Folk Art in Texas Page: 87
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TATTOOING IN TEXAS
from Dallas tattooer Garden Chestnut, who worked
in Fair Park in the 1950s. For years Blankenship
worked out of his house in Dallas, and it was not
until April 1981 that he opened his first shop on Divi-
sion Street in Arlington. In fall 1981 he met Fair-
weather in another tattoo shop on Division Street,
operated by Doc Breezey. The three were sitting
around talking when Blankenship mentioned his
shop. Fairweather was interested, and in the next
few months they set up a business together. Fair-
weather had only been tattooing for about four years.
He learned to tattoo from Randy Adams, shortly after
Adams finished Fairweather's Japanese body suit, an
Oriental scene based on a woodblock print called
"The Archer" by Kuniyoshi.
In sum, tattoo artists in Texas are active bearers
of the American tattoo tradition. All of the tattoo
artists interviewed learned their trade by word of
mouth and imitation, using conventionalized
American tattoo designs. Some tattoo artists, such
as Bob Moreau in Austin, Randy Adams in Fort
Worth, and Jerry Blankenship and Phil Fairweather
in Arlington, have started to break away from the
American tattoo tradition, using Oriental imagery and
motifs from tribal cultures to create original tattoos
with subtle colors and intricate shading. In so do-
ing, these artists are exploring popular and fine art
traditions and are heavily influenced by California
tattooers Ed Hardy, Jack Rudy, and others whose
work was presented at the 1976 and 1979 tattoo con-
ventions in Houston, sponsored by the North Ameri-
can Tattoo Club.
As Texas continues to expand socioeconomically,
it appears that the interest in tattooing will grow.
Houston tattoo artist Bob Shaw estimates that twenty
years ago there were five hundred tattoo artists in the
United States. He says there are probably five thou-
sand today, a figure that is startling, considering the
legal action banning tattooing in several cities and
states in the 1950s and 1960s. In a time when stan-
dardization is a dilemma of everyday life, tattooing is
gaining acceptability as a means of individualization.
Notes
1. Marcia Tucker, "Tattoo: The State of the Art," Art Forum
(May 1981): 42-47.2. W. D. Hambly, The History of Tattooing and Its Significance
(Detroit: Gale Publishing Company, 1975), pp. 25, 284-335.
3. Dallas (2), Arlington (3), Fort Worth (3), Corpus Christi (1),
San Antonio (3), Houston (9), Killeen (1), Beaumont (1), El
Paso (2), Galveston (1), Wichita Falls (1), Austin (3).
4. Milt Zeis, Tattooing the World Over (Rockford, Ill.: private-
ly published, 1951), p.13.
Interviews in order of citation:
Bill the Beachcomber, Corpus Christi, Texas, April 14, 1982.
Pablo (Paul T. Bishop), El Paso, Texas, May 4, 1982.
Bob Shaw, Houston, Texas, April 15, 1982; October 10, 1982.
Harpoon Barry, Galveston, Texas, April 14, 1982.
Norm and Jim Farmer, San Antonio, Texas, March 22, 1975; June 15,
1979; July 11, 1981.
Diamond Glenn, Austin, Texas, November 14, 1974.
Bob and Leslie Moreau, Austin, Texas, June 17, 1979; July 6, 1980.
Doc and Audrey Ford, Fort Worth, Texas, October 11, 1981.
Randy Adams, Fort Worth, Texas, October 19, 1981.
Jerry Blankenship and Phil Fairweather, Arlington, Texas, October 19,
1981.
Sources
Carswell, John. Coptic Tattoo Designs. Beirut: American Univer-
sity, 1958.
Govenar, Alan B. "The Changing Image of Tattooing in
American Culture." Journal of American Culture 5 (Spring
1982): 30-38.
---. "Issues in the Documentation of Tattooing in the
Western World." Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Texas at
Dallas, 1984.
Govenar, Alan B., and Leonard L. St. Clair. Stoney Knows How:
Life as a Tattoo Artist. Lexington: University Press of
Kentucky, 1981.
Hambly, W. D. The History of Tattooing and Its Significance.
Detroit: Gale Publishing Company, 1975.
"Laserasing Tattoos." Time, October 20, 1967, p. 68.
Low Rider Arte del Varrio. San Jose, Calif.: A. T. M. Communica-
tions, 1979, 1980.
Morse, Albert. The Tattooists. San Francisco: privately published,
1977.
Post, R. S. "The Relationship of Tattoos to Personality
Disorders." Journal of Criminal Law, Criminology, and Police
Science 59 (1968): 516-24.
Robertson, Frank. "The New Tattoo." City 7 (1974): 36-39.
---. "I See by Your Tattoo." San Francisco Magazine
(September 1976): 128.
Taylor, A. J. "Criminal Tattoos." International Review of Applied
Psychology 23 (1974): 121-30.
Tucker, Marcia. "Tattoo: The State of the Art." Art Forum (May
1981).
Webb, Spider, and Marco Vassi. Pushing Ink. New York: Simon
and Schuster, 1979.
Zeis, Milt. Tattooing the World Over. Rockford, Ill.: privately
published, 1947, 1951.*87
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Folk Art in Texas (Book)
This book describes popular folk art of Texas, including basket weaving, hat-making, yard art, sculptures, murals, cemetery art, quilt-making, tattoo art, and other miscellaneous folk art. The index begins on page 198.
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Abernethy, Francis Edward. Folk Art in Texas, book, 1985; Dallas, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc67647/m1/95/: accessed April 27, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Press.