Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
W
by Greg Truelove
ith the explosion of mixed martial arts in recent years, there is one
Atlanta fighter who is no stranger to the sound of a cage door slam-
ming shut behind him. Diego "The Octopus" Saraiva, at 155 pounds, has
faced off with opponents in his weight class well over 20 times. Diego has fought every-
where, from the local fights in his hometown to the sold-out arenas of the UFC. Saraiva
has been there, and this "new" MMA fad is nothing new to him. Born in Brazil in April
1982, he became a Nova Uniao Jiu Jitsu black belt, and has earned many awards, cham-
pionships and National titles, and was recently voted OTM's “Submission Grappler of
the Year.”
Through all his years of nonstop training and grueling regimens of sparring and con-
ditioning, one welcomed feeling of pain is that of a tattoo gun on his skin.“Tattoos are
badges of honor, and symbols of my life and beliefs,” says Diego. “I am addicted.” His
main supplier, Jeff ‘Miami’ Burgess, works out of
Psycho Tattoo in Douglasville, Ga. Saraiva hooked up
with Miami after hearing about him through other
fighters and friends. When they met, they wasted no
time collaborating on a massive dragon piece on his
ribcage and lower torso. Miami, who has been an old
school fan of MMA for as long as he can remember,
says, "Me and Diego almost spent more time talking
about what his tattoos would be than actually tattoo-
ing him." This led to a friendship that has been going
strong ever since. Miami has done all of Diego's signif-
icant work, including a detailed black and white Jesus
tattoo on half is back.
Recently, Diego opened up his own gym and train-
ing center, Saraiva MMA, where he trains his very own
special squad called "Team Octopus." With a nick-
name like "The Octopus,” it was only fitting that
Diego decided to have Miami create an awesome full
color design featuring his namesake in bright orange,
with its eight arms flailing through an ocean of blue
waves and sharks, on his shoulder and lower arm.“My
nickname comes from my Jiu Jitsu skills, which seem
to make my opponents think that sometimes I have
more than two arms and more like eight. They are
overwhelmed!”
Keep your eye on Atlanta fighter Diego Saraiva.
He has a lot of fight left in him, and continues to fight
in the lightweight division at a professional level.
When not training for fights he enjoys teaching all
skill levels at his own gym. H
Saraiva MMA
5799 New Peachtree Rd.
Doraville, GA 30340
www.saraivamma.com
How long have you been tattooing? What are your plans for the future?
It will be 10 years in May. The first year I gave up everything and I’d like to go to Europe this fall, but I don’t know if that’ll happen.There
just started over. Since then I’ve been able to learn and get better with are only four of us in the shop, so we’re trying to put together a show.
the help of guest artists, personal traveling, and being more able to gain There’s enough room for a small gallery space in the front of our shop and,
knowledge. Just having a central headquarters with so much happening like I said, you just have to do it. It’s just a matter of getting enough friends
inside of it has really helped me to learn a lot about tattooing. and artists together to have a show.
What kind of tattoos do you like to do? Yeah, it doesn’t take too much. Got any rants?
I like more illustrative stuff which means a lot of custom work. I I want everyone to just accept the fact that everyone’s a tattooer,
came to doing tattooing through art. I learned how to draw from comic everyone’s doing art. I hate it when tattooers complain about people biting
books, so I like to do a little bit of everything. I love doing art, but it’s a their shit—everyone references everyone else’s shit. When I go to conven-
hard way to make a living, so it’s nice to be able to do as many styles as tions, I hate to see people all doing artwork in a similar vein, because they’re
possible.That way there will always be work.You can learn to do specif- all obviously influenced by the same art set. It’s supposed to be more indi-
ic styles well if you’re a solid tattooer, and you can always incorporate vidualistic.They’re all fucking lemmings. Still, no matter what, it’s just whatev-
your style into that style, and it’s always fun to do traditional shit er is the popular idea at the time. We’re a demographic. They’re selling shit
because those tattoos are the foundation of what I do anyway. I also like to us now because we’re a demographic.We’re supposed to be fucking out-
doing monsters and bloody stuff. cast pirates! And now they’re part of it. They’re a fucking T-shirt on
Hollywood Boulevard.
When you get into your 30s who gives a shit, anyway?
The cool clique are
those you like and
trust. I know there are
other factors, but
they’re easy enough to
marginalize.
It’s just the fucking ego
thing, I mean, when people
get published or something,
it just becomes fuel for their
ego. And it’s like you’re not
even doing it for art, you’re
doing it so other people will
see it and say you’re the guy.
kristen Wwharton
From The City Comes An Angel
L
By J.J. Diablo Photos by Greg Truelove
os Angeles is known not only as the “City of Angels,” but as a city of enhance-
ment. Botox, silicone, saline, one can have anything lifted and injected to achieve a
personal beauty ideal.This month’s Hot Ink, Kristen Wharton, manages to serve
L.A. exceptionally well, but with a brand of ethereal beauty and enhancement all her
own. No silicone here. Her enhancement is skin deep, our favorite kind.
