All language subtitles for (2016)TattooNation.ING

First of all, my mom.

There was a point
where she was in the hospital

for, like, two weeks, and we
really thought that was it.

She has this thing where her
white blood cells go down

and her blood thins
out into water.

You know, just praying every
day, every day, every day.

You know, it might seem
that God is choking you,

but it's just a test of faith.

By having my tattoo on the back,

it just feels that I
have my mom with me.

I'm always gonna
carry her with me.

When I pray at night,
I feel like she's there with me,

praying with me,

and it's just this bond
that I have with my mom,

and it's just faith.

When I was getting tattooed,
I mean, I could just think,

Wow, this ain't even half of
what my mom goes through every
day.

It's just I feel
her closer to me.

I know God and the Virgin Mary
has my back and my mom, so...

It's just...

You know, I mean, I don't want
to be like anybody else.

You know, I definitely want
to have my own thing,

and we're all created unique,
you know what I mean?

There's something different
about each and every one of us,

and it's just a matter
of getting to know who you are.

You know, I want to really
tell a story on my skin,

so when people see it,
they can more or less read

instead of having a saying,

instead of putting writing,

I wanted to put my thoughts,
my story into it

but in images.

It was an angel.
It was Cupid, and it just.

For me, it really symbolized
freedom and the wings of an
angel.

Being able to rise above the
trials and tribulations

that you go through in life.

When somebody asks me, "Which
one is your favorite tattoo?",

that's the equivalent
of asking somebody like,

Which one of your children
is your favorite?

You can't pick just one.

Tattoos were once seen
as a sign of rebellion,

a middle finger salute
to the rest of the world.

Outlaw bikers
got tattoos.

Sailors in Singapore
got tattoos.

Lifers in the joint
got tattoos.

But now...

What do you think of all the
ink that my audience has?

I love it! It's so good.

It's estimated 15% of Americans
have tattoos

and that number rises to 40%
in the age group 26 to 40.

Tattoos used to be
a sign of rebellion.

Now it's just a sign
you've been to the mall.

Everyplace you go,
everywhere you look,

it seems like someone's
wearing ink.

Why do you like tattoos?

I think everybody's got a way
of expressing their feelings,

and mine is for my tattoos.

So what happened?

How did tattoo go from
something that was put on
you

to an expression
that comes from within you?

- Hey.
- What's up, Freddy?

How are you doing?

This is actually a design
that Danielle came up with.

Now, this tattoo started out
as a little cover up.

My daughter had said she had
a terrible tattoo on her hip

that she didn't like,
so she'd cover it up.

Sure, go ahead.

So I sent her to Freddy.

Just a generation ago,
it was unthinkable

for a father to take his
daughter into a tattoo
parlor.

It was even more unusual
for him to stick around

and watch her get one.

For years, tattoos have had
an image problem.

In fact, not so very long
ago, in many parts of the
world,

tattooing wasn't just frowned
upon, it was illegal.

Even though a number
of brave service men

came home from World War II
wearing fresh ink,

tattooers and their clients
were considered by most
others

to be on the
fringe of society.

In those days,
if you opened a shop,

you opened a shop in Skid Row
or you didn't open at all

because nobody would look
for you anywhere else.

A lot of times,
tattooers back in that period

would actually adopt
a needle name

to protect their family
from embarrassment.

By the 1960s, many people
got their tattoos in secret

behind closed doors.

If you were caught tattooing
during the period of time

that it was illegal
in New York City,

there was a $500 fine,
a misdemeanor charge,

and then they would confiscate
all of your tattoo equipment.

Well, when I started
in Massachusetts,

of course it was illegal.

So I tattooed probably
the first year or so

only out of this
motorcycle club clubhouse,

and every time
I saw a really amazing tattoo,

it seemed to be from the Pike.

I'd ask guys, "Where'd
you get that?"

And they'd be like,
"Oh, California."

I'm like, "Where?", and they'd
say, "Long Beach, at the Pike."

The Pike goes back to the 1800s.

It was initially a fishing pier
that they built off Long Beach.

People started building rides,

then concessions came in,
restaurants came in.

At one time there was a dozen
tattoo shops.

There were few that rivaled it

for concentration of tattooers
in one place.

In those days,

you're talking about 300 shops
in the whole United States.

So there wasn't
that many choices.

Everybody knew the Pike
was where to go get a tattoo.

There was all those military
bases, training bases.

The 7th fleet was there in Los
Angeles and San Pedro, so it was
all.

You know, there was tons of
military in Southern California,

so of course they were drawn
to this amusement area.

There were not a lot of
civilians getting tattooed.

It was military pay-day
two weekends a month.

72 hours of just hardcore
sailors, Marines, and military.

Sometimes they would work 24
hours, they would work around
the clock.

Sometimes if the shop
had enough staff,

they would actually be open
for three days straight,

the whole weekend.

They wouldn't even close.

We were doing strictly
what was on the wall,

and it was pretty eclectic.

You know, your basic roses,
eagles, ribbons.

We did a lot of Marine
Corps stuff in the '60s.

A lot of Marine bulldogs,
and eagle, globe, and anchors.

We put on good tattoos,
but we put them on fast

because you were doing
Virgin Marys this big for $15.

You know, you couldn't spend two
hours on it like you do today.

So we put them on in 20 minutes.

Most tattoos offered
at The Pike

were in the style now
referred to as traditional.

They were cartoon-like
designs displayed on sheets
called flash.

With limited choices
and only four colors,

tattoo was a
one-way street.

You went into a tattoo shop, you
picked a design off the wall,

and you had it tattooed on you.

I mean, maybe you could change
the color

if the tattooer
wasn't too ornery.

We had so much business from
just what was coming in off the
door

that we didn't need to
specialize or do custom work.

We used to tell people, "If it
ain't on the wall, we don't have
it."

Even with all
that business,

Pike tattooers weren't likely
to hire or train new talent.

For one thing,
a lot of the older tattooers

wouldn't give up
any of the cool secrets.

The guys would leave.

They wouldn't know
how to make needles,

they wouldn't know
how to make ink.

The guys they worked for would
supply them with this stuff

because they didn't want them
to leave.

I mean, back then you'd ask
somebody to work on your
machine.

If they would even do it,

if they weren't going to
take it and fuck it up more,

if they were actually going
to do something good to it,

there's a good chance
they'd turn around

and, you know, kind of hide it

and do what they needed to do
and hand it back to you.

And it was that mentality.
"Why won't you show me?"

Cause if I show you,

then you're going to go do
something on your own.

Most artists didn't talk
with each other in those days.

You didn't go visit
the other guy's shops.

If you opened a shop up within
20 miles of where they were,

man, they'd break your windows
out or superglue your locks.

But in the 1970s, there was a
place where tattoos were
accepted

and tattoo artists
seemed to flourish.

It was a place where the
secrets of tattoo were openly
shared

and the boundaries of what
you could do with a needle and
ink

were being tested
day after day.

That place was prison,

and the inmates
who were pushing the art?

They were mostly
Mexican-Americans.

By the mid 20th Century,

there were hundreds of
thousands of
Mexican-Americans

living and working
in the American Southwest.

As they came to the cities

and they established
different barrios,

some in rural areas,
some in urban areas,

some in suburban areas,
different locations...

They were close to jobs
in certain occupations,

and that's where you find
Mexican barrios rising.

Some of those people in Los
Angeles had ancestors in the
Southwest

for hundreds of years
when it was part of Mexico,

Yet they were treated
as second-class citizens.

There was a segment
of the population, 10-15%,

that lost out somehow
and got lost in the shuffle,

fell between the cracks,

and that segment of youth
within those groups,

they began to hang out in
the streets more regularly,

and on the streets
they created their own culture,

which is a syncretic culture,

part of the pachuco thing.

Pachuco culture
had its own unique style.

Wide brim hats,
suits with broad shoulders,

pleated pants with tight
cuffs, zoot suits.

But it was the tattoo that
truly bonded many of the
men.

The pachuco cross was a
symbol of belonging to a
group

that others saw
as outsiders.

