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chris o'donnell: i telleverybody i'm two years out. like, i won't takea new customer. it wasn't reallyself-promotion. i've never been good at that. like right now, i don't evenhave business cards. i don't know. i just tattooed a couple keypeople, tried to do a good job, and then it just sortof happened from there. i don't even really know.

it's all kind of a blur. you just end up-- it's like one day you'rethinking, wow, i wish i could do a real back piece. and then a year later, yourealize you've done three. you know, it's thatkind of thing. it just kind of happens. you look back and you go, wow. it's almost like i wishedfor it and it happened.

i started tattooing in 1993when i was 17 years old. it was my after-school job. it was my senior yearof high school. my parents were divorced, andthey didn't really have any money to force me togo to college. it was just always like, whatare you going to do? how are you going to survive? what are you going todo with your life? but i told my mom one nightand she said, tattooing?

aren't you worriedyou're going to make a lot of enemies? i still don't really knowexactly what she meant by that, or why shewould say that. but i thought thatwas interesting. that was literally the onlything she ever said about it. i'm chris o'donnell. this is my art studio, my artroom where it all happens. i'm working on something now--

drew a tiger on tone paper soi could use white colored pencil to make it pop out. there's tons of stuff that icould draw that i couldn't tattoo at first, and still. it's a lot harder than drawing,or painting, even. it's got differentconsiderations, like leaving open skin. if you fill it solid, it's goingto be brighter, better. but you've got to leave the openskin to reflect a certain

amount of light through it soit pops off the skin and becomes more graphic that way. if you fill in those darkbackgrounds so completely solid, it just killsthe whole thing. you've got to show somerestraint for sure. that's the hardest thing to do,is just be able to back off and know when it's done. most younger guys get into itand they think, like, it's going to immediatelybe easy because

they can draw or paint. it's definitely not the case. it's very technicalprocess learning. i started at a total biker shop,just a total biker shop. it was kind of a miserableexperience, but i'm lucky for it. this is almost identical to theactual first tattoo that i did on a friend. tribal-- tribal was quitepopular when i first started,

early '90s. i learned to do color-- i used the single needle in aseven round, which is absurd now to think about. but again, i startedin a biker shop, so that's what they did. when i first walked into thattattoo shop that first time, when i was there, thiswas the magazine that was on the news stand.

they would get the issuesand sell them. and i didn't know who any ofthese people were at all-- like don ed hardy, dan higgs,alex binnie, marcus pacheco, elio espana, timothy-- but these are some of myfavorite people in tattooing to this day. and then there's this "primalurge" article, and they're doing really interesting things,like stuff i didn't even know was possible.

and i would just study thisstuff and think, like, how do you get these effects, andjust slave over these drawings, just racking my braintrying to figure out how this stuff works. like, how do you composethese images? how do you do water? how do you draw fire? how do you color it? it's so complicated.

this stuff blew my mind and mademe-- this is part of what made me go, oh, i want to dotattoos that i drew, that i am excited about. it's like these four guys in aprivate studio just working on cool people, getting whateverthey want to do. so that was my-- that was the moment. timothy hoyer: i met chriso'donnell in richmond, virginia, probablyaround 1994.

i had moved to richmondto open a tattoo shop. it was called absolute art. he would just come over andhang out after he was done with his shifts atthe other shop. i think where he was working wasmore of a commercial shop, more walk-ins, lesscustom stuff. i think he wanted to branch outand be able to draw and have a little more freedom. and we were at the point wherewe were getting more of that

kind of clientele. chris o'donnell: before long,the guys at absolute art-- which was like the cool guysdowntown, the cool older guys. they had their own shop. and they noticed me, and thedrummer at the time, the drummer for avail came inand got tattooed by me. and eventually, that ledto me tattooing beau, another guy in avail. but i had to come to absoluteart to tattoo him, because he

wouldn't come to my shop. of course, i jumped at thechance, just to be able to hang out with those guysand tattoo him. and then before i knew it, iwas getting hired, and i started working with timothy. timothy hoyer: i went throughstage of doing very painterly, rendered-- like almost kind of fine artthings, experimental things, just trying a bunch of stuff.