I am starting up my
own business and not
telling anyone what it is
yet! I have my business
plan written, and it’ll be
launching soon. I can’t
wait!
My mom and the majority of old folk always say to me, “Why in the world do you
get all of these tattoos? You’re too pretty.” I reply, “Well did it ever occur to you that I
don’t get tattooed because I want to look prettier? I get tattooed because I feel like it!”
Yes ma’am. H
Is that why Skull Skates came about? Yes, I tattoo. I worked in a couple shops. I really didn’t want to look at tattooing as
a form of income because I love to tattoo. I love to tattoo skateboarders. I love to
Skull Skates has been around 30 years. Back in the 1980s, after I quit tattoo skateboard logos. I don’t want to have to rely on tattooing as a job, I’d
Madrid, I was going to ride for Skull Skates. rather just tattoo my friends. I can tell my friends,“Nah, I don’t want to do that
tattoo. It’s stupid.” In a shop, you gotta sit there and you gotta tattoo whatever the
You had your own company, right? customer wants. I didn’t get into it as an occupation; I got into it for fun.Working
in the different tattoo shops, I realized that it’s just not that fun to tattoo idiots
I still do. It’s called American Nomad Skateboards. I’ve worked with a that walk in and point to a piece of flash, going,“Yeah, I want number T-109.” It’s
bunch of different, other brands, but Skull Skates was always a really just like you came in here with no clue in your head and you’re picking some shit
strong company that I looked up to because they were original, they off the wall and that’s what you want.And then you have to rely on that to pay
did their own thing, they didn’t follow anybody else’s trends.And the light bill, or pay the electricity or whatnot. It just didn’t click.
that’s how I’ve always been.After our affiliation over maybe the last
eight years, things have really clicked with Skull Skates. It’s been great. Well that’s pretty cool that you actually tattoo. I had no idea.
Who’s done your tattoos? It’s hard to be a professional skateboarder and not get an
awesome deal on things like that.
Ed from Gulf Coast Tattoo did most of
my stuff. I’ve had work by Randy Janson, It’s a gift, you know. Somehow you just meet cool people everywhere you
Guy Aitchison did a few on me. go. If you don’t, then you’re just a complete asshole.And you should ques-
tion yourself.“Why can’t I meet cool people? Well, maybe I’m an asshole.”
Which piece did Guy do? I can be the biggest ass in the world, but I can make friends everywhere.
Guy did a skull on me.Actually, me and My world has opened up since getting tattooed. People
Matt Hensley went in and hooked up approach you differently. When you look a certain way
with Guy when we were in Chicago one and you have a certain thing about you, it’s not about
time. He just busted this piece out, being cool or whatever, it’s just that people want to talk
almost stencil-less. to you. You can’t help but make friends.
When was it? The old saying is, tattooed people don’t mind people that are tattooed.
People who aren’t tattooed get all fucking afraid of people with tattoos.
This was in 1990. You think we’re all fucking criminals? That’s bullshit.
T
By Radek
he Festival Of Records. Oh, it doesn’t sound nice. But, well, you can’t say this wasn’t a spe-
cial event. Not perfect, not the best in the world; not flawless, because we need more
years of experience, liters of sweat, and people’s understanding to achieve it. It was a fes-
tival that collected many top-class tattooers and drew a large audience. People who have some knowl-
edge about tattooing spotted progress in the level of the work being done and we were happy to have
had one of the biggest tattoo battles ever organized, as well as unveiling our big new space to the rest
of the world.
This has been the fourth edition of TattooFest. Since the very beginning, I gave myself three years
to gain experience and make a good tattoo convention.Three years spent in the previous place, a place
that will be remembered, Rotunda, taught us that to achieve success you have to make many tiny steps
forward.We started with 30 Polish artists. One year later there were 40 artists from Poland and a few
guests from abroad, and a year ago we stuck more than 70 artists inside Rotunda! We had more and
more people willing to come to the convention so we had to find a bigger and more comfortable
space.
“Chemobudowa” market place attracted our attention a long time ago. Back then 2,700 square
metres of space seemed terrifying, as the costs of the whole thing would have killed us.We would have
needed about 120 artists willing to get a 2 by 3 metre tattoo booth, two times more than at Rotunda.
BEST OF SATURDAY
24 PRICK MAGAZINE WWW.PRICKMAG.NET NOVEMBER 2009
BEST
OF SUNDAY
Large Composition
28 PRICK MAGAZINE WWW.PRICKMAG.NET NOVEMBER 2009
NOVEMBER 2009 WWW.PRICKMAG.NET PRICK MAGAZINE 29
30 PRICK MAGAZINE WWW.PRICKMAG.NET NOVEMBER 2009
Winners Large Gray/Blac k&White
The second event was the tattoo battle, a very popular kind of tat-
too artistic fusion mostly popular in United States. The rules are simple:
one model, two parts of the body, two tattooers and one topic.There’s lim-
ited time and at the end the effect is judged by the audience. For us it’s not
important to choose a better tattoo but to organize something that inte-
grates tattooers and gives them an opportunity to cooperate. The third
attraction was “Don Juan’s Heart,” a performance by street theatre
Kaleidoscope Scene.We’d like to make TattooFest not strictly a tattoo con-
vention but an event that supports many different kinds of art. I think the
closest movement to tattooing is street art, and we are trying to raise the
public’s awareness of it. From beginning to the end, the events got their
applause.