It's almost like your baptizing
on the streets

and you have the imprimatur
of the tattoo.

And it started off with little
crosses here and little dots
there

and maybe a little heart
with their girlfriend's name.

By the 1970s,
pachuco was old school.

Their descendants
called themselves "cholo".

As from the Spanish word "solo".
Cholo.

That's the play on words.

In other words, you're alone,
you're abandoned,

you're marginal, you're solo.

Pobrecito.

But there was a lot more to
cholo culture than just
attitude.

It was also the way you walked,
the way you talked,

the way you dressed, and the
way you adorned your car.

The lowrider car and all that
goes with slow and smooth.

You know, laid-back,

sort of walking
like you're leaning backwards.

It's all part of a new cultural
invention and creation.

I grew up around
East Los Angeles,

and it was pretty much a norm
getting tattooed and seeing
tattoos,

and everyone's dads or uncles
or somebody in the family

always had tattoos.

People's older brothers or
someone would come out of jail

and they'd always have
a homemade machine around

and everyone would
doodle with it.

Eventually you get good, you
know, if you stick with it.

Prison left cholos with
plenty of time on their
hands.

Guys who had never even
thought about art before

now passed the time drawing
on letters and
handkerchiefs,

but the ones who got
the most attention

were the guys who
could tattoo.

Well, in '65 and '66 in prison,

Chicanismo was just coming
into play.

Cesar Chavez was banding
together United Farm Workers,

and it was a lot of brown pride,

and so, people started becoming
real ethnically aware.

They started putting tattoos of
Mexican flags and Mexican women.

They were locked up,
and they would, you know,

draw on paper and envelopes the
images of what they were into,

which is, you know,
stuff that made them think

of their time in
the neighborhood

the Virgin Mary their mother
had on the wall,

or, you know, that
kind of stuff,

and guys would start doing it in
prison and then they'd get out

and they started tattooing in
the street a little bit like
that

because you couldn't really go
into a shop

and, you know, get these things
that were sacred to them.

You had tattoos that identified
you with a particular barrio.

And then when you
went to prison,

the other guys that were part of
that barrio would make you get
one

to sort of show that you were
part of their group, of their
collective.

So tattoos began to proliferate.

Tattoos were illegal in prison

so you had to have somebody
watch out for the guards.

I did a little Mexican lady
with a sombrero.

And we started in Quentin,

and in '65, your little machines
hadn't come into play yet.

So Harry "Super Jew" Ross,
a guy from this neighborhood,

a friend of mine, he actually
did the outline with needle and
thread:

E-string of a guitar
in a toothbrush

bang, bang, bang bang bang

which is probably the most
painful way in the world to get
a tattoo.

Little did Danny
Trejo know,

but he was witnessing the
start of an entirely new style
of tattoo.

And one of the pioneers of
that style was Freddy
Negrete.

My mother was born of Jewish
immigrants in Boyle Heights.

My father was a suave Pachuco,

and my mother also
joined a gang,

and both my mother and my
father ended up in prison.

So, my sister and I, we ended up
in a foster home in San Gabriel,

and I would have to say
that all that trauma

made me like a troubled youth,

and I was searching
for identity.

Was I white? Was I Mexican?

So by the time I was 12,

I found security
in joining a Hispanic gang,

and I went from juvenile hall
to boys' homes.

It seemed like the only time
that I was out,

I was running away
from some boys' home.

And I'd go to my neighborhood
and I'd be a crazy gangster,

and then I'd get arrested again.

I was in juvenile hall, and
they brought this other guy in.

He was an older
guy, maybe 15-16.

He had tattoos all
over, you know.

And I was like, "Whoa, man!"
I was so impressed.

He was really cool with me,

and he started telling me this
is how they do it in prison.

That afternoon I got out.

I rigged up that little
tattoo needle like he said,

and it wasn't long before I
became like the neighborhood
tattoo artist.

In prisons, one of the things
that separates Chicanos

from other ethnic groups
is their sense sharing things.

So that sharing notion,
that collective notion

is part of the
cultural heritage.

We got the plans from, I
remember, Susanville Prison,

on how to make a rotary tattoo
machine out of a cassette motor.

In the 1970s,
California authorities saw

they could ease the tension
from prison overcrowding

by allowing inmates to have
cassette players to listen to
music.

With a cassette motor,
an ordinary pen shaft,

and an E-string
from a guitar,

ingenious inmates automated
the hand poke tattoo.

The slow speed of the motor
allowed the ink to be
carried

to the end of the
sharpened guitar string.

It was fairly quiet.

It didn't take a lot of power,

so if you put in a good-sized
battery behind, it'd last for
hours.

To make ink, they'll burn
different types of papers.

Bibles, pages out of magazines,

catalogues,

some departmental forms

that the ash, liquefied with
water, would get different
colors of blacks.

I heard about the fact
that if you took the ink

and put it in the window,

it would evaporate
and become blacker,

and that if you added a little
bit of water or baby oil to the
ink,

it would become lighter,

so we were creating
black, dark black, grey.

These new tones
of black-and-grey ink

gave tattoos a quality of
shading and dimension never seen
before.

If you were around
the Chicano culture at all,

you had seen those
images before,

and they were iconic,
they were classics.

It was more the expertise that
they were rendered with in the
skin

that was the most amazing thing
about them.

Actually, if it wasn't for the
events that took place in youth
authority,

I probably would have never
become a professional tattoo
artist.

I was in Preston
School of Industry,

so they had all
the trades there,

and I ended up working the
camera room in the print shop,

and, you know, one of the
homies, he was the foreman.

So he got me in
on the print shop thing,

and so then we got
a few other homies.

So we got all homies
from our lodge.

And the teacher of
the print shop,

he let us do all kinds
of side projects.

I would draw these tattoo
designs, all the Chicano style
things

the "Smile Now, Cry Later",
the charra, skulls.

You know, crazy tattoo stuff,

but it was mostly
revolutionary stuff

girls with gun bullets
and things like that.

I would draw those up on paper,
a good size, we'd reduce them
down,

and then we'd print them
on stationary,

and down in the corner, there'd
be one of the little tattoo
designs.

We printed hundreds of thousands
of copies of that stuff.

They'd write their letters home,

everybody would mail them to
prisons and other institutions

to where my designs
made it all over the place.

Jack Rudy grew up in the
1960s near Los Angeles.

When he was 17,

he turned his father's
electric razor into a tattoo
machine.

Yeah, I started tattooing
by hand when I was 15.

You know,
me and my homeboy Manuel,

we decided to tattoo ourselves
one fine day.

And so, we're at my
mom's house, you know.

Found a good sharp
sewing needle,

and, you know, wrapped
some thread around it

'cause that's what someone said
to do,

and we he put mom
on three of his four fingers,

and I did that tarantula.

That's the first tattoo
I ever did right there.

Jack did have like kind
of a Chicano background.

He was brought up
in a Chicano neighborhood.

Ochentas in the airport area,

and that's how he got
his nickname "Huero"

because he was a white guy and
he was into the lowrider cars.

He was kind of like the
non-gangster kind of Hispanic.

We used to call
them Continentals.

My Dad used to call me Huero
when I was a kid.

I was adopted,
but my dad was Mexican,

and so he called me that
because I was.

You know, and when I was 18
and went in the Marine Corps,

turned 19 in boot camp and got
out with my friend, Terry,

who wanted me to tattoo him
when we got out.

And my machine was like
shocking me, kind of.

It wasn't working right, so I
go, "Hey, let's go down the Pike"

and see if there's anybody good
down there."

So we go down there, went
into "Long Beach Tattoo Studio,"

where Good-Time Charlie
just happened to be working.

We walked over and we seen
this like long-haired

biker-looking dude, you know,

real cool-looking and stuff,

was like, "Oh, this guy looks
cool, man. Let's hit him up."

Terry hits him up.
He's got a design.

Hey, can you do
this, and all this?

And he's like, "Yeah, yeah, I'll
do that for you, no problem."

And he goes like, "Yeah, but I
don't want no color in it, man."