so i think that our stylesstarted out a little farther apart and then sortof came together. yeah, he definitely had hisown style even back then. i think he probably had threeor four years under his belt at that point, so it was stillkind of forming, the look of what he was doing,the feel of it. but it was very, very solid,very, very clean tattooing, even at that point. it started that way.

we've always been really good atkind of pushing each other, and just sort of keepingthe ball rolling. on monday i'll see,oh, you did that. and on tuesday i've got to comein with something else, and on wednesday he's going tocome in with something else. there was a lot of that when weworked together because it was just me and him. chris o'donnell: i startedtraveling after i started working with timothy.

he took me to a lotof conventions. he started taking meon trips with him. like, we'd go up to new yorkand work at east side ink. yeah, i was really nervous. it was great. new york city is dauntingenough when you're not used to it. i remember pulling up totallydisoriented, didn't know where i was in new york.

it was obviously the eastvillage, lower east side. pull up, and right away i seetin-tin and elio hanging out in front of east side ink, bythe dumpster, smoking a joint or whatever. and tin-tin had a cast-- it wasjust a surreal experience because i hadn't seeneither one of those guys in person ever. it was definitely an easysituation to choke in, like, too many good people around, i'mtoo young, i don't really

have a developed stylewhatsoever. i don't even really knowwhat i'm doing. but timothy was alwaysreally supportive. and it would be like, oh, yeah,chris trevino was here two weeks ago. here's all these drawingsthat he left behind. and you're like, well whatam i doing here? why would i-- dan higgs was tattooingthere at that time.

that's where i met dan. looking back, i'm surprised thati didn't just choke and run out of there. but i remember doing a bigjapanese snake half sleeve, and i don't know if i'd reallywant to see that thing now. had wind-- aw man. i used to do thatall the time. i'd draw full tattoos, do colorstudies, hang them up in my station, and then eventuallysomeone would

finish a project and say,what about that? i sort of imagined-- i had no idea who iwould do it on. i didn't have a portfoliofull of stuff. but i knew that i had ideas, andi knew that this is what it would look likeif i tattooed it. so i hung it up. and i think, like, within amonth, someone had gotten the outline already.

it was just a tactic for me tobe able to start doing big work, to prove that, it mightlook good if you let me do it. i'll put the time into it. i'm not really sure what mademe want to strive for anything, really. for me, i just wanted to be ableto maybe take a style and pursue it and be able to kindof create that kind of life, where you're just making artthat you're actually interested in.

i think i just lookedup to certain artists that seemed to-- instead of sort of being a slaveto whatever this random person that comes into the shopwants, you could actually develop a style, much likepainting, and draw a clientele based on that, where they wouldcome to you, and you're basically creatingyour own reality. as far as the japanese stuff,that's kind of complicated. i was exposed to it and i likedit, but i didn't really

understand it. it was, in my opinion, maybetoo simplistic, to my uneducated viewpoint. and it wasn't exciting enough. i mean, there was other thingsgoing on that were way more-- like marcus pacheco was doingthe cubist stuff. marcus pacheco, i guesshe had an art degree. he's a fine painter. but he started tattooing, buthe wanted to see what was

really possible forthe art form. all this really good,interesting work was happening at the time. and i was so young that i reallydidn't have an artistic identity at all-- luckily, probably. that's probably forthe better. and then i started workingwith timothy. and he was doing a lot ofpainterly tattoos, of figures

and space scenes behindit or whatever. really interesting stuff, buti knew that working with timothy, they would pigeonholeme in just being a copy of him, like wanting to bejust like-- you see that all the time. you see one really good artist,and then he works with two younger artists thatjust do his style, just bite him to death. i started thinking aboutjapanese stuff, and pursuing a

little bit, just tryingto understand it. and then i just went that way. the japanese style oftattooing, yeah, it's way more graphic. it's designed to have a bunchof big images all over the body and then tie it alltogether with a background that will pop thoseimages forward. younger kids, they look attattoos sometimes and they think they're too simple.