Krakow. This is the place in which new hotels, office blocks and apartment
buildings are about to be built. There will be a quick tram line from which
you will be able to reach the convention from a railway station in a few min-
utes.The plan is a long run, so don’t expect us to do a grand festival of inde-
pendent art in a year. But we’ll try to make it happen eventually. It’s most
important for us to make people that come here feel good, create a
TattooFest Family, and treat being here not just as a pastime after work but
like a family gathering.We want the people to feel sorry only because they
would have to wait the whole year for another edition of TattooFest and
because it takes only two days.
Large Color
NOVEMBER 2009 WWW.PRICKMAG.NET PRICK MAGAZINE 33
Tattoo Battle pics
Well... In the end there’s nothing more to do than thank all who helped
and supported us. I won’t manage to put all your names here because there
were so many people who helped. I’d also like to thank all the people that
were here at the convention, those that took part in it, both artists and
lovers of tattoos. See you in Warsaw next year! Keep your fingers crossed
for us because it won’t be easy. H
suicidegirls
images courtesy of SuicideGirls.com
sash
Fractal radeo
D
By sean dettman
Courtesy of Adrenaline PR
Photos by Ray Hardy
ethklok, the best fake metal band around right now, just finished Who or what are some of your influences?
their fall tour with Mastodon, High on Fire and Converge. I was
able to catch their sold out show in Atlanta, and while I’m not Groucho Marx,Woody Allen,Tila Tequila.
the biggest fan of death metal I still managed to enjoy myself in a room
Where did you and Tommy Blacha get the idea to create
full of mostly shirtless mouthbreathers.
a show like Metalocalypse?
When Metalocalypse premiered on Cartoon Network’s [adult swim] I lost a bet with my dog over a basketball game and my punishment
in 2006, fans of absurd dark comedy and death metal finally had a show was to become an executive producer of an animated metal show.
they could support. And support it they did, as the next year Dethklok’s
first album, The Dethalbum, debuted at #21 on the Billboard 200. In What are some of the topics explore with your art?
September of this year, Dethklok’s second studio album, Dethalbum II,
was released to wide critical acclaim, this time peaking at #15 on the I enjoy exploring gender bending and Edwardian cleaning devices.
Billboard 200. How do you describe Dethklok to people?
Either because I’m too naive to know any better, or because I’m a I say something to the effect of: Imagine if you can a world where
masochist, I thought that interviewing Brendon Small, one of the vision- music isn’t allowed. It’s in fact considered a crime! And the only way to
ary minds behind the creation of Metalocalypse, the guitar player and escape the crime police is to dress up like robots and speak broken
vocalist in Dethklok, voice talent to Nathan Explosion, Pickles and Japanese.
Skwisgaar Skwigelf, and creator of another [adult swim] classic, Home
Do you have any tattoos?
Movies, would be a good idea.Was I wrong?
Being that tattoos are often derived from the popular icons of our culture,
what do you think when people tell you they have a Metalocalypse- or
Dethklok-themed tattoo?
I think that worst case scenario, when the show jumps the shark, they can always cover it up
with a shitty Family Guy tattoo.
More on Brendon Small, his band and his hit televison show at www.brendonsmall.com and
www.adultswim.com. H
Brian Beller
PAUL GERRARD
Last Rites Gallery - New York City, N.Y.
www.lastritesgallery.com
JUNKO MIZUNO
Roq La Rue Gallery - Seattle,Wash.
www.roqlarue.com
The play is centered on characters who all have questions about them-
selves, which often results in the telling of life lessons through stories about tat-
toos. Broken hearts take the form of floating mermaids while washable markers
on skin demonstrate a need to feel unique. Using traditional dramatic acting,
dancing and shadow puppetry to great effect, “TATS:the experience” has run
only in Atlanta, but has plans to be performed live across the country. H
www.tatstheexperience.com
R
December 4 - 6, 2009 January 15 - 17, 2010
E
19th Berlin Tattoo Convention SurfINK Australia Gold Coast, Australia
B
Berlin, Germany
January 16 - 17, 2010
International Toulouse Tattoo Conv.
M
December 4 - 6, 2009
3rd Inka Tattoo Convention Toulouse-Labège, France
E
Cuzco, Peru
January 22 - 24, 2010
C
December 18 - 20, 2009 Tattoo Freeze
E
Rock the Ink Telford, United Kingdom
Gwinnett Center - Atlanta, Ga.
D
January 22 - 24, 2010
January 8 - 10, 2010 Inaugural Jet City Tattoo Expo
2nd Annual Singapore Tat2 Show Tulalip Resort Casino
Singapore Everett,Wash.