Is that cool?"

And he goes, "Yeah I like
doin' 'em without any color."

So that blew our minds right
there 'cause in those days, that
was rare.

Nobody really wanted a tattoo
without color.

I really always liked tattoos
that were just black and skin

and whatever it took in between
there in the form of shading.

Pretty shading to me made
all the difference in the world.

Charlie was a hand
poke tattooer.

He grew up in Kansas in a
strictly religious family.

His father was a preacher

who came from a long line
of Pentecostal ministers.

He wasn't too pleased when he
found out his youngest son

was being tattooed by Charlie.

I was warned by him not to
tattoo my younger brother again,

which I did repeatedly.

And he discovered it
at some point later on,

and I was gone a
lot in those days,

and so, when I did come back
home to see the family,

I was met with an uppercut
when I walked into the kitchen.

And so, to this day,
my jaw still pops.

I slid down the wall, got up,
and says, "Well, okay, I'm
leaving!"

And he came after me a
couple weeks later and said,

Your mom wants you to come home.

And I says, "Well, are we ever
going to talk about tattoos
again?"

'Cause, " I says, " I don't know
how to explain it to you, Dad,

but I'm always gonna dig them,
and I always will."

All right, folks, step right up.
Step right up here.

When I came to California,
I couldn't quite figure out

how to fit into the professional
scheme of things, tattoo-wise.

When I realized that most
professionals were quite Carney

in their approach to tattooing,

I just kind of was
repulsed by it.

Charlie came to me for the first
job that he got in tattooing,

professional tattooing,

and I put him with Captain Jim,

and Captain Jim put him down at
the shop on the Pike, the 362
Shop.

He told Jim up front, he said,
"I'm gonna learn this way"

because he had never used
tattoo machines.

His hand poke was as good
as anybody's machine work

any day of the week.

You couldn't tell
the difference.

He said as soon as he got
the information he needed,

he was going to
open his own shop.

He was upfront about that.

So, Charlie tattooed my friend,
and we hit it off real good.

He was over at the
side doodling.

I picked that up, and I thought,

"Well, I'm probably looking at
maybe 8 or 10 styles of gang
writing,"

a real nice cursive name,

maybe a touch of realism
in over here

and some cartooning,
blah-blah-blah.

And I thought, "Well, this guy
really has something to offer."

And at one point,
I remember telling him,

"Hey, you know where I think
would be a really great shop?"

A really great
location for a shop?

And he's like, "Where?"
And I said, "East LA, man.

Like, between the low-riders,
and cholos, and people over
there,

"man, that'd be a
great, great place."

And he just like kind of
smiled, you know, and he goes,

"Wow, man, I've been thinking
the same thing."

I'm going to open a shop over
there one of these days,

and when I do, you know, how'd
you like to come work for me?

I said, "If you give me
your grandma's number"

or your mama's number,

somebody who will always know
where you are,

"and when the time is right,
I'll break you in."

And he said, "Yeah?"

And I said, "But if you even
ask me once",

'When are we going to get
started?' it's off."

Charlie Cartwright, Jack
Rudy, and Freddy Negrete

were on three separate paths
that would soon collide.

In the 1970s, Whittier
Boulevard was Main Street

for Southern California's
Chicano culture.

Everyone brought
their best.

David Oropeza grew
up in Compton,

but on weekend nights you
could find him on Whittier
Boulevard,

Everything happened
at the Boulevard,

and the Boulevard
happened at night.

Sunday night was the best night,
and you would start early

polishing the car,
getting your clothes ready.

I mean, you've gotta impress.

When we came out here, it was
almost like a competition.

Everybody wanted to see
what you came up with.

Cars would line up.

Sometimes it would take an hour
just to cruise the boulevard,

you would move so slow.

You bump your music.

If you wanted trouble, you would
find it here at the boulevard.

If you wanted love,
you would find it here, too.

It's here.

That was like a dream for me,
you know,

to be seeing those cars
cruising on Whittier Boulevard

and just seeing all of those
crazy candy apple colors

and the guys walking up
in between the cars

selling sherm sticks
and marijuana smoke.

It was a beautiful thing
over there, man.

Everything was here.

I mean, the boulevard, she gave
everything to you, you know.

It's what you made it.

You wanted to have a good time,
you could have a good time.

In 1974, Charlie Cartwright
began cruising Whittier
Boulevard as well,

looking for a location to
open his first tattoo shop.

His friends thought
he was crazy.

There was a lot of skepticism

because they said,
"There's no money there."

And no one's tattooed
in East Los Angeles

"since World War II."

And I said, "I know it's
tattoo heaven right there."

And I looked every
day for a year.

But when I found it, I just
I knew.

I got shivers up my back.
I knew that was the spot.

In the summer of '75,

Charlie made good on his
promise to call Jack Rudy,

They started
working together,

using an unusual approach
with their customers.

I just thought, "I'm just going
to do custom stuff, period."

Whatever they want.
Who cares?

Whatever they want,
just give it to them.

Give them the haircut
they want, you know?

So I became the gopher,
helper, tattooer, all in one,

and started that summer
with him like that,

and, you know, man, it took off.

I remember this guy,
Johnny Caranza,

the first guy I ever tattooed,
was a friend of mine.

And he goes like, he goes,

Hey, you been doing
a little practicing, right?

I go, "Oh, yeah, homes.
Charlie's been bringing me some
winos to work on."

Which was not true at all.

But it sounded good, and I
didn't want Johnny to be too
nervous

and go like, "Well, I don't
want your first one, man!"

And I think I had the machine
probably running a little hard.

And Johnny was talking
and moving all over the place,

and man, I'm lucky that thing
came out okay at all!

In those days,
professional tattoo machines

usually had between
three and seven needles.

Tattoo artists called them by
the number of needles they
had

such as "threes", "fours",
and "fives".

But there was a lot pressure
to make thinner lines.

It was our customers that kept
requesting fine-line, single
needle,

you know, like guitar string.

"Hey, can you vatos do, you
know, like they do in the
Pinta."

The, you know,
extra-fine line action?

It was like, "Yeah, man,
we're working on it."

So we tried making threes
and really making them tight.

And in those days, you know,
everybody made their own
needles,

and, well, one day we just like,
we're looking at a three, and
just realized,

"Well, hell, if you just take
one of them"

and pull it forward
past the other two,

like, say a quarter-an-inch,
there you go.

And so the two needles on the
bottom, because it was like a
triangle,

it helped feed that ink,
and it worked like a champ.

So that's how modern
single needle was born.

With a faster motor, Charlie
and Jack's single needles

produced the quality
of a prison tattoo

in a fraction of the time
that it would take in the
joint.

One of their
first customers

turned out to be one
of their most memorable.

He went by the
name of Poco Loco.

Remember the time we did
our first collaborative tattoo?

- Poco was this broad.
- Yeah, and he wanted a big.

Roses all the way
across his back.

Charlie was on one side,
and I was on the other,

and we met in the middle, and
Poco, his teeth were chattering.

He was just like, "Man."
He couldn't.

Stereophonic tattooing
in stereophonic pain.

In 1977, the second ever
tattoo convention

was planned for
Reno, Nevada.

The first one, held the
previous year in Houston,

wasn't well attended.

This time would be
a different story.

San Francisco tattoo
artist Ed Hardy

was scheduled as the keynote
speaker for the Reno event.

Ed grew up near San Diego
in Corona Del Mar.

Knowing from a very young age
that he wanted to be an
artist,

he became obsessed with
tattooing when he was
10-years-old,

He began painting fake
tattoos on the kids in the
neighborhood.

Whenever they could, the boys
made trips up to the Pike

to see how the
pros did it.

We'd go up on a Greyhound
and hang-out all day,

and I'd watch these
guys get tattooed.

And Bert Grimm's
was the most flashy.

It had the most, you know,
tattoo look to it.

The whole Carney kind of a vibe.

Big windows filled
with super powerful flash.

The whole thing was mesmerizing.

Ed Hardy graduated from the
San Francisco Art Institute

in 1967.

