The Hyena

You should just come to Providence. Visit Howard's grave.

Thanks, guys.

Wow. Thanks! I appreciate it.

I'll be working Musink this year with my buddy Myles Karr

I will always do this show. I cant wait. I have a blast.

Yup. I'm there. Sharing a booth with Forrest Cavacco. - - - Updated - - - My sunday is booked up, but my friday and saturday are open. Any one looking to get anything done could email me at [email protected]

I've let my blog sit idle for about the last year focusing mainly on Instagram since it's so easy to use. However, I've had some feedback from who don't have Instagram or enjoy looking at pictures the size of a toy camera. So I resurrected the blog. Made a lot of updates with a shit tone of photos from pretty much the last year. I'm going to be updating the blog far more regularly, and with additional content that doesn't make ti to Instagram, and with a better account of my travel dates. Take a look-see if you have the time, and leave a comment if you are so moved. Thanks for looking. I hope you enjoy. -Ron http://laughinghyena.wordpress.com

I'll be there again. Had a bit of a scare, but I got in with Seth C in his booth. Hope to see you all there!

hahaha I love this thread.

Oh they definitely count for something, but so does the internet.

Hahaha. Yeah man. I'm there about once a month for about a week each time. I guest at Three Kings. Be there from Feb 28th to March 5th.

And another thing, Sully, this is such a bullshit statement: "Sue does not keep a Facebook or EVER advertise her work online and keeps her success and work popularized only by word of mouth and not internet hype in the TRUE FASHION of REAL tattooing." I would love to play up the "I don't participate in the internet" crap because WE ALL HATE IT TOO, but dude, doing hipster tattoos in Brooklyn you don't need to advertise on the net. Brooklyn/New York is it's own thing and really with the amount of people tattooing there, you'd expect the place to be dog eat dog, but it's not. TONS of people getting tattooed. Try doing that shit in middle of nowhere or some suburban town with five other shop. The language of the world nowadays, unfortunately is the internet. I hate it, but that's what people speak. In this economy, it makes sense to speak French in France.

I made posts on the facebook page because there were at least 5 of MY designs in there. None of the stuff I posted or really anything anyone else posted was actually "Shit talk". It was people just finding out about it, and being upset. I posted something about this on another forum, so instead of retyping it all, I'm going to go ahead and copy and paste it. "In a case such as this where the person can't even make a simple clean design she is clearly tracing shit off the net and trying to make her name on it. The owl of mine that she used isn't flash. It was a tattoo that I did on one of this forum's members as a matter of fact. The other stuff of mine that was used was from one painting that I made for another tattooer that while in flash form, was a one shot painting. No prints. So she traced it and added it to her sheets. These are all in a book that she was selling in Philly. Making her name off designs that obviously aren't hers. Tattooing DOES have a history of reinterpretation and appropriation, but there are lines. When I design flash for sale I don't care who tattoos it as long as it was bought from me and you aren't telling anyone that you drew it up. When it hangs in your shop or sits in your flash racks or book, my name is still on it. No problems at all. Go for it. When you use it instead of drawing something because you're lazy and then tell someone it's yours that's bullshit. Also, when people are tracing tattoos right off the net and passing them off to the unaware masses as their "clever" designs it's bullshit. And I completely understand, once you put it out there, it's liable to get lifted, but does that mean that opinions on such behavior can't be voiced and standards shouldn't be set against such behavior? Absolutely not. People need to say shit to suckers. Tattooers seem to forget that yeah there.s a big tradition of lifting designs and whatnot, but there's also a tradition of protecting what's yours. Either by booby trapping it, making sure your name is ALWAYS attached to it, or by keeping it off radar. In this economy I'd love to be the off the radar guy. Just can't make it work, and if I'm spending the amount of time drawing, researching, reading, collection references, and building a stylistic vocabulary that is at least a little my own, then yes, I should be protective of it. There's also the thing where tracing, and repainting flash by long gone, or otherwise retired old timers is different than repainting and then SELLING under your own name a bunch of shit being done by today's current people. Shit's gonna happen, people are lazy, everyone LOVES to say there's nothing new under the sun, but it doesn't make it right or true. Chick is a thief. Ain't nothing on those sheets hers and a huge amount is from current people tattoos. Not even flash. She was at our booth in Philly this weekend. She didn't even buy my set after selling her book with my shit in it." So to the person who was saying these things were never meant to be made public, and they were for personal use and to show clients, or to show clients, why even do that? Why trace my shit to show HER clients? So the people who don;t know ay better will see those designs as hers. That's not cool. Her illness aside, it's still a crummy thing to do to a lot of people. I take issue with how You've come in here using "our favorite medium to talk shit" and try to talk to us like we're 12 year olds. Sorry she's in a bad way with cancer, but my sister is fucked to the nines with cancer but I still think she's the shittiest person I know. If this was truly about the merits of the sketchbook, then just stick to that. Don;t bring up things that don;t matter to the argument to just try to drum up some sort of viewpoint on her like she can't be called out on this shit. I was AT Philly. She was in my booth. Talked to me. Still sold sheets with her name on in and mine, and other tattooers designs on them. None of those pages said anything like "designs by Wells, re-imagining by Jeiven." Which is kind of the thing you do when selling some shit that isn't yours. I didn't even know about this shit until a few days ago or I would have said something. And when get to Brooklyn next week I AM going to talk to her. Like an adult. So save the "you guys are all shit talkers" crap. Some of us are pissed. Look. I'm no tattoo genius. I'm just a dude making tattoos and trying to make clients happy like everyone else, but I work my ass off to do so. My library is huge and very little of that is tattoo books. I spend hours upon hours drawing and re drawing. Again, I'm nothing special, but why can't she do that if her stuff is supposed to be so personal? Go to museums and collect old books. Not facebook tracings. The sketchbook you said was so AMAZING is 98 percent CURRENT tattooers drawings. Not old Jerry flash.

Haven't had much time to sit down and go through photos lately. Put a bunch up at once per usual. Thanks for looking. http://laughinghyena.wordpress.com/

There are a lot of people who want the experience of having a tattoo, to have the story of getting a tattoo, but not have the responsibility of having one. It seems like that is actually a huge portion of clients lately. All you can do is treat them well, offer them the best advice you can, give them all the info, and either you don't do the tattoo, or you explain touch ups on things like this aren't free, and give them a clean tattoo to the best of your ability. You might be able to turn them into a person who had a good enough experience that they want more tattoos in the future. Treat 'em well, cover your ass, and take the business.