A 19th Century Art in the 21st Century

margot.mifflin — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 23:49:46 +0000

The video was supposed to be about Jeff Johnson, who has a book coming out (why?) next week and works in Bert Grimm’s old shop in Portland. But Rio DeGennaro, who worked with Grimm (who tattooed Bonnie and Clyde) stole the show with a lovely quote that explained something to me about my own interest in tattoo art: “…it’s a 19th century art in the 21st century. They can’t computerize it. No big business is gonna take it over because it’s too labor intensive and [requires] to much skill. So no matter what they do to it, it’s still gonna remain a very individual kind of business.”

Margot Mifflin » tattoo

A 19th Century Art in the 21st Century