Tomboy Tattoo

A few months ago our friends over at Yellow Beak Press sent a box full of VHS cassettes for archival and preservation. The tapes were a few decades old and in various states of magnetic decomposition; audio loss, video loss or spot on perfect. It’s always different and surprising what I’ll find when I pop a tape into an equally aged VCR and push play.

This short clip that dates back to the early 1990s features Calamity Jane of Tomboy Tattoos talking about her career and being a female tattoo artist in a time where it wasn’t so common. The audio had degraded substantially (I bumped it up 400% and tried to balance out the resulting hiss) but it’s worth watching.

Blowguns Beach Whistles and the True Definition of Powerlessness Converted

“I’ve heard that the Internet is a powerful form of communication”- Scott Harrison.

A much less embiggenable version of this video used to be available on Scott Harrison’s HEADBAND BROTHERS website. It’s probably one of the greatest films ever made. Much more enjoyable than, say, Citizen Kane or The Godfather. Check it out.

Blowguns Beach Whistles and the True Definition of Powerlessness Converted
A Video Project by Scott Harrison, featuring stories told by: Michael Malone, Oliver Peck, Daniel Higgs, Kevin Q, Annette Larue, Michael Palmer, Jason Mast, David Quale, Jerry Ware, Bobby Love, Jennifer Reeder, Ernie Gosnell, Seth Ciferri, Eric Perfect, Robert Winslow, Clio Weisman, and Don Ed Hardy. © S.D. Harrison 2005

Tattooing in Action

This clip is an excerpt from an 8mm (film) recording made by Sailor Sid Diller at the Kissimmee, Florida shop of Ken Meyer sometime in the 1970s. It was converted to VHS tape in the mid 1980s and reimported to digital earlier this week at 720p and restored as much as possible though the tape has suffered considerable digital rot.

Tattoo (1975)

My buddy Scott sent me this link earlier today- a great look into the 1970s UK tattoo scene.

From the description:

A sample from a 1975 film by John Samson
Tattoo (1975) – 20 mins.
A documentary film based on the art of tattooing, tattoo artists and their clients, with interviews exploring the fascination for, and the reasons behind choosing to be tattooed. The film builds up to long climatic scene, often since replicated in other films on the subject, featuring tattooed bodies displayed as art objects. Typically, Samson had himself tattooed during the making of the film.

For more info visit:

http://www.seventeengallery.com/

More from Cliff Raven

I was pulling over some footage from a 1986 VHS tape from Sailor Sid Diller’s collection today when I found another snippet of a documentary featuring iconic tattoo artist Cliff Raven. I have no information on this documentary; I’ve found several segments of varying quality on older VHS tapes in my archives. I’ve done my best to balance out the sound and picture, but with most of these older videos it’s a bit of a challenge.

A lot of these tapes were compilations; pulling footage from 8mm film, VHS camcorders and copied documentaries shared with other tattoo artists. I’ll continue to add footage as I find it.

Editing Bay: Cliff Raven

I found a little more footage from “Tattoo Take Two” featuring Cliff Raven today while scanning a thirty year old VHS Cassette that belonged to South Florida tattooer Sailor Sid Diller. It’s a short clip- just over two minutes and forty seconds but it’s the cleanest footage I’ve found so far. Still has that faded ‘copy of a copy’ look, and obviously it’s over 30 years old, but… we’ll see what I can do in Final Cut Pro!