The secret life of a Tattoo Artist

Everyone has a secret life. It is pear wood for Téglás István. In plain clothes he manages a tattoo shop, but as soon he arrives home he changes his clothes, turns on the light on his "desk" and starts observing the light effects on the swells and grains of the wood. To get tuned for art work he listens to a record of Hermeto Pascoal and waits for the perfect moment, the perfect idea and the inspiration to see what to remove and from where to remove it. He only tolerates a few people this time. Perhaps I am the only one with whom he shares his views and ideas regarding the composition. He composes intuatively with no preconceptions on his mind. He never starts a sculpture with an idea that that I will sculpture a lion or a dancer from that piece of wood. That piece of wood develops during work on the basis of his intuitions and inspirations, so it might happen that a new direction appears during the creation of a semifinished statue.

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The magic of tattoos

One morning a few years ago, I went to the tattoo shop together with István. A guy with luminous eyes was waiting for him. There was a Guns ’n’ Roses concert the day before. He ferreted out the musician at the hotel where Slash gave him a signature on his arm. He wanted to make this signature eternal. There is no excuse in cases like that. The guy had a lifelong experience and he wanted to have it forever. I heard István saying a definite „no” dozen’s and dozen’ of time. You should not continue this profession without conviction. The sign being tattooed on the body always has a symbolic meaning affecting the person’s fate. It is might be fun to tattoo skulls, hanged man or bleeding bodies at the age of twenty. On the other hand various religious emblems and „fearsome” creatures, like dragons and demons etc. becoming alive on the basis of the folklore heritage, symbolize strength and courage. Therefore we cannot put an equal sign between the above mentioned emblems and the naturalistic depiction of violence. We should not burden our good fortune with bad things in vein. Everyone has silly thoughts but the clever one does not emphasize them. I would like to thank for Téglás István, the Lead Artist of Tüskevár Tattoo Art in Budapest, for providing the enclosed illustrations for this article. His further works are available on http://tuskevartattooart.blogspot.com/

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Eternal sign

What kind of tattoos do people want to get nowadays? Diverse things; usually everyone arrives with a firm idea, but usually those people go off well who do not insist on the original idea by all means. The majority of people do not deal with tattoos on a daily basis for years. They try to receive information from the newspapers or from the internet and they will probably choose a design that they will see on the beach next summer. Therefore you should not be surprised in a tattoo shop that the first thing will be to divert you from your original idea. You might be surprised but there are still people who do not know that tattoos last forever. According to modern medical practice there is no treatment to replace our boring tattoo with our old, unscratched skin. Messed up tattoos could be covered with another tattoo by remaking the old one or by covering it with another design. A truly good tattoo artist strives to create a tattoo that lasts forever for the very first time. It is good to have your own idea about what you want and a real tattoo shop functions as an excellent library as well where you can find the right picture matching your original idea. Unlike books and pictures tattoo is a spatial and three dimensional art. A tattoo artist does not simply copy the picture but adjusts it to your body lines and to your muscular system. Therefore the finished design fits your body as an essential part of it. Certain designs that are planned in two dimensions look quite weird on human body. Several logos or cartoon figures look like stickers on your body. As they do not fit your body they will disturb you after a certain period of time. I would like to thank for Téglás István, the Lead Artist of Tüskevár Tattoo Art in Budapest, for providing the enclosed illustrations for this article. His further works are available on  http://tuskevartattooart.blogspot.com/

Dragon tattoo

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The evolution of tattoos

The art of tattooing could only secede from the subculture of sailors and prisoners in the last decades. The scientific approach of tattoos is considered a brand new research area indeed. The book of Akos Kovacs and Erzsébet Sztres: The world of russian thieves and their art. published in 1994 Budapest, is an excellent example. What do we know about the evolution of tattoos? Not too much indeed. The earlist archeological evidence was Ötzi the Iceman found in Austria. Ötzi had approximately 57 carbon tattoos on his 5000 year old body. The art of tattoo probably derives from the imitation of the respectful wounds and scars of the Neanderthal man gained during hunt. If you follow the logic of transmission magic you can say when successful hunt is accompanied by wounds than bruising yourself causes a successful hunt. After a certain period of time it could have become basic requirements and probably part of the young people’s initiation ritual for becoming adult. Personally I also consider the ritual of blood contract as a special type of tattooing. We can state that the „art of bruising” is earlier than any other creation or fine art. I wonder when people realized that by putting ash and smut into the wound the ink would have become permanent as soon as it had healed. I guess the makers of cave painting could have possessed the knowledge.

The wonderdeer

The inspirative drawing of a wonderdeer made by Szilvia Lukacs.

wonderdeer tattoo

This wonder deer tattoo made by Istvan Teglas inspired a drawing of a young hungarian artist Szilvia Lukacs.

A real tribal artist

István's artistic career is exemplary by all means; nevertheless it is not an ordinary career. I first met him at the age of twenty. I got excited when I got to know that he manages a tattoo shop. At that time I attended the third year at the Faculty of Art History at the Miskolc University . I also attended the Cultural Anthropology lessons of Lajos Boglár. I visited the most important galleries and museums of Europe and I was aware of the fact that I was mostly interested in tribal art. But I did not expect to meet a "real tribal artist" three blocks away from my flat in my own hometown. At that time during the middle of the 90s my flat reflected my bohemian lifestyle. Bors Laca, the drummer of Westmister Apu and Mo bands, used to live in the other room with his girlfriend. The guitar player Gerenécs Karesz used to sleep there too if he had missed the bus. We were friendly disposed during the nights, so I searched for my pigmy tape and we amused the retired residents of the dwelling-house with my own hand crafted drums, cow horn rattles and my long flute. Huxi regularly dropped by with his guitar. Györkös Máriusz also appeared and Cselák too who wrote the "Bitter sugar" album for the Auróra band. That year I had an exhibition named Trunk Tribe. I Invited from Miskolc two of my poet genious István Béki and Attila Zemlényi. Their performance, titled the "The identity card picture of the false dead" shocked the audience of the vernissage. It was a good feeling that I could also go somewhere instead of everyone visiting me. We sat around the tattoo chair in István's shop and we listened to free jazz music. He offered me Lark's Tongue in Aspic by King Crimson I gave him the free music of Hermeto Pascoal. When we became inspired we painted everything including the doors and the furniture. We worked on each other's paintings. We did not call it my work or your work as everything was collective. It was more than a friendship; we became brothers.

Traditional japanese mask tattoo

The masks of Noah - the traditional japanese theatre are very common elements of the tattoos of the yakuzas. Istvan composed one half of the mask in black and the other half in white, just as these two colors are mostly dominated in Noah theatre