He turned down a teaching
fellowship at Yale
University

to return to his
first love tattoo.

Inspired by Japanese
tattoo collectors

who covered themselves with
what they called
"bodysuits",

Hardy's work pushed the
boundaries of color and
concept.

He built a reputation by
introducing the Japanese style
of large tattoos

with coherent
Western themes.

Like Charlie Cartwright,

Ed Hardy thought the customer
should have more say so

in the design of
their tattoo.

I came back from Japan
and opened "Realistic Tattoo,"

which was the first
appointment-only totally custom
tattoo studio

that I know of anywhere.

And my whole premise was,
"We have reference stuff,

but you come in with your idea."

That's what my first business
card, the punch line on it was,

Wear your dreams,
and that was my attitude.

By the time the Reno
convention rolled around,

Ed Hardy had
established himself

as one of their premier
tattoo artists in the world.

We decided to go to
this convention.

It was really the first big
convention that had been thrown,

and we thought, "Well, we want
to go in there and really, you
know",

strut our stuff
and blow everybody's minds."

We had the ammo to do it.

We had people with, you know,
extreme tattoos

that nobody had ever seen

in terms of the workmanship
and subject matter and finesse.

They drew some
good crowds there.

Back in East LA, Jack Rudy
convinced Charlie Cartwright and
Poco Loco

to go to Reno
just to have a look around.

Chuck Eldridge was part
of Ed Hardy's group.

It was a big deal,

and I think it was probably late
Saturday or maybe early Sunday,

Charlie Cartwright, Jack Rudy,
and two or three of their
customers

came onto the convention floor.

And everybody saw them,

and all of a sudden there became
this kind of crowd around them,

like, you know, people amazed
by this tattooing.

I can remember them walking by,

and they weren't like
threatening-looking guys,

but they all, you know,
the beards and the whole.

They were just in
a different world

than what us sort of art school
escapees, you know, and
hipsters.

Our street cred
was a little different.

And these guys walked through,

and I remembered that I saw
Poco Loco from the back,

and he had I think he
had the end of the trail,

that classic painting
of the Indian on the horse,

you know, with his lance down.

We just didn't know
what to make of it.

It was kind of like, "What's
going on? This is so crazy!"

You know, and we jumped
out of the booth,

introduced ourselves
to these guys.

They were all friendly. We were
all excited to meet each other.

Well, as those guys approached
us, and Ed tells me,

he says, "Well, this is just
blowing my mind."

And I says, "What?"

And he says, "The work that's
walking around on this fat guy
here."

We had built a clever booth,

and we had presented it
in a really killer fashion,

but it wasn't new.

Whereas Jack and Charlie's
stuff was really new.

And it was like
we had to reconfigure,

like, "Okay, let's set"

not change course at that moment
like we want to do that work,

but it just made us rethink
what we were aware of

that would be interesting
and challenging

and beautiful and cool.

It was a major, major
kind of sea-change in tattooing.

These guys were doing tattoos

that were the kind of the birth
of photo-realism.

We had all seen that work
come into our shop

on prisoners, ex-prisoners,

Chicano people
that came from LA,

and big Chicano neighborhoods

where there were tattooers
doing that.

But we hadn't seen
it done in a shop.

Normally, you had to go do time
to get a piece of that work.

So that '11 convention was a
big pivoting point, I think,

in American tattooing.

And it so impressed Hardy,

and, of course, him being
Mr. American Tattooer,

he was just all excited about,

Well, would it be okay
to come visit?

And I said, "Well, yeah!"

And the next thing you know,
him and Malone and Bob Roberts

came down to East LA and
started getting tattooed by us

and wanted to learn that style
as well.

And It was a trip because
these were heavy, heavy hitters.

For them to be like
the first legitimate tattooers

to jump on the single-needle
bandwagon

that was history,

but we still didn't realize it

the kind of repercussions
it was gonna have.

And I was blown away by it
when I first saw how much detail

and just how clean and how nice
this work looked.

You know, to us, it was really
a whole new tool.

I mean, we just didn't do
black-and-grey joint-style

or cholo-style.

You know, I used
it for everything.

Bob and I immediately,

you know, learned how to do
kind of gang writing from Jack

because I was fascinated with
the whole calligraphic aspect.

I always loved writing in
tattoos. I loved slogans.

I loved it from the old days,

you know, "Death or Glory",
all that stuff,

and these guys were doing, you
know, fantastic lettering.

I mean, huge letters with the
gang in the giant block letters.

They were just such cool things
as art pieces, you know?

So I was always very conscious
of all the implications to this
thing

above and beyond
the tattoo world.

And so it was just me and
Charlie six days a week

like 6:00 to midnight, okay?

And we never got out of there
at midnight unless it was dead.

I was the kind of
guy that would

I would stay there
until the last dog died,

and if someone was in there
before we locked the door at
1:00 a.m.,

we'd take care of them,

even if was 7:00 a.m.
when they got out of there,

and that meant we'd
be there, too,

so I spent many nights
decorating the homies until the
sun came up.

And then all of a sudden,
Jack called me, and he said,

Charlie's gonna quit tattooing!

And Jack was just freaked!

He was like, "I don't know
what I'm going to do, homes!"

And I was like,
"Jesus! Well, okay."

Sometime in '77,

Charlie decided he was going
to move back to Kansas.

Yeah, so I was...

I started on a kind of
a spiritual quest there,

you know, figure out
what it was all about,

because I already had
the house on the corner,

and the pick-up truck,
and the wife that loved me,

and three healthy kids.

I took about,
well, a couple of years off,

to really get to know my family
on a real a deeper level.

I had a little money
stashed away,

and I thought, "Well, I don't
want that shop to disappear."

I don't want that style
to disappear,"

because that shop
was the cookpot,

that was the witch's cauldron
for this thing to be happening.

Ed Hardy ended up buying
the business from him,

and then I think right before
Charlie left

was when we were seeing this
work from Freddy Negrete, El
Coyote.

So after I got out
of the Youth Authority,

I set up shop in my apartment,

all I would hear from everybody

was about this new tattoo shop
on Whittier Boulevard in East LA

that was doing prison-style
tattoos, because people would
come and say,

Yeah, I got this
at Good-Time Charlie's.

You know, "Huero did t."

So I noticed, "Okay, there's
this guy Huero there",

and he seems to be on the right
track with the homie tattoos,
you know?

I would tattoo people, and I
would send him to "Good-Time
Charlie's."

I'd say, "Go over there
and show him this."

It was just amazing!

And it was like, "Wow! Who is
this guy? And is he on the
street?"

And they said, "Yeah, he lives
in Pico Nuevo or something",

and he's from Sangra, you know,
San Gabriel."

And it was like, "Well, you
know, hey, send him down, man."

"I'd like to talk to this guy
and, you know, meet him and
stuff."

Finally somebody
came and told me,

Huero wants you to go to the
tattoo shop, he wants to meet
you.

The first thing I notice was
that up on the wall in their
flash

they had some of my designs,
you know?

And I was like,
"Hey, I drew that!"

And Jack tells me,
"Everybody says that."

You know, everybody says
that their uncle

"or somebody in prison
drew this thing."

I go, "No, I drew that."

And I showed him the original
drawing I had with me in a
folder.

So he auditioned.

You know, I set him up
some machines,

and he worked on one of his
homeboys in the back room.

One of the tricks that I
learned when I was in Tamarac

was that we didn't always have
ditto paper.

And, by the way, let me just say
that the whole ditto paper thing

started in prison.

That's what we used.

Now that's normal
for tattoo shops.

Everybody uses ditto
and ditto master,

but we didn't always have that,

and we had to use the dittos
over and over and over.

So what I did was I found
different ways to memorize in my
mind

how to execute a design.

And, first of all,
like a rose...

If I was gonna do a rose,
I always started

with this funny E-looking thing
in the middle

and then went around and around

so that I could actually do
the design on somebody

without drawing anything,
without having any stencil.

And another thing I learned,
I taught myself,

was how to do a girl's face.

I would always start
with one eye.

