to meet a few different tattooist from over seas and even been tattooed by a couple. Alex and Mirko from Deutschland and Shoji Obara and Hori Nori from Japan have all tattooed me and are all very good tattooists, and I must not forget NASA from Brazil. Nasa operates a tattoo studio in Tauranga at the moment and has tattooed in over 28 countries around the world and he is only in his early 30’s. So as you’d imagine hes very good. He’s done some beautiful Celtic spirals on both of my shoulders which I drew and designed. I met him a couple of years ago while he had a studio in a Nelson, and he helped me out enormously with my tattooing, just little tips here and there and I especially found helpful his input concerning the tuning of a tattoo machine. Torque, punch power, needle setup, lines and shading, pretty much everything. You see i'm not a mechanically minded person and as far as the intricacies of setting a tattoo gun up I didn't have much of a clue and still don’t to a certain degree, but my works not to bad so I must be doing something right eh.

GIGER: Hans Rudi Giger (pronounced gig as in computer gig then er), I cant write this without mentioning this great visionary. I'm not sure when I first heard of Giger but it has only been recently that his work has really directly influenced myself and my work. I remember a girlie friend giving me my first Giger book about 11 years ago, not long after I got out of jail. Now I have 2 copies of all of his books and refer to them quite frequently for tattooing and painting inspiration. His work has to been seen to believed, he is a master in his own right. 

I used to have a whole lot of Flash type designs on my wall but after getting back from Tauranga visiting Nasa 2 years ago I thought, why the hell do I have that up, he didn't have any of that crap on his wall and if someone picked a piece off the wall id change it or convince them to get something else. Nowadays my shops adorned with swords and other medieval instruments of brutality and my airbrush art, which leads me into the next chapter of my life.

AIRBRUSHING

Airbrushing, has been my real doorway to art. While tattooing is itself art it’s not the same as hanging something on a wall for all to see. I tried, furtively, a few years ago to paint with a brush and was horrified at my simplistic results and quite ashamed, I know art but I just don’t have the expertise or knowledge to paint with a brush. Ironically the same guy who I borrowed a tattoo gun off years ago to do my first tattoo helped me get into airbrushing to, funny how things work out. 

2012 Well fuck me another few years have gone by, actually I started the bit about the airbrushing round a year ago, I better complete this before I forget whats been happening.

Anyway, yea so that same guy showed me the basics of airbrushing and once again opened up a whole new world for me. Tattooing's not really seen as an art and common perception is neither is airbrushing really, but who gives a fuck. Its all art to me. 

To be continued...............

DIGITAL ART

KINDER