Collaborative Back Piece- O’Donnell & Hooper

Collaborative Tattooing – Saved Tattoo NYC from Taylor Toole on Vimeo.

The greatest side effect of cable networks exploiting tattoo culture has been a rise in ‘internal documentation’ within our community. The availability of inexpensive high quality video cameras, easy editing software like iMovie and a pool of really creative tattooers and collectors has led to a great grassroots backlash to the reality tattoo culture that’s spreading across social networking/video sites in growing numbers. I saw this video on Mr. O’Donnel’s fine blog (which you can find here and snagged it for those of you who might not have had a chance to see it.

Chris O’Donnell does amazing tattoos; (my sister has quite a bit of work from him) and Thomas Hooper never ceases to impress; the video features the start of a collaborative backpiece at the new Saved shop in NY. It’s nice to see the start of the process; hopefully each subsequent session will be documented to give a bigger picture view of both artist’s contribution.

The reality that we can be our own media is certainly nothing new, but with the aid of modern technology it’s certainly something I hope to see explored more often; it’s even encouraged me to attempt to document my next tattoo. (which is going to be my armpit. Nothing fun will come of this)