Get that eye perfect,

and then I'd know exactly
where to put the nose bridge,

the other eye, the nostrils,
the lips.

So, I would build off that eye.

So, I was gonna show
off a little bit.

So, when Jack said...

Okay, so I brought my homie
in there and he goes,

"Well, pick any
design you want."

I want it to be kind of a
good size or whatever.

And I was like, "No, no, I
don't need any design."

He goes, "Oh, okay. Well, what I
do a lot is draw it on first
with a pen."

I go, "No, I don't even need a
pen," and he's like, "What?"

He goes, "You're gonna do it
just like that without a
stencil?"

Ans just did a beautiful
freehand piece of a girl's face

on this guy's arm.

No stencil, no
drawing, no nothing.

Just started tattooing the guy,

and so, he got
hired on the spot.

Now, for the first time,

tattooers were going to let a
cholo gangster tattoo
professional.

He was part of that culture.

He was a genuine, genuine guy.

Jack knew about it,
and Jack was part of it,

but not like Freddy.

I remember the first time Ed
Hardy came down to meet me, you
know.

Boy, what a culture shock.

And I remember when he came in,
and he's like,

Oh, Freddy,
here's some of my work.

And when I saw these tattoos,
this shit blew me away.

I almost came flying
out of my socks.

I was like, "What?"

First of all, it was backpiece
after backpiece.

I didn't even know
what a backpiece was.

Our thing was this:

You put a tattoo here,
you put one there,

you fit another one in here,
one there, just like my tattoos,

until you're all covered
with tattoos all around.

Little badges.

Ed Hardy's the one that named
them "Badge-Style Tattoos."

But, you know, a whole back,
one picture on a whole back,

a whole thing on somebody's
arm, you know, these suits.

I never saw Japanese tattooing.

I never saw tattooness,

and then Ed Hardy's like, "Hey,
look what I'm doing, homes",

with black and grey, mixing
black and grey and color."

And now, all of a sudden, he had
this crazy skeleton guy with his
hair

and it was all in
black and grey,

and he's stepping on these
stepping stones

with rushing water
and Japanese style of color.

I was like, "Oh, my God!
I don't know shit!"

When the time came
to relocate the business,

Ed Hardy found a small
gingerbread-style structure

down the block on the other
side of Whittier Boulevard,

And Ed Hardy bought that place,

and now, you know, before he
bought "Good Time Charlie's",

and he never had anything to do
with the shop creatively.

He never imposed his will on us
in any way.

But now, Ed Hardy has a shop.

And he brought some
of his friends,

and they built a tattoo shop all
regulation, even the stations.

They were so tiny,
but every station had a sink.

Ed Hardy's, "Nah, everything's
gonna change."

You're gonna wear gloves, you're
gonna use this sterilizer."

And he goes, "Yeah, and this
place, it reminds me of like a
little island."

An island shack."

He goes, we're going to call it
"Tattoo Land."

And we painted it yellow,

and we put a big giant banner
going across the front, "Tattoo
Land."

I remember when he was saying,
"You know what?"

This Coyote thing.
This doesn't work.

The people you're going to deal
with now,

"they're not all going to be
gangsters from East LA."

He goes, "Yeah, your name's
going to be Freddy Negrete from
now on."

"And fine-line, that's too much
like prison."

We're trying to do
a new art style here.

"And it's going to be called
black-and-grey."

You know, because you're using
black, and you're using grey.

And Ed certainly brought
all of the attention

that he had in the '70s
and in the '80s

which was considerable
to this new form of tattooing.

He catapulted it to a level
that it would not have had.

So, when we reopened
the second shop,

it was me and Kate and Freddy.

There was a party
to introduce me to,

to welcome me to San Francisco,

welcome me to Ed Hardy family,

and to introduce me
to Jack and Freddy

who drove up from Los Angeles
specifically to meet me

and see this new member
of their crew.

This white woman from Utah,

this farm girl who was educated
in graphic design and
advertising

suddenly going to
be in their midst,

you know, practicing Black and
Grey, single needle, Chicano
tattooing

with no background
whatsoever in it.

It was a small shop and we
had small areas to work in,

but we had all that parking lot.

And so everybody would come in
and just park

park their lowriders
and stuff there,

especially on the weekends
when they'd be cruising,

people would always pit stop
right at the tattoo shop

and we blew that place
out of the water.

You know, you had
a lot of gangbangers,

and we were luckily sort of
kind of in neutral territory,

but there were a couple
of local neighborhoods

that kinda claimed our area
as their neighborhood.

There were 27 gangs in that area
at that time, I think

it was very turf-oriented.

Every block was owned
by one gang or another.

They hated each other
with a vengeance.

I mean, murderously.

Whenever I was in LA, I would go
work there, sitting there,
tattooing.

And she went,
"Wow, what was that sound?

Sounds like somebody
popped a beach ball."

And then, the cholos
would come in from outside

all peppered up with
shotgun pellets.

That's how it went there.

There are guys from different
gangs that would have shot each
other

if they were a couple
of blocks away.

But inside the confines
of that parking lot

and especially that little shop,

you know, that pointed roof
made like a church, you know,

it's something
about it in there.

At "Tattooland," Kate
Hellenbrand saw that the choice
of tattoo

could mean the difference
between life and death.

A little 14-year-old
boy came in.

He and his 16-year-old brother
had tattooed themselves at home

because they wanted
to be in a gang,

because that's what the people
in that neighborhood aspired to
be.

And they were
walking down the street

and an opposing
gang was driving by

and shot and killed
the 16-year-old boy.

And so the 14-year-old
came to me

and asked if I would cover
these initials on his wrist.

And I told him, "No, I don't
tattoo 14-year-olds."

It was 18 or older.

And then about two hours later,
his mother came with him.

And the mother was crying and
said, "Please save my son's life"

because I've lost one."

So I covered the tattoo.

And so when people have
that kind of lifestyle

and that kind of
closeness to death,

they get images that are about
heaven and about redemption.

By choosing images that
celebrated their
neighborhoods,

religion, and loved ones,

the Chicano
people of East LA

had a key role in elevating
Black and Grey to an art
form.

A peoples' art form.

My father died when I was young,
and I've always idolized him

and thought that he was,
even though he wasn't around,

he was still around.

And I just wanted
to put him on me

because I grew up
the way he grew up.

You know what I mean?

When he was in the war...
He fought the war.

When I grew up, I fought
to get a different route

but had to you know fight my way
to get out of the place I lived

and move on.

It's soulful and very powerful

and driven by very,
very deep things.

People
commemorative tattoos.

You know, "In memory of...",
and all that kind of thing.

And that had not been in
tattooing very much before.

It seems like in
the neighborhoods,

it's a beautiful art that came
out of the violence, addiction,

long prison sentences,

the madness on the streets,

came out this
beautiful art form.

That mirrors a lot
of those stories.

Well, this one is just like
where I come from,

where my city is,

where I've lived
and grew up all my life.

Well, we're a product
of our environment, you know?

But right here we try to go
with a little culture,

where we come from,

showing the Aztec
and then the Mexican heritage.

It's not just something
that you just put on there.

It has meaning and it has a
lot more to do with it so.

I really felt that that work
was driven

by the people
that it should be driven by.

The people that were getting
it, the people that lived it.

It is a storyteller.
Tattoos tell you stories.

Stories about the
guy who has it.

A tattoo is the
mirror of one's mind.

It's about life,
it's about death,

it's about everything
which is of value to a Mexican.

My first tattoo
was my side piece

which is a Mayan blood ritual.

And the reason I picked
Mayan artwork

was because
of my spiritual upbringing.

I found this particular piece,
the blood ritual,

when I was over in the museum
of anthropology

there in Mexico City.

I knew this was a piece that I
wanted to have a tattoo for,

and that's what I wanted
to have on there.

And that's pretty much why I
have this particular tattoo,

and what it means to me

is basically something that I
can look back on and reflect on.

Mark, you ready for me?

I thought you'd never ask.
Come on over, man.

Get stuff done here.

