In general, I love tattooing, but recently hate the politics and judgmental attitudes coming from within the community, I too have been guilty of this....

A recent death in this big family, "the Body Art FAMILY", has hit me hard. And I have kept this:

Shannon Larratt is Zentastic › I can scarcely move or draw my breath // Let me, let me freeze again to death

up for days, reading it over and over and I cry, and sometimes I laugh but more often I just get sad... I tear up right now thinking about it. Shannon Larratt was the THE person to lay the first cornerstone for all body art websites, and forums... And he has passed.

I knew him on a personal level when he was with Rachel his ex-wife, but maintained a relationship online up until his passing and always kept my eye on his work, as he was a groundbreaker, and one of the few forward thinkers this whole profession, or community had...

And on that blog, if you read it... You will see some abundance of undeniable truths... He points out a few about his own site community, (some of these truths also apply to this site), and I would like to share that with you all...

We need to be thankful for everyday we have, especially if you have children. We need to be nicer to one another, and we need a sincere movement toward being a unified presence instead of a bunch of cool guy tattoo/piercing cliques, picking each other apart.

Once upon a time we were all in it together, even though we were very much alone. I miss that. Hence another reason why we have been building our shop by ourselves and I havn't been posting much work online,also we have had little to no help from anyone, no partners, no loans... Our tattoos, paintings, and prints have funded our buildout. And our hands, backs, and egos have gotten back into check more now then ever. Blood, sweat and tears... But not in vain. Our tattoo shop is built upon tattoos, and the artwork that provoked them.