Open Your Eyes!

The tattoo culture might have first flourished within the lower class society. Sometimes within the low-est classes. Criminals, punks, gangs, the Yakuza, prisoners of war, and such.
In short, I'm saying that criminals and gangsters have ruined the perspective in which people view the tattoo culture.
That SUCKS!

But tattoos give them a sense of belonging.
Why? Because tattoos have meanings. And because tattoos have meanings, people who have them are proud of them.
Some people have certain memories that they want to immortalize with a tattoo.
Some people may feel a connection with a specific piece of art and want to get that tattooed on them.
Whatever the reason, it is important that you have a special connection to your tattoo.

Within the mainstream community, you achieve a sense of belonging and gain your pride by "leveling up" in the mainstream community, doing mainstream activities, and achieving mainstream goals. (Mainstream meaning = "what you are TOLD to do") Like, doing good in college, having a successful career, or joining a classy country club. And they usually reward themselves afterwards by drinking champagne, go on vacation, or buying a new sports car.

In the criminal world, gangsters gain their pride and sense of belonging from doing criminal activities, "leveling up" in the criminal world, and achieving certain criminal goals. BUT, they usually mark their accomplishments by getting a TATTOO.

Anyways, it's time to get over it. Tattoos aren't just for gangsters anymore. Times are a-changing. You should too! In these changing times, we need to change the way we think, also.

Most people who have said tattoos are bad haven't even the slightest clue what the procedures are, the culture background, or even what a simple tribal design looks like. They don't know the art that can be created with a tattoo machine. They just dismiss tattoos as a derelict culture. Then they preach it to other people.

But, just because some people say that something is bad, it doesn't mean that they're right. You can find out more about it. Dig deeper beneath hand-me-down gossip and preachings. and then judge for yourself.


Tattoo is an art. It should be perceived as an art.
How DO you look at art?
There is no right or wrong in art;
only right and left.

You can only see the beauty behind something ONCE YOU HAVE OPENED YOUR EYES.

Pics courtesy of www.joshuacarlton.com
-really really cool tattoo artist. one of my favorite portrait artists
and www.hyperspacestudios.com
-Guy Aitchison doesn't need an introduction! For those who don't know who he is, check out his site

Inspiring Art Quotes

Benjamin Constant:

Art for art's sake, with no purpose, for any purpose perverts art. But art achieves a purpose which is not its own. [1804]

Carl Jung:

Art is a kind of innate drive that seizes a human being and makes him its instrument. To perform this difficult office it is sometimes necessary for him to sacrifice happiness and everything that makes life worth living for the ordinary human being.

Daniel Barenboim:

Every great work of art has two faces, one toward its own time and one toward the future, toward eternity.

Jean de La Bruyere:

There are certain things in which mediocrity is intolerable: poetry, music, painting, public eloquence.

Julia Cameron:

Art is not about thinking something up. It is the opposite -- getting something down.

Magdalena Abakanowicz:

Art does not solve problems but makes us aware of their existence. It opens our eyes to see and our brain to imagine.

Oscar Levant:

There's a fine line between genius and insanity. I have erased this line.

Oscar Wilde:

The moment you think you understand a great work of art, it's dead for you.

 
Pablo Picasso: 

My mother said to me, "If you become a soldier, you'll be a general; if you become a monk, you'll end up as the Pope." Instead, I became a painter and wound up as Picasso.

Pablo Picasso:

All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.

William S. Burroughs:

Nothing exists until or unless it is observed. An artist is making something exist by observing it. And his hope for other people is that they will also make it exist by observing it. I call it "creative observation." Creative viewing.

Tattooed in Indonesia

It's hard having tattoos and living in Indonesia, and it used to be worse. If you are a "bule" (BOO-lay=foreigner), it's fine. If you are a celebrity, it's fine also. But if you looked Indonesian, talked Indonesian, if nobody knows who the hell you are, and you have tattoos crawling out of your sleeve or your collar, it is NOT fine. Strangers will give you looks all the time. Looks that say, "who the fuck is this creep?", or, "better watch out for my purse", or, "get the hell away from my kids, you punk!". They will harass you with their freakshow glances and prejudiced eyes. 

I don't mean to be rude and try to stir things up, but most of the people that give me weird looks are Muslim women. If you've been to a Muslim country, you would know who they are. Women with hair dresses. 

I swear, one time, I was standing in an ATM line. It was a long one. in front of me was this middle aged woman wearing a head dress, with her young son. They were in front of me, in line, but THEY WERE FACING ME AND STARING AT ME! For quite some time, too. It was really really awkward. She had this look in her face that said, "I know something's gonna happen pretty soon. I bet this boy is up to no good!"

Seriously, she was there judging me with her eyes, giving her son a good example of being impolite, staring me down as if I was ready to do something criminal

Another time, I was also in a line. This time for groceries. Some little kids were running around. One kid, a boy, came up really close to me and started pointing at my sleeve tattoo. I'm usually good with kids so I smiled back at him. As soon as I smiled, his mother came and pulled him away, saying "Don't go near that bad man!"

