Same Journal, New Site

Once again, 5 years after the last version, it's time for a new website. This is the fourth iteration and rethinking of my internet HQ, and the best one yet, with improved features for users, and better SEO integration and admin architecture for me.

It's intended to be clean, minimalist, and easy to get around, while still loaded with information, content, and useful features once you dig in beyond the initial glance or quick scroll.

My favorite of these new features by far is the neural map I'm building. This likely will be something that more invested fans of my work will really appreciate, and it's based on my long held mentality of a holistic approach to art and life.

• A holistic approach takes a wide-angle view and sees all the parts of a system as interconnected and interdependent.

• The system here is me, my creativity and production of work.

• The work is a multifaceted, ever-evolving byproduct of a life lived the only way that I personally know how; it's the output of my mental and emotional energy, choices, beliefs, and daily practices.

I've never felt comfortable segmenting myself into separate labels like “tattooer” and “painter” and a disjointed basket of other divided identities, even though in order to survive in these current social and economic conditions I do so as much as needed.

What I vastly prefer to be instead is simply an artist, and a human being expressing ideas by solving creative problems. Whether that creativity takes the form of a tattoo, a painting, a miniature sculpture, a cinematic video or social media reel, an essay, a DIY home project, a website, it all feels kind of the same for me.

Visualizing it all would form a sort of mind-map with clusters of ideas linked by various trains of thought or natural organic progressions, where interconnected relationships are observable and the bigger picture of everything combined makes actual sense. So in other words, a neural map of my brain.

And that is coming very close to fruition with this newest version of my website, where all the image galleries, as well as the journal/blog AND the store can all be linked in the admin side of the site through idea relationships which, when established for a particular work, then appear at the bottom of that work's page.

So, you may navigate to a tattoo that catches your eye, and you load its individual gallery page. At the bottom of that page, if and when it’s been linked to other works by me, sits a related works section that lists what else I’ve made that’s related to that work, with a brief explanation of what that relationship is.

This is an exciting and fun way for me to catalogue and preserve my artistic journey, and in some ways, my life. The new site is still…new, so not all of the dynamic work relationships and interconnections have been mapped yet, but numerous ones are there already, with more added as I have the time and energy, or when the thought randomly pops into my head when self-assessing a work (artist pro-tip: always be self-critiquing for learning and growth).

So anyway, enjoy the new site and I really hope you’ll take the time to look around and maybe rediscover something you like. Not to mention, the educational services and products I offer (some gated to pro tattooers only) are now much easier to find, learn about, and sign up for if you’re a tattooer.

And as always, I’m booking tattoos for my Austin studio and various upcoming travel appearances (now listed at the bottom of my tattoo gallery page!) so get in touch if you want to work with me on a new tattoo or get an in-progress one finished.

I truly appreciate anyone who has supported me and helped me pay my bills by collecting my art and tattoos, thank you as always.