ASH CAN

A small collection of tattoos I’ve done - based on Ernst Haeckel’s Artforms in Nature, which taking small seaweeds and making them big transforms the designs in a really exciting way.

It’s amazing what a sketchbook can collect over the course of a few years - this one was started too long ago and never quite finished. I’m ready to move on, although I don’t know what’s more burdensome and intimidating - a sketchbook that you know you’ll never quite finish, or a pristine, empty book. I love to see what they pick up along the way.

“We Dare Oppose”  

Watercolor, gouache on 16″ round maple panel.  Beat on little rabbit heart, even when the snake is breathing down your neck.

Hi! And hello to all my new followers! Here’s the rundown:

- Chicago, IL - but I guest spot several times a year around the US.  Butterfat Studios is a lovely, appointment only shop in the city - and we propose a series of tattoo projects every couple of months for new clients.  Right now, I’m focusing on bigger work and generally don’t take client proposed work at this time.  If I have some time to fill, or little pieces available - I generally post on Instagram to let them go!

- BLUESKYCOMPLEX is where all my work resides, tattooing, painting, etc.  There is also a webstore for prints, or any other available work.  Originals can be inquired about through email.

Last tattoo of 2015 - John James Audubon’s Fork Tailed Flycatcher.  

Considering all that happened this year, I ended on a high note with this tattoo for sure.  In January of last year, I spent 10 days in the hospital and a month or more out of work to recover from hemolytic uremic syndrome which nearly killed me (google it, if morbidly curious). Now, a year later, I can think of this as a strange, and rare gift of experience - which tinges everything in your life with a sense of urgency and immense gratitude. 

2015 was truly unbelievable, I met and got tattooed by, and worked with incredible artists that I'm consistently in awe of, spent 3 weeks in Kauai among some of the most beautiful otherworldly flora, put ~1800 miles on a motorcycle through Arizona and Joshua Tree, travel to Vancouver, NYC(x3), New Orleans, Montreal tattoo convention and Portland (x2), where I got to use my work for a good cause. I am overwhelmed thinking of everything I've accomplished in spite of it all, and overwhelmed in thinking of everyone who helped me get me here - crazy love and support from my friends, and huge response and trust in my work from my clients and followers. 

Gouache, ink, and pencil on basswood panels - crows feet and tillandsia, muntjac skulls, ungulate eyes. These were fun to exercise my dusty painting muscles - I will always be grossly fascinated by these kinds of eyes.  Horses are so familiar and terrestrial, but their pupils are completely otherworldly. (Octopi also have rectangular pupils, but they are most likely aliens anyway.)

A little process shot: These delicate tattoos don’t all happen at once, they’re built up with black and grey to establish the tones and depth of the piece - then the color is laid on top in a separate session.  This was done in two sessions, about 10 hours total - I love seeing the healed black and grey juxtaposed with the fresh color, knowing they will all settle into each other beautifully when the healing is all said and done.

Pile o’ birds, cave swallow, nuthatch, warbler.  (Insert “put a bird on it” joke here.)

Kerri from BabeSquad  came by my home studio to check out my recent work, and an interview.  I talk about how I got into tattooing, and art school, but we also get into the gritty stuff, struggling with success, integrity in your artwork, burning out, chronic illness and putting your life on hold to take care of yourself (sometimes not by choice).  Photos by Kerri - and these two showing off my own motorcycle helmet I painted (’cause I have braaaaappp on the brain right now.)

“Backpiece” makes me think of huge eagles, pharoah’s horses, dragons - something solidly dense and textured - but can’t help but think of the negative space as important as the positive space.   Thinking of printed fabric pattern, or a kimono helped shape the idea into something that flows and moves on the body, with enough room to breathe.  This piece started as a single arrangement of flowers and developed organically (pun intended?) over the course of 2 years.