they don't understand thescience behind making it more readable to the eye, especiallyfrom a distance. it's incredibly complicated. timothy hoyer: i would sayit's become a very-- like a refinement of justclassic tattooing, classic traditional styles thathave kind of a timeless edge to them. japanese, that's kind of wherehe went immediately after the beginning stage of trying tofigure out what you're doing.

he hit on that and justwent with it. chris o'donnell: yeah, it'sincredibly difficult to start doing the bigger stuff,especially the first 200 times. just stenciling the whole thing,that makes you nervous. i was doing back pieces beforei knew how to draw things on with a pen. so i had to stencil background,every detail. so it had to be perfect.

you'd spend two hourstrying to piece together the stupid stencil. then you'd just try to get iton right and hope it is. and then there'd be parts of itthat weren't in the right place or cut off. then you're doing the outline,and then there'll be-- say it's a deity withlike eight arms. at least three or fourof those hands are really fucked up.

and more often than not, i wouldbite off more than i could chew. but then you finish it and moveon, and hopefully you learn from those mistakes. that's the weird thing abouttattooing, is you do learn from your mistakes, and themistakes are on people. the problem with tattooing,in a way, is that it's too easy to start. maybe not correctly, but i mean,you could get stuff and

you could start tattooing, andyou're just going to mess people up endlessly andnot get anywhere. but you see it on tv. you go, oh, thoseguys can do it. i can do it. i'll just go ordera kit and start. why would i buy art books? i'll just buy the kit andjust scribble away and fuck people up.

going off on a tangent. i don't get really depressedabout it anymore. i used to get depressed aboutthe state of my industry. but new york is an easy place. you can kind of createa bubble. the tattoo artists around newyork, they seem to be separated from allof that nonsense. what i do for myself is mainlythrough my friends and everything.

i kind of create my ownworld, like this room. this is like a safe placeaway from that stuff. i have all the books thatoriginally inspired me, and i go back to that place and kindof retrigger those ideas, those thoughts. like, oh, this is whattattooing is. you could obsess over all thethings wrong with tattooing these days and you justwant to quit, and you might as well.

but i just try to stick towhat i always thought tattooing was, and not letanybody else ruin that for me. i literally try harder everytime, because you get to a point periodically where you'reso disgusted with your own work that you justwant to quit. and the only thing left to do iseither quit or find ways to become better. for me, i was always strivingfor inspiration, always searching for inspiration.

so i would want to meeteddie deutsche. i would want to meet anybodythat i looked up to. ed hardy, because i would gleaninspiration from that, come away from that and my workwould get way better, because i just was so excited. i always felt behind becausei was always trying to figure it out. and it never feltlike i was ahead of anything in tattooing.

i'm always just squeaking bytrying to make it happen, make something-- yeah. i'm always kind of like-- i feel like i'm always one ofthe last people to get it, of the grouping that i'm in. but that's just me, i guess. it was maybe a year, yearand a half after i'd moved to new york.

i was tattooing andthe assistant walked up, and she goes-- she had the phone. she said, "there's an ed onthe phone for you." and i said, "ed who?" and shegoes, "he didn't say. maybe ed hardy?" i waslike, "uh, ok. let me take it." and i did, and he said, "yeah, ilike your work." in fact, he said, "i like your work a lot.

you should really keep it up. i really like what you'redoing." i'm losing my mind, because that's what you alwayswant, someone like ed hardy to call you and say, yeah,you're doing it right. you're finally doing it right. i remember drawing when i wasa kid, or when i was a young tattooer, thinking, man, imagineif ed hardy saw this and said, wow, that'sreally good. i like what you're doing.

and then that's funny thatthat actually happened. it's funny to look back onthat thought and see it materialize. it was just definitelyencouraging, because the whole time, you're thinking,what am i doing? i'm not as good as thisperson or that person. you're never happy withyour own work. but to have someone call youof that stature and that pedigree, and be able to sayyou're doing good, it's

encouraging. you don't want more rambling? i could ramble much longer. -no, it was very good. so many gems in there.

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