Classic Tattoo Designs

 End of the Trail was a painting appropriated to tattooing. It signifies never giving up, coming to the end of a long hard part of life, or having just been through hard times.












 The ship most associated with sailors for obvious reasons, meanings can change from person to person but is mainly about being 'homeward bound'.

 Rock of ages is a design appropriated from a painting and is a religious symbol, holding onto God.

Pharaoh's Horses was from a painting, the symbolism, who found it, who designed it as a tattoo and why it caught on is unknown.

 Again, pinups were mostly associated with sailors to remind them of their woman back home, presumably especially when they were on shore leave.

 The diamond tattoo is a symbol of strength in oneself, ie a diamond cannot be smashed, dented or cut and is the hardest material on earth

The swallow tattoo was probably taken from a scientific illustration like this for the purpose of sailors.

 The Sacred Heart of Jesus is a design taken from catholic religious art, for the wearer to gain protection from God and show his religious beliefs.

Sailor Tattoo symbolism

With all the superstition of going to new lands and maritime legends sailors were bound to find comfort in tattoos, here are some of the protective tattoos they used most.

Milestones:
• Sparrow → every 5000 nautical miles traveled

• Anchor → in the navy, sailors would get an anchor after successfully crossing (and returning from) the Atlantic Ocean. The other representation was that anchors, being the object that secures the ship was an icon of stable, unfaltering faith. A reason why you would sometimes see ‘MOM’ or ‘DAD’ across it in a banner – the reasons for staying grounded.

• Dragon → signified that the sailor had served in a China station or sailed to a China port.

• Golden Dragon → crossing the International Date Line (an imaginary line on the surface of the earth following approx. the 180th meridian.)

• Fully rigged ship → for having sailed around Cape Horn.


Luck:
• HOLD FAST → a reminder to hold on to the lines fast when the ship is aloft in bad weather, so sailors would not be thrown off.

• Pig & Rooster → (on the feet or behind the ankles) traditionally believed to symbolize survival from a shipwreck. As both animals were often kept in wooden crates on board, when a ship capsizes, these crates would float with the current and most likely get washed up to shore. Another explanation (pig tattooed on the left knee and a rooster on the right foot) was that "“Pig on the knee, safety at sea. A cock on the right, never lose a fight."

• Twin propellers → (on each buttcheek) to prevent from drowning, as they were meant to ‘propel’ you ashore.

• Swallow → (due to their migration pattern) to always be able to find your way home, home in this sense could mean home with your family or called home to God in death – birds were believed to carry souls of the departed to heaven.

• Nautical star → represents the North Star; traditionally used for navigations out at sea. It served as a guide and a way back home.

Mementos:
• Dagger through a Swallow → to signify a lost comrade

Class:
• Crossed anchors → (between thumb & index finger) a mark of being a boatswain mate, sailors could have it done on the left hand: sailed all the Oceans, or right hand: sailed the Seven Seas.

• Harpoon → member of the Fishing Fleet.

• Rope → (around the wrist) a mark of being a Deckhand, current or previously.

• Guns or cross cannons → member of the Military Naval Service.

• Anchor → signified a Merchant Marine.

Girl:
• Pin-up girls →  Girls tattooed on these men were often a reminder of the ladies waiting for their safe return back home.

• Mermaids → mermaids were thought to be like harpies, luring sailors to their death with their beauty, its also a metaphor for the sea to stay on the lookout for dangers.

• Hula girls → usually inked on a sailor who'd been to Hawaii.

Tattoo Parlours Manchester

There are loads of tattooists in Manchester, only a few though stick exclusively to the traditional style. I visited them and asked about techniques used in drawing flash and painting, how they get influence for a design, where they look for it, what makes a tattoo traditional and for anymore information on the history of tattooing. I learnt the basics of tattoo design, using watercolours and a lecture on the biggest change in tattoo since its origin; hygiene.

 Manchester Ink is located in the Northern Quarter and accomodates all different styles of tattoo.

Blue Blood Tattoo is in Wythenshawe and specializes in traditional tattoo.

The History of Tattoo - Museums

 Amsterdam Tattoo Museum
The Amsterdam Tattoo Museum houses a huge amount of tattoo artifacts on show. I havent been but would find it a great help to see the machines and inks artists used years ago. This would obviously effect the way they tattooed and would subsequently start the new style. For instance a quality of traditional is the bold thick outlines of a tattoo, this was because of the primitive machines and needles used.

