- [Taki] I think I've always been creative.
I've always liked drawing.
I've liked creating things.
You know, I've been tattooed now more years than I haven't.
I've been tattooing for almost two decades.
I think it's wonderful that people all over
the world can relate to this art form.
- [Luke] I do feel a personal connection
to the art that I create.
The essence of them is powerful.
I want my tattoos to read from across the room.
I don't want you to have to get right
up on it to know what it is.
- I would say I've had a lifelong
obsession with Japanese tattooing.
When I was a child I saw Japanese tattoo's
in Japanese television programs and
I was just instantly enamored with it.
And then from there devoting my life
to the study and the execution of the Japanese tattoo.
- One my mentors who taught me to tattoo
did mostly Japanese and that's my first
exposure to the style.
I was a professional MMA fighter for five years.
That work ethic has transferred over into tattooing.
I feel like I always should be working harder.
- [Taki] Horitomo is a master
tattooist of the Japanese form.
I think Horitomo is one of the most amazing
tattooers of our generation.
- He's incredible.
His ability in painting and tattooing
and the volume of work, the stuff
he's doing is just mind blowing.
- Japanese tattoos tell all the stories of Japan.
You have anything from like tales of
historical samurai, folk lore, legends, religion.
Really it's just a conduit for Japanese culture.
- Every little piece of Japanese tattooing has meaning.
You see a samurai looking boy holding a peach, there's
a reason, it's not just thrown in there.
- One of my favorite stories is Tomomori.
He was a warrior who lost a battle on a ship.
His entire army was drowned in the battle
and then in defeat he wrapped himself
around an anchor, drowned himself.
There's a crab called the heiki crab.
And the crab have a face on it that
looks just like a kabuki samurai face.
There's a lot of prints from 18th,
19th century of Tomomori wrapped around
an anchor with these crab and
the Japanese people will not eat these crab
cause they believe they're the spirits
of the fallen warriors of Tomomori.
That's what's so cool about Japanese
as you start to understand the stories.
And I try to bring that into my tattooing.
- It's thought tattooing existed as early as 10,000 BC.
The first written accounts by the Chinese
when they visited Japan, they
called it the land of law, was that
everyone was tattooed on their faces
and arms according to rank.
The reason there's such a stigma with
Japanese tattooing is that at some point
in history the Japanese government has
used tattoos to mark criminals.
Obviously this barbaric use of
tattooing immediately associated with criminality.
There's also speculation that people used
larger tattoos to cover those tattoos
so they could hide the fact that
they'd been arrested before.
In Japan today, many people associate
Japanese tattooing with the Japanese mafia.
A lot of this is reinforced by Japanese cinema.
- You know, there's certain places you can't go into.
You can't go into a gym if you have tattoos.
You can't go into certain bath houses if you have tattoos.
So that's still a real thing.
- The body suit is a very striking and
I think one of the most recognizable
aspects of the Japanese tattoo.
Knowing how long that takes and knowing
how much dedication you really respect
that person and what they've committed to
and how much pain they've endured.
They've certainly earned the tattoo.
- [Luke] The goal of anyone doing Japanese is
you want to be doing body suits, back pieces.
If you can do a whole body suit start to finish,
it's really how Japanese tattooing was
meant to be, was one client, one tattooer.
- I think there's a strong significance
and a cultural connection between the usage
of colors in Japanese tattoos and Japanese culture.
Just because you're supposed to be
more reserved in some ways the Japanese
want to keep some things muted and
not so obvious and not so in your face.
- The pallet's pretty simple in Japanese tattooing.
You have bold reds, greens, golds, browns.
It's not too complex.
Heavy in black.
The background is the biggest thing that sets it aside.
With an artist like Horitomo who practices tebori,
the hand tattooing, that technique is very important.
The way he shades with that, you have
a stick, you have some needles lashed to it.
And you use one hand as your fulcrum point
to stretch the skin and then the other hand
would push the needle in.
- The look you get from tebori
you cannot match it with a machine.
It's just much more saturated.
The colors are more vibrant.
It's not going anywhere.
- I grew up looking at Japanese books
and you'd see these tattoo parties where
they'd have their shirts off and eating food
and just enjoying each others
company and enjoying tattoo art.
I started having these ramen tattoo parties,
one I wanted to show my gratitude to clients
that had gotten large amounts of work
from me, body suits, back pieces.
These are the people have allowed me
to express myself and have this life.
You might joke that maybe hot soup is not
the best thing to eat while shirtless,
but when you're with a group of people
with a lot of tattoos you all know
exactly what each others had been through.
And then you can sit there and admire each others tattoos.
And it just shows too how Japanese tattooing
just sort of blends seamlessly with life.
- [Luke] As I've evolved over the years
I think my stuff has even scaled back.
I'm trying to do less tricks and just make things simple.
Make things nice and readable.
And make them so they're gonna last, make them so they're
gonna look great in 50 years.
- I think Japanese tattooing has changed very rapidly.
A lot more work has been published.
A lot of tattooers have traveled.
We also see very good Japanese tattooing
being done by non Japanese nationals.
What we see now are people of all cultures
of all ethnicities that are devoting
their lives to the study of this.
There are some people that sort of bemoan
the loss of when Japanese tattooing was
a little more hidden, was a littler harder to get to.
But I welcome the information age.
That way we can properly document this for
history's sake and share it with the next generation.
Không có nhận xét nào:
Đăng nhận xét