Yeah, it'll be good to get back
on this. It's been a long time.

Oh, man, look at them happy
campers, those faces smiling all
over.

The kids are still happy.

In 1995, I picked up the kids
and took 'em out of school.

Your parents taking you out
of school is like a fantasy.

It's like, "Wow."

Every kid in that class
is looking at you.

We came down to the beach.

And they were on
top of the world.

Three kids ate hot dogs
all day and cotton candy,

and just in love
with being alive

and just being with their dad
on that day.

We took a lot of
photos that day,

but there was one photo that
just captured all three of them.

I had that photo for years,
and I always loved it.

I mean, I carried my wallet for
years. It was on the wall.

You know, it's already
all worn out.

I got the big photo,
and I brought it in to Mark,

and I said, "Hey, what can
we do with this?"

But I think the hardest thing
is Danny wanted a benign Jesus,

like a happy Jesus,

not a suffering, not an angry,
not a...

He just wanted
a kicked back, surf Jesus.

A happy Jesus
because he's happy,

his kids are happy,
and my life's great,

and so that's why
Jesus is smiling.

Those are the best kind of
tattoos that go to the heart
like that.

It's exact.

I just like the look of black
and various shades of grey and
flesh.

Even though everything
is colored in real life,

it's just like when you watch
a black and white movie

or see a black and
white photograph,

there's a certain
quality about that

that it just isn't
in a colored photograph.

Jack was the kind of guy that
wanted to develop as an artist.

He wanted to learn from me,
as I wanted to learn from him,

but what really happened
was this competition.

It was a friendly competition,

but I know
we both felt the same way.

So Jack would be on his side,
and I would be on my side,

and he'd be doing this tattoo.

And the thing is,
every single tattoo we did,

we tried to make it the best.

Because you would do the tattoo
and say,

Hey, homes, check this out!

And the guy would come, and I'd
say, "Aw, man, that's nice!"

That's nice, Jack!

"You know, I'm glad
you finished before me."

And I'd be like...

And like, "Jack,
check this out!"

And he'd be like,
"Oh, yeah, that's nice!"

But that kind of competition
caused us to develop as artists.

So, here we were, me and Jack
were great friends,

we were developing artists,

I was learning this
great technique.

We had a great building
on the best spot.

We had so much customers,
and we were getting paid.

You know, life was good.

Now, Freddy actually was
extremely interested in color
tattooing.

Freddy was not just, you know,
"This is my way.

This is the way of my people."

You know, with Ed Hardy's hand
in it, I started to look at his
leadership.

I gave him control of my career.

He goes, "I'm going to put you
out there, Freddy."

Because I had the
respect from him.

I wanted to learn from him.

So I would go up to San
Francisco, and he'd let me stay
at his house.

I didn't want to do
what he was doing.

I wanted to learn
how he was doing it

so that I could apply
it to my style.

Another knock on the
black-and-grey artists was,

Well, it's nice,
but they can't do color.

Freddy was determined
to not have that said about him.

I remember doing
my first big back piece.

It was a Madonna, and she had
her hands out like this,

and there was rays
coming off of her hand.

And in the right hand, I put
like a futuristic city in the
clouds,

and then, in the other hand,
put the planet earth in flames.

In between it, I put
a big skull face.

And I took a picture
of a real skull,

and it was the first time
that I did realism with color.

You're talking another jump
for color artists

because they'd incorporate
realism into that color

where there's very
little line work,

and they've taken that
black-and-grey step in a color
step,

which brings it out
of the old Americana style.

You see famous
traditional artists now

doing black-and-grey
iconic images,

but doing them color traditional

because it's the black-and-grey
style of California

that Southern California look,

but done
with a traditional background.

So you have these bold lines
and solid color,

but this is an iconic Southern
California, East LA image.

I think that
back-piece on Johnny

was the first real breakthrough
with that.

And not only was the composition
completely powerful, you know,

and played off all
that heraldic stuff

that you'd see in medieval
prints of the Virgin and all
that,

but then put in with the skull
on one side and the woman's
face,

and his color work
was magnificent.

That tattoo won best tattoo
in the show.

I won tattoo artist of the year.

That was the only award
that was given out.

Recognized as the top tattoo
artist, Freddy was riding
high.

But in 1980,
tattoo was still considered

to be mostly for
those on the fringe.

Ladies and gentlemen,
rock and roll.

When MTV hit the
airwaves in 1981,

many young viewers were
exposed to ink on television

for the first time.

The following year, Ed Hardy
published the first issue

of Tattoo Time Magazine,

opening this mysterious
and secretive world.

Tattoo Time was one of them.
They're both publications in the
'80s.

Pictures of Jack Rudy's work,
Freddy Negrete's,

other names you learn, Charlie
Cartwright, Mark Mahoney.

I was actually shown,

I remember, in particular,
Jack Rudy's work, by my father

and told to achieve this.

When we received Tattoo Time,

we saw that the thing jumped
from fine to amazing.

It was like a razor blade. The
line was so thin, so straight.

The shades were so neat,
it almost looked like printing.

I'd not seen a tattoo
that neat, that tight.

I just wanted to do something

from an informed, intelligent,
inside viewpoint

that really presented this thing

the way it deserved
to be represented

with a certain
amount of dignity,

but also allowing for the fact
that it's a totally crazy
wildcat thing.

So we did that.

We did five issues of it over,
I guess, into the early

into the '90s, mid-'90s.

And it had a huge impact.

But by 1984, East LA
had fallen on hard times.

Gang-related street violence,
always a fact of life, had
escalated.

All the fighting and shooting
and stuff.

So, they ended up
shutting it down.

It seemed like everything
we knew that was good

no longer was there no more.

East LA was played out.

The cruising was over.
The cops stopped that.

There was no more cruising
on Whittier Boulevard.

And I just thought,
"Well, you know what,"

I've put in almost
10 years here.

"I think I'm gonna just try
a different area."

So I decided on Orange County.

With the help of artists
Mike Brown and Mark Mahoney,

Jack introduced
black-and-grey to a new suburban
group.

Everybody called you "homes"
in East LA,

and then I got to Anaheim, and
they were all calling me "dude",

and it sounded
kind of insulting.

I didn't know how to take it,

but it took me a while,

and I guess that's just
Orange County speech.

It just became a
lot more diverse.

More people wanted
color over here.

But since we were still known
for the black-and-grey side of
town,

that was still predominately
what we did.

Jack kept at it

exploring the boundaries,
attending conventions

giving more and more people
their first glimpse of
black-and-grey.

The best black-and-grey tattoo,
first place...

Jack Rudy!

Over time, other tattoo
artists and their clients
embraced this style.

Starting with Jack Rudy,

he happened to be a hustler.

He happened to be that
black-and-grey tattoo artist

that put his work out there.

So it takes one person
to try something new

and maybe get
a different shade of grey

or a different tone of dark.

And next thing you know,

it's kinda like
it started Pandora's Box.

When those guys
brought that stuff

from the small neighborhood
areas it was in and the prison
system,

when they brought
it to the public,

it gave everyone
this huge level of excitement,

but also gave us the template

for how to make
these illustrative tattoos

which has led up the exciting
times that you see in front of
you.

It was the Rosetta Stone moment
where it unlocked all the
potential.

It was the final
piece of the puzzle,

and when it added
that level of excitement,

it made the clients themselves
more willing to take chances

and more willing
to be a part of something

bigger than they imagined.

I want to track my life.

I want to put everything
that I love on me,

so when I die,
I have everything with me.

In 2002, David Oropeza
and Edward "Chuco" Caballero

put the spotlight
on black-and-grey.

When I met Chuco, it was.

Well, first of all, we're
talking about someone I've known

who was a homeboy of mine who
I've known close to 40 years.

He's more than just a homeboy.
We go way back.

There was a funeral,

and I hadn't seen a lot of
people in a long time, so I went
to it,

and Chuco was there,
and I ain't seen him in a while,

and he had these new tattoos
on him,

and he was showing me,

and he goes, "Homie, check
out these tattoos."

