Tattooed Zoë

Hannya Jayne is a very tattooed young tattooist who works at Woody's in High Wycombe.  http://www.woodystattoostudio.com/THE%20CREW/HANNAH.html She is a self effacing and gentle personality. Hannya has been getting tattooed for a little over ten years and when I met her at the Bristol Convention was about to get some ink from Curly, from Oxford, who I have recently featured in an earlier blog.  But she is also tattooed by Woody at whose studio she works. She will get a full body suit in time.  She already has some of the back of her head done as can been seen in part, though her hair is hanging down enough to obscure part of the work.  She will have much more of her neck tattooed and maybe more of her head, but not her face.  Much of the work on her body is very intricate. Her neck will be done by James (I didn't check out who he is!) and will be Japanese style.  She says she is quite sexist in her choice of designs.  Her back has some work on it already but she is going to g…

I was walking home after visiting a couple of art exhibitions at the RWA museum and the Bristol Museum of Art and walking past the Eldon House pub noticed someone through the window with very striking tattoos.  First I walked on then stopped and returned thinking I would step inside and accost the owner of the ink.  But the pub was closed.  But he saw me and came out to speak to me.  I think he vaguely recognised me. He is Colin Halton and is the chef at the pub, well known for its Sunday lunches in Clifton.  Very quickly he told me that his freshly tattooed sleeve on his left arm was done by no other than Ben Boston, my tattooist!  The work is Marquesan design from Polynesia.  http://www.schoolsliaison.org.uk/bodydecoration/tattooing/marquesas.html I didn't know Ben did this kind of work, so it was an eye opener for me. He started this work when he was thirty, eight years ago.  Down from his knees are done and part of his chest.  He will get a full body suit all in Marquesan sty…

My left leg tattoo moved further towards the knee this week.  Not much else can be said about it except that the blue diamonds will soon extend onto the knee cap.  Then all the blank diamonds will be filled with different colours.

I am off to Rome in a few weeks time where I will no doubt spend time by the pool, with my new work on display, while doing all I can to keep it in the shade.

Polly and I were having a chat in the café area of the Bristol convention and I was saying that if I were to dress in the way I feel as a tattooed man I would shave my head and have as long a chin beard as I could grow.  Polly said why don't you take a look at the guy standing behind you.  I did and saw someone with the longest beard I had ever seen.  I wasted no time approaching him. His name is Jonny from Sundsvall in Sweden, which is quite a long way north of Stockholm.   For years he was clean shaven then he changed job and became an excavator and it meant him being a away from home for long stretches.  So he started growing his beard.  He then realised it was taking over.  And it certainly has.  I've never seen anything that long and very much doubt I could emulate it He's very proud of it now and at one stage it was much longer than it is now - down to his knees.  Once he stood on it while changing his shoes so he quickly took off about 10 centimetres. He now lives …

Photos courtesy of Tim Taphouse http://timtaphouse.com/

Last Saturday I went on an adventure.  A rather daft one.  It meant getting all my kit off and cycling around all the busiest streets in the centre of Bristol with 426 other people for a couple of hours.

Working to the rule that if you are caught naked it is better to cover your face than your genitals I painted myself blue.  Hence the rather strange photo above beautifully taken by Tim Taphouse. 

We first congregated at a pub and restaurant in the centre of town called Full Moon.  There were normal people there too, enjoying a pint on a beautiful sunny lunchtime Saturday.  Heavens knows what they thought as everyone started to take all their clothes off. Well not everyone.  You were asked to go as bare as you dare so some didn't remove their pants.

The power of the group is great.  Somehow the groupthink gave me authority to be starkers in front of what seemed like thousands of the general public.  As we cycled through the…