Philadelphia Tattoo Convention 2012: The good, the bad, and the ugly.

The Good:
We had an amazing time at the Philadelphia Tattoo Convention! Unfortunately, we missed out on the first day, but we were able to catch some of the action on Saturday because of some late night driving. We left New Haven just before midnight on Friday and got to bed sometime around 3:45 in the morning. The next morning we met up with our friends Shawn and Claire for some deliciously greasy sandwiches and convention exploration!

The convention itself was pretty huge. I'm guessing around 400-500 booths, including some piercers, vendors, and even a booth for all your tattoo-themed hot sauce needs. In retrospect, I really should have snapped a picture of that.

I was fortunate enough to get tattooed by a favorite artist of mine, Gentleman-Joel Molina. I happened upon him at his former location in Illinois while looking for some distraction from a horrible conference I went to. He has since relocated to Virginia and I was thrilled to be able to catch him again.

I love getting tattooed by Joel for many reasons. He has a deep love for his traditional American style of work, and it shows in his technique as a tattooer and his work as an artist. He is also one of the most congenial and humble artists I've met. Getting a tattoo from him is a great experience because you feel both in good company and in good hands. 

Here's the piece he did on my left forearm at the convention: 

Thanks Joel!

Joel's mentor, Tilt, is a man with an impressive body of artwork. He is also a man with an impressive horse labcoat: 

That's right, horse labcoat. You wish your tattoo artist wore a horse labcoat. 

We also got to spend some time with Megan Jean Morris and Ricky Borchert, two talented artists who are conveniently located in a studio about fifteen minutes from our house in New Haven! I'm drawn to Megan Jean's work not only because her colors are SUPERBRIGHT (which they are), or because her portrait skills are astounding (which they are), but because her work is emotive. It's got a soulful, complete sort of quality to it. I wasn't able to get a finished picture of this piece, but when we found her at the convention she and this client were beasting through an eight hour session. Respect!

Evolve Body Jewelry had some seriously tempting pieces.  Kevin didn't get tattooed, but he did pick himself up a pair of plugs.

In general, the whole weekend turned out to be a memorable time. We saw good people and great artwork. It was completely worth the three days of naps we had to take to make up for lost sleep. 

The Bad:

Dogs at tattoo conventions: CUTE BUT ALSO BAD.

This was admittedly the first convention I've been to in a while. I may or may not be out of touch with the body modification community. Either way, I saw a few things that I found to be objectionable.

There was a booth at the convention that belonged to a pitbull advocacy group, who had volunteers walking dogs throughout the convention floor. Of course, I'm hugely pro-adoption, but the floor of a tattoo convention is no place for a dog. This is a crowded event where hundreds of people are getting tattooed, and whoever thought it was acceptable to introduce an animal into that environment wasn't keeping the health of the attendees in mind. The photo above was taken while I was getting tattooed. The volunteer in the picture lifted the dog up to table height and allowed him to put his front paws on the artists' table. I don't think I'm alone when I say that despite their good intentions, they would have been doing everyone a favor by bringing a photo album instead.

Another thing that really irked me was the number of price-shoppers walking around. I understand that kind of thing happens in general, and that's fine. People are going to haggle, especially during tough times. But at a convention? Do they really think an artist at a convention specifically for the propagation of art would shortchange his own work for a total stranger? Of course, this isn't true for everyone. A number of artists and clients probably negotiated and settled on a price they were both happy with. That's totally fine. I'm talking about people who usually want something they found off the internet, or a name/single word, or a simple shape like a star or a heart. They want those tattoos for personal and valid reasons, and that's great for them. But they are discrediting their own modification decisions by not bothering to consider different artists on the basis of anything other than price. Of course it's also just plain disrespectful to walk into a tattoo convention and tell a tattoo artist he's not worth the price of the tattoo he's quoting you.

Enough of that. Now:

The Ugly:

LOOKOUT.

No convention is complete without some horsefaced shenanigans. Why are there so many horses in this post?



Love!
seth