He used to always admire me
and my brother's tattoos

because we had them
back in the '70s.

We were getting them
from Good Time Charlie's,

the original shop in East LA.

So when I saw him,

he was excited to show me
his new work.

So when I seen it, I was like,
"Wow, who's doing this stuff?"

He goes, "This new kid.
His name's Pint."

I go, "Man, that's
some nice work."

So me and Chuco talked about it,
I think it was the following
day,

and I told him about my desire.

I go, "Chuco, right now
I'm in my mid-fifties."

I'm up there in years."

I go, "I want to fulfill
my bodysuit."

This is something
I've always wanted to do.

And he goes,
"Man, homes, let's do it, man."

He goes, "Let's go all the way."

This was new.

Unlike the Japanese who
had stories told on them,

the Chicanos were telling
their own story.

David and Chuco's
bodysuits

became living tributes
to their barrio upbringing,

reflecting pride
in their heritage

and the art that
came from it.

This s Chuco,

and he has agreed to model some
of this gorgeous tattoo art.

Marilyn Monroe,
and the Mexican Emblem,

Emiliano Zapata, the general,
revolutionary.

The warrior, Caballero Aguila,
skulls, death, you know.

I think I saw the
statue of Liberty.

Yeah, right here.

In homage to 9-11,
I added a statue of liberty.

Here's my family, my wife,
my kids, my grandkids.

This is my son.
He's dead. They killed him.

- You know, in a gang fight.
- Oh, I'm sorry.

A couple of years back.
My only son, he was 23.

This is my son right here.

Yeah, Chuco is pretty amazing.

When you think
about this black-and-grey style

and you think about that cholo
vibe and grace and honor

and dignity and all
of that stuff,

and that was like a walking,
talking representation of that.

He sort of made his way
through the tattoo circuit

and the tattoo conventions

as kind of like a
fixture of awe.

People would kind of just stop
him and stare at his body.

I mean, I remember for years
just going to conventions,

even before I met him,

just looking at him,
looking at his tattoos,

and he couldn't go
to a convention

without practically being naked
50-60 times in a weekend.

The black-and-grey community

couldn't have had a better
ambassador of ink

because he wore his
tattoos so well.

He started bringing unity

within the black-and-grey
tattoo world.

He sort of would bring people
to meet.

He'd say,
"Hey, Chuey, this is Franco."

And we became friends.

And so he started introducing us
to each other through his
tattoos.

Over the next five years,

David and Chuco competed
in tattoo competitions

up and down the
West Coast,

winning prize
after prize.

Artists and collectors
from around the world

marveled at
what they saw.

With the work
that was on their bodies,

and the extent of the work
on their bodies

showed people something
that they had never seen,

to the number and the extent and
flow of the tattooing itself.

Because if the tattoos don't
flow, they're just pictures on
skin.

That's what they had going for
them that I think was different.

Especially with the quantity
of the pieces that they had.

David and Chuco's image
and design choices

pushed the limits for a new
generation of artists.

I asked Chuey to do
a rib cage piece on me,

and he goes,
"Well, what would you like?"

Pint had this book
of Michelangelo

and this book had all kinds
of beautiful things in it

the Sistine Chapel.

It had a lot of nice work in it.

I go, "There's a piece
I've always admired."

Now that I know I could choose
what wanted was just amazing.

So, I go, "I want this one,"

and I showed him
the statue that I wanted.

And it was the Pieta
from Michelangelo.

And I was like, "Man, this
is going to be tough."

What made it stick out was
the depth and quality

and the arrangement of the
lighting on the black-and-grey

that was put into it.

I think that's what stood out
the most.

When I added the white,
it just popped.

It looked like realistic,
it looked shiny,

it looked like it was a statue.

And I was very satisfied with
it. I was happy with it.

The images they became more
crisp, just a lot more
realistic.

It seems nowadays,
things are just.

It's hard to determine
from a photo to a tattoo.

I mean, back in the day,
everything was done just
hand-drawings

and people would use
their own hand

and they would just go in
and do their own designs,

but nowadays people are just
really, really realistic

whether you're dealing with
color or black-and-grey.

So, it's changed.
It's changed.

The younger generation that has
been tattooing for 10 or 15
years now,

they were the ones that have
brought out the realism

to the aspect that it is today.

This art form,
I think it's just growing.

You probably have right now

the biggest amount of Chicano
artists ever, professional
artists.

These kids are incredible.

I learned more about
dimensioning

you know, where the
light hits it.

Now I'm working on, like,
maybe second, even third lights.

How it's gonna work, how it'll
collide with one another.

It sort of opens up doors
on your brain,

and, you know, once you open up
those doors of dimension,

you can't close them.

You just
they learn no matter what.

You can't become an artist
and just say,

Well, I know this,
and I know everything!

No, you just barely begin
to know about art.

As I got into more
of the professional tattooing

and understanding
what it was to

to have that responsibility
of cutting someone

and marking them permanently.

My mom always made sure
that I approached it

in a way that was with some
dignity, some honesty.

It's changed so much
because now it's the norm

to be able to go into shops.

It's the norm to find
really good tattooers,

and there are far more
the level.

You now, more people
doing great tattoos

than have ever existed
in the history of the world

and by thousand-fold,
thousands and thousands more.

I think what tattoo art
gives to my clients

is the way they can
express themselves.

What really means something,
a marker in their life,

a moment in their life
that they want captured.

Ever since I was a kid,
I liked pirates.

The way they lived.

They had no allegiance
to no king or government.

Living free, doing
what you want.

It was my artist,
Carlos Torres's idea

of how he was going
to set it all up.

I just gave him the scenario,
you know,

the idea of who I wanted in it,

and he came up with the
whole design and portrayal,

and he sketched it up for me
right there.

And he goes, "Let's take a
picture of you with the wheel,"

and I actually had that wheel
at my house,

and then I did a pose with that
in my arm.

He took the photo
and then drew it up,

added the pirate clothes
and the hat,

decayed my face.

Our clientele nowadays,

they come in with a concept,

and generally, it's always hard.

People don't want simple
tattoos really anymore.

It's always like they want a
piece of fine art on their skin.

But that's what we do,

and there's a lot
that goes into it.

We take their idea
in their head,

and we have to not
only tattoo it,

but we have to choreograph it

and we have to put it together.

We have to show it to them.

We have to make changes,
put it on their skin.

And so it becomes kind of
like a painting on a canvas.

My mom passed away
when I was 13.

She had told me, like,
"Play the drums."

Don't stop playing the drums.

No matter what happens,
keep playing your drums.

Then I got to the point
where I was 16.

I graduated from high school,
and my pops basically said,

"You either get a job, you work
60 hours a week, and you pay
bills,"

or you need to go,

you need to play the drums
and try what you're gonna try.

So I moved to Laguna Beach,
and I became a trash man,

and I started playing the drums.

I started getting tattoos
because my dad would always tell
me,

You gotta have a plan B. You
gotta have something to fall
back on.

And I basically that
resonated, and I kept hearing
that,

and I was like,
"I don't want the plan B."

So I think in a year's time,
I started documenting everything

from my mom's memorial

to big ass checkered flags
and my car.

You know, like,
my 66 on my neck.

I made it to where
no one would want to hire me

and I couldn't fit in
at your normal job

or work at your local Target
or McDonalds or...

I didn't want any of that.
I just wanted to play the drums.

I mean, two years later,
I was sleeved up

and it was impossible for me
to get a normal job

which was a job well done
in my book.

Tattooing, I think, in essence
is a people's art,

and prior to it breaking out
into mainstream,

it was kept in confines
of the artists themselves,

and then, suddenly,
there were conventions,

and then there were magazines,

and the magazines
opened the doors wider,

and then supply companies
got involved in the magazines,

and that sort of
really opened it up,

and then the television shows,
of course,

now have broadcasted everywhere.

I think it is changing a lot.

I think a lot of people
who are in the public eye

getting heavily
tattooed helps a lot.

I think that was one of the few
benefits of the TV shows

is that you were bringing decent
tattoos into people's homes

and showing that,
you know what I mean?