 Tattoo Museum Southport
Not exactly a fully fledged tattoo museum, but this studio does have a lot of tattoo memorabilia and antiques. Old machines, inks, certficates, flash, pictures and designs are all on show for everyone to enjoy. I love looking at the history here, its a unique history you only get with tattoo. I learnt that it hasgone in and out of fashion so many times since its birth, through acceptance and disgust constantly changing.

The History of Tattoo - Pioneers

August "Capt." Coleman was born in 1884 near Cincinnati, Ohio. Although Coleman claimed his father was also a tattooist, his name has not surfaced as part of tattoo history.It is of course well known that Coleman settled in Norfolk, VA around 1918 and quickly became a living legend in the tattoo business.

Hardy was born in 1945 in Iowa, where he lived for a year before his family moved to California. He attended the San Francisco and graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in printmaking. Hardy was a student of Sailor Jerry and, through his association, was able to study tattooing in Japan in 1973 with the Japanese classical tattoo master Horihide. He became recognized for incorporating Japanese tattoo aesthetics and technique into his American style work

Tuttle was born in Chariton, Iowa in 1931 but grew up in Ukiah, California. At the age of fourteen he purchased his first tattoo for $3.50.In 1949, he began tattooing professionally.In 1954 he opened his own studio in San Francisco. This first shop was open for nearly 30 years. Tuttle tattooed Janis Joplin, Cher, Henry Fonda, Paul Stanley, and several other notable musicians and celebrities of the time.

Paul Rogers’ influence on tattooing is immense. Rogers is the bridge that connects the best of the old-school American traditional tattooing to some of the most accomplished artists of the modern renaissance. Tattoo giants such as Don Ed Hardy, Greg Irons and George Bone, to name but a few, have all benefited not just from his over 50 years in the business, but also from the remarkable sophistication of the machines he designed, universally acknowledge to have been the best money could buy. Rogers later formed a partnership with Huck Spaulding establishing one of the most famous and highly respected tattoo supply companies in the world, Spaulding and Rogers.

Collins was born on January 14, 1911 in Reno but grew up in Northern california. As a child he hopped freight trains across the country and learned tattooing from a man named "Big Mike" from Palmer, Alaska, originally using the hand-pricking method. In the late 1920s he met Tatts Thomas from Chicago who taught him how to use a tattoo machine. He practiced on drunks brought in from skid row. He later sailed the Pacific Ocean before settling in Hawaii in the 1930s. He often wore plain white T-shirts that exposed his ink-sleeved arms.





I am fascinated by the history of all these individual artists and where they came from to where they ended up. These are a few of the pioneers that championed tattooing and were most creative in their work. They were the forefathers of the style I am researching and really enjoyed studying how they worked. Seen as they were the original traditional tattooists their designs will feature heavily in my research.

The History of Tattoo - Films

 Ed Hardy is the pioneer of modern day tattooing, training under Norman 'Sailor Jerry' Collins and later under the japanese master Horihide. In this way he learnt the two biggest forms of tattooing and brought them together to create a new modern day tattooing technique. He also went on to bring this to the tattoo community, publish the magazine Tattoo Time, popularize tattooing and help make it a more respected art form. In this movie I had a more in depth idea of why tattoo evolved into what it is, how tattooists worked and what attracted them to certain designs.

 Norman 'Sailor Jerry' Collins, or also know as his japanese tattoo master name Hori Smoku (a pun on the way the japanese accent would pronounce Holy Smoke), was a huge influence on tattoo culture. Pushing the boundaries of what could be done with different techniques and opening the door to other big name artists Sailor Jerry is a revered and respected artist. After WWll, Collins opened a shop in Honolulu, Hawaii, where he tattooed sailors constantly. He visited japan and learnt the classic techniques there to bring back and fuse them with american traditional to create the tattoo we know today.

Tattoo Nation tells the story of the Southern California tattoo scene, focusing mainly on the latin american style. Describing how black and grey religious, portrait and gang tattoos came from prisons into the tattoo culture and on into the mainstream. This film wasn't really very relevant to the style of tattooing I am looking at, but it does give another perspective of tattoo. I did see similarities between tattoo cultures and how they began though which was helpful.

Jeff Wall

 Jeff Wall's body of work is impressive, painstakingly set up photographs with huge set sometimes and barely anything the next. He also takes from classic paintings and appropriates them to his photographs, or recreates them entirely, as seen below. In this image Wall recreates the traditional japanese print in a modern setting, a calm river replaced by a canal, japanese traditional wear replaced by business suits, all making it more relevant to today. The colours and llighting are exactly what I am looking for in my images, I think he uses a large format camera which I will try and get hold of and experiment with.