Thom DeVita at Kings Avenue Tattoo

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In honor of Tattoo Age’s Thom deVita episode, VICE is holding an art show and sale at Mike Rubendall’s King’s Ave Tattoo shop in NYC from January 11th-13th. Thom’s one of a kind creative rubbings from tattoo stencils, art boxes, signed books, and more will be available for purchase. The legendary artist himself will also be present to talk about his art and Scott Harrison will be tattooing deVita inspired tattoos Saturday and Sunday.

What: Thom deVita Pop Up Gallery with VICE’s Tattoo Age
When: January 11th-13th
Where: King’s Ave | 188 Bowery, NYC(second floor)
Time: 12pm – 9pm Daily Friday and Saturday, 1PM-7PM on Sun

Be sure to stop by! VICE is excited for this special weekend, and is proud to bring you Thom’s art up close and personal, in celebration of the Tattoo Age series.

Watch Thom DeVita’s episode on Tattoo Age here: http://www.vice.com/tattoo-age

Besides the usual crew tattooing at King’s Ave, Chris O’Donnell and Timothy Hoyer will be on hand as well. The amount of quality art and tattooing that will be coming out of this shop that weekend will be astounding, don’t miss it!

Thom DeVita Part 1: Tattoo Age

All tattooing is folk art.
Vice.com  has finally begun airing the Thom DeVita arc of their ‘Tattoo Age’ series, with episode 1 currently streaming.
You can check it out here.

The first episode features Ed Hardy, Nick Bubash, Clayton Patterson, Scott Harrison, Angelo Scotto, John Wyatt, Robert Ryan, Bubba Reeves and of course Thom. If you use the Freddy Corbin arc of season 1 as a yardstick for quality, it’s really hard to imaging it getting any better. But seeing the enthusiasm that other people have for Thom and his work wins you over. Harrison’s face lights up when he talks about his ‘bad’ DeVita tattoos. These episodes- five in total- will end up being a once in a lifetime view into the life of an iconic artist.

Check it out.

Thom Devita- Tattoo Age

Last year I was lucky enough to have been tattooed by Scott Harrison.
After the tattoo I had plans to swing by the Vice offices to drop off a VHS copy of Frisco Skin and Tattoo Ink to Chris Grosso, the producer of the Tattoo Age series. At the time only a few of the episodes had aired and it was already shaping up to be and amazing tattoo documentary series; the perfect alternative to the cable network atrocities that were airing.

Harrison is a natural story teller, and as the tattoo continued he told me about Tattoo Age filming with him and Thom Devita. I was floored. DeVita. I had seen his work, of course, and compared to the relatively young tattooers featured so far he was a major score for the Tattoo Age folks. Scott detailed how they got Thom to talk on camera, shared a few great anecdotes and we eventually moved on.

Of course when I got to the Vice offices and met Chris, the first thing I brought up was the DeVita footage. At the time, I’m fairly sure they were editing the Corbin episodes (thus the VHS I was dropping off) and the season if thats what you want to call it was coming to a close. So… when was Thom’s arc going to air?

Chris didn’t have an answer. At the time there was no official word about season 2 so that footage could have potentially never seen the light of day. That would have been a tragedy. When I left the Vice offices I was worried. Several months later I was getting tattooed by Robert Ryan and we started talking about DeVita, and he mentioned that he had just completed an interview for Vice, for Thom’s segments.

I’ve been waiting for these episodes since last year, and I couldn’t be happier that they’re finally going to air. The first episode airs on November 21.

Update: Just got word from Juliette from Vice- The DeVita arc will be FIVE episodes long. Five. Feel the love.

WELTWORLD

Scott Harrison produces art that confuses me.
You look at it, and wonder if it’s the ramblings of a horny adolescent Maitreya who’s gotten ahold of a bag of weed and his Daddy’s skin magazines and produced endearing cartoons that feature grotesque and adorable critters that say things like:

HELLS YEAH! BIG OL HAIRY, CREAMY BIRTH CANALS, HOLMES. FROTHING LIKE RABID ROTTWEILER JOWLS. THAT’S WHAT I’M SLIPPING IN AND OUT OF FOR REALS!

Scott has been kind enough to unleash his cartoons on the world, free on the internet, at the WELTWORLD site. I can’t- and won’t- say that reading his comics will make you a better person but they’ll sure as shoot make you scratch your head and wonder what the heck he’s thinking when he draws them.

B.S. Welt

Scott Harrison draws weird things.
Like… really weird things. Things that make people who draw weird things say “holy cow, that’s weird.” Which makes it really fun when you find out that he’s got a new comic out and more to the point that it’ll only cost you $6 shipped.

Knobby’s Private Victory is available from Mister Harrison’s alterego B.S.Welt and you should own it.

Ratass

I had sworn off being tattooed anymore in 2011 after Thomas Hooper did my fingers. Nothing against Thomas of course, but this year has been a busy one. New tattoos by Rick Lohm,  (who’s enthusiasm for his profession was a much needed shot in the arm for me) Robert Ryan, Deno, Thomas Hooper and finally Scott Harrison.

I think Scott was a good way to cap off this year. He’s been someone I’ve wanted to get tattooed by for years, and when the opportunity came up to book some time with him, I readjusted my ‘no more tattoos in 2011′ policy and made it up to Saved for a little something from him.

I picked critter that appears from time to time in Scott’s paintings to fill an awkward little spot I had left. I didn’t know what to expect from the experience; I had only met Scott once but don’t really know him; but friends who’ve been tattooed by him assured me it was going to be a good time.

And so it was. He whipped up a great drawing (It doesn’t have three arms; you’re seeing one of the arms at two different times according to Scott) and shared a bunch of great stories while he tattooed it on me. Really glad everything worked out.

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