These are just normal, everyday,
working-class people.

These reality shows
were instantly successful,

finding audiences
all over the world.

And in turn, TV viewers
discovered black-and-grey.

When you watch these shows now
and you see Corey Miller's
pieces,

you see all these different
degrees of tattoos,

it makes the general public,
times a million, times a
billion,

across the world go, "Oh, I
never knew tattooing could be
that good."

If that's the case,
I want one.".

People that never thought
about getting tattooed

are now deciding, "Hey, I want
to go in to get my first
tattoo."

We've got lawyers and doctors
and school teachers

all these people
that would have been against it.

In the television they can see
that, "Hey, we can do
portraits."

So the people want
the black-and-grey portraits,

and most times pictures
of family members,

so, children, babies,
granddad, grandma,

father, mom, sister, brother.

And the most wanted portrait
is Johnny Cash right now

the last two or three years.

So Johnny Cash or movie stars
or something like that.

I don't like to outline

because the more line work you
use, it comes out cartoony,

you know what I mean?

So it's more shading.

A lot of the artists nowadays,

we do nothing but shading,
darker depths.

Everything enhances the picture,
makes it look more real.

We're made of shades, not lines.

So it's based on the tones, the
way the light source hits your
skin.

You want to capture that, you
know, make the tattoo pop.

When I saw Jack Rudy's,

he did a portrait of Rita
Hayworth as an old photograph

with scotch tape
holding it on a leg.

I just couldn't believe that
level of illustration could
exist,

and I think that's what really
opened the door,

and now illustration is
everywhere in tattooing,

in color and in black-and-grey.

Nothing will replace the
excitement that Jack's tattoos
gave people.

I mean, we didn't even know
it was possible.

I believe it fell in the right
hands with Jack, Freddy,
Charlie,

in East LA and
where they started

because they took
that prison-style tattooing.

It wasn't the seven or nine

or thick fat outlines
with just a little bit of color.

It was fine line, single needle.

It was the darkest black
to the lightest grey,

and it was put into fine art,

and I believe that's how it
didn't slip through the cracks.

I believe that's how it started
off on a small string in East
LA.

It wasn't accepted
by anybody, really,

except for prisoners,

and it just slowly expanded
and grew.

And over the years,
other artists started seeing

what I feel was
a challenging type of artwork.

And so I think that's kind of
what triggered everyone

to kind of want to
know how to do it.

As the popularity of tattoos
has grown,

so have the number
of conventions.

There are now more than 350
shows held each year
worldwide.

Right now in Spain the theme
people most ask for is Chicano.

Furthermore, I believe you can
manage to do an entire body

with this style of mixing women,
cars, buildings, landscapes,

and have it look really good.

Italian publisher and
convention promoter Miki
Vialetto

has earned a reputation
for putting on

some of the most prestigious
and entertaining conventions of
all.

People come from
around the world

to get work by Miki's
carefully-selected artists.

I think the Chicano Style
now in Europe,

it has a huge impact on
tattooing since three or four
years.

We start to see Chicano tattoos

from all the rockstars that Mr.
Cartoon has been tattooing
lately.

And since a couple of years,

Boog, Jose Lopez,
Chuey Quintanar, Jack Rudy

I start to bring them in Europe,

in Milan Convention
and London convention.

So, many magazines start to
make articles about them

and now so many tattoo shops,
they have and they do Chicano
stuff.

I love that I've been able to
take Chicano art all over the
world.

I've done art shows in London,
and Paris, Amsterdam, Australia.

I've also been to Tokyo and seen
black-and-grey body Japanese
suits.

By Horioshi three, incredible.

Really looks good
in black-and-grey.

Now they're starting
to experiment more with it

'cause they see how we do t.

I don't think
a lot of people in Europe

know all the meaning and history
behind the Chicano icons.

They see a lot of culture that
comes from California, from LA,

the lowrider culture,
the Chicano Culture,

and they take it even if
they don't know the meaning.

But the new trend in Europe
since two years

is definitely the Chicano Style.

In November 2011,

some of the worlds
most renowned tattoo artists

met up in Amsterdam to
celebrate the history of
tattoo.

Henk Shiffmacher spent
a lifetime tattooing

and collecting tattoo
memorabilia from all over the
world.

His vast collection
was displayed for a year

in a museum
located alongside

some of Holland's most
prestigious institutions.

For many of the tattoo
artists in attendance,

the symbolism was
unmistakable.

It was an affirmation of
their craft's rich history.

This is a pilgrimage.

We want you to come here
as a pilgrim

and to learn about tattoo,

to pay tribute
to those who gave us this art.

All the way down,

all the way to the first
man and woman with tattoos.

All the whole history of tattoo.

- Be careful and be safe.
- Yeah.

The culture comes from up.
It comes from the bottom up.

It bubbles up, and it's
stuff that is, you know,

percolated by people's soul
and passion

and striving
and what they really care about.

It's not some construct.

As much as I think my own work
has evolved

and stuff I've
seen other artists

that have taken black-and-grey
to a whole other level.

You look and see what a lot
of these young hot shots

are doing and stuff,
and I tell you what.

It keeps us, keeps us old guys
on our toes

because, like, you either keep
up or you get left behind.

You know, it's how I look at it,

and so it is incredible,

but, I mean, see, tattooing in
general has evolved incredibly.

Remember, now there's gotta be
15 or 20

very distinct
styles of tattooing

that didn't exist 35 years ago.

Didn't exist.

It's just grown so
much, you know.

I never saw I never thought it
would be this giant an industry.

You don't have to be
the bad guy anymore

to want to have a nice tattoo.

In my times
I grew up in the '60s

to have a tattoo,
to own a tattoo,

you either had to be a gang
member, a drug addict,

or been in the penitentiary
at least once.

It's all good art.

It's wearable art.

Correct.

Now, we're at the
age of, like, art.

It really is an art

because there's
so many artists into it,

and it doesn't matter
what you like more.

It's just like
this is their art,

and this is how he does it.

This is their art,
and this is how he does it.

Before it was like, "Oh, wow,
this guy's better than this guy",

and this guy's even better
than this guy,

and this guy's better
than this guy.

And it's not about that anymore.

It's about this person and their
art and their expression,

and that's when you know
that tattooing has arrived.

You know, 20 years ago
when I walked into a restaurant,

everybody in the restaurant
would start making weird noises

you know, you'd hear,
"Tattoo this, tattoo that."

I know a guy whose got a tattoo.

You know,
"Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah."

Whereas now you walk
into the restaurant

and the waiter's sleeved.

You don't stand out
like you used to.

The cops pull you over,
they don't look at you

like you're some kind
of criminal nowadays,

whereas 20 years ago,
if you were sleeved,

man, they were,
"What jail were you in?"

'Cause they didn't know.

They'd see the color.

They didn't realize that you
don't get color in jail, you
know.

Now if you're an NBA player and
you don't have a bunch of
tattoos,

it looks like you ran out
of money or something.

Like, you're missing the
accessory, you know.

They go from being a poor kid
in a project

to getting a couple mill
deposited in their bank account.

They're gonna go
hit the Escalade,

they're gonna go hit
the European car,

they're gonna go get
their jewellery right,

Jordans, and their tattoos.

David and I became
very close friends.

We had some great
times together.

He introduced me to his mom
and his family.

And she would always
take me inside and say,

"Please don't tattoo
my sons anymore."

They have enough tattoos.

I won't.

There used to be a guy
that used to.

There used to be
a couple of brothers.

They used to come in
to the East LA shop.

The Diaz brothers, okay?

And one Diaz in
particular used to.

Every time he used to come in,
he'd say,

"Jack from way back."

He's older than baseball.

But he knew Moby Dick
when he was just a sardine.

And he always said that to me.

And I was like,
"That sounds pretty cool, homes."

I like the way that sounds
'Jack from way back'.

But, like, that's more of a like
a name for a veterano, you know?

"A guy's that been around
for a long, long time."

And he goes, "Don't worry,
homes. You'll grow into it."

Was he right or what?