Hmmmm....

It's not always like that. I didn't mean to give off the wrong impression on Indonesia and its people. Those two incidents happened when I was living in Bandung, West Java. Where local culture is still thick. Most people lived simple lives, and most are not so open minded. 

When I moved back to Jakarta, things have started to cool down, and I don't think I have gotten the same looks I got before a lot. The looks that I got here were more curious and inquisitive. Not harassing or judging. Maybe because Jakarta is more "westernized" and its people more open minded. Probably also because the tattoo trend is continuously growing here. A lot of people are more forward in their curiosity and asked me plainly about my tattoo, which is fine. I love my tattoos and I am proud of them and what I do, so yes, I welcome questions and I will answer them with a light heart. As long as those questions aren't provocative or prejudiced. 

So, what is it like being a heavily tattooed Indonesian and living here?

1. you will definitely stand out

2. depending on where you are and who you are around, you might get stared at

3. you might get associated with thugs

actually it's not that bad, once you get used to it.

Art Growing Up

Okay, so I am Cabron, and I have just started tattooing since August of 2008.

I live in South Jakarta, and I do most of my tattooing out of my home studio. I also do house calls by request.

I have been an artist all my life. It is the one thing that I have always wanted to do. The only thing I am good at. The only thing that I will definitely get praises for. I could draw before I could write a complete sentence. I immersed myself in all sorts of art media when I was a kid. Be it watercolors, acrylics, oil pastels, soft pastels, charcoals, pencils, crayons, you name it.

But I was a bit classical in my approach as an artist, and I idolized most of the renaissance artists like Rembrandt, Da Vinci, Michaelangelo, and other realists and naturalists of that period.

I studied nature and trained my eyes to be very observant of details. I tried to see everything and draw everything as it should be in real life. 

This went on until high school, when I researched expressionism, surrealism, and abstract. I studied the works of M.C. Escher, Dali, Van Gogh, and I especially loved Picasso.

I was raised mostly by my grandparents, who were extremely devout Christians and made it their life mission to raise me extremely Christian as well. I was taught to steer clear and not indulge in any of the worldly matters like the internet, MTV, going out to the movies, and all the other fun stuff kids like to do. I was to go to church every Sunday, go home right after school, study, and have no more than 2 hours of TV. This only pumped up my interest in drawing. That's all I did. Every day. Good thing they kind of supported me doing art. Or so I thought.

Since I was not allowed to access the internet or go out much, I had very little resources to help me develop my art skills. I didn't even know who Warhol was until the 10th grade. It was a good thing that my grandparents had a gazillion or more interesting books. Those books kept me alive. There were tons of pictures that I tried to replicate, and it gave me good practice.

Also, since they were so narrow minded on all worldly subjects, of course they would not approve of me getting a tattoo. They would probably get a heart attack if I told them, then, that I wanted to learn to tattoo.

They would use verses from the Bible such as, 

"Don't you know that your body is the temple of God, and that His spirit lives in you? If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him; for God's temple is sacred, and you are that temple" 1 Corinthians 3:16-17 

Or, for a more in-your-face-without-any-metaphors verse:

"Do not  cut your bodies for the dead or put tattoo marks on yourselves. I am your Lord."

Leviticus 19:28

I was kept the hell away from that kind of culture. But the more I was hauled away from it, the more I found myself interested and drawn to it. I kept thinking about getting a tattoo. And I wanted more and more to learn to tattoo also. Maybe I felt that by getting a tattoo I could finally break out of the life that seemed set up for me, and truly enjoy freedom. Yes, actually, come to think about it, the tattoo culture became the very symbol of freedom for me. It became an obsession. A dream. But because of school and other obligations, I didn't have the opportunity to touch the tattoo world.

After high school, one of the first things I did was get a tattoo. It is an eye, that I put on my upper left arm. The picture was from one of my old sketchbooks. Tattoos are addictive! They're not bullshitting! Not long after my first tattoo, I got my second and third: a cross on my left neck, and a heartagram on my right wrist. Not long afterwards, I got a half sleeve on my right forearm.

To make this short, I then went to an Art University in West Java. I took up fine arts (to no surprise). Studied painting, sculpting, photography, everything that I already knew. Formal education was pretty boring. I wanted to do something more challenging.

I couldn't keep up with the tight deadlines and busy schedules of college, and by mid 2008, I had decided to quit all this college bullcrap. I should to go back to Jakarta and learn to tattoo!

CABRON

Cabron may be used in many countries. However this is the Chicana's definition...it can be used in many ways.(a)clever;slick.(b)A job well done
(c)dude (d) were the shit (in a positive way) (e)a difficult situation.

In Spanish with many different meanings. The real meaning is the male goat. Female is cabra and male is cabron. But slang use is far more common. Depending on countries it seems to have somehow different but similar meanings. A good definiton that would apply in almost all Spanish speaking countries would be asshole-fucker-bitch. In some places the word also means a person that is not with his partner. Example: Se fue de cabron. (He went to fuck around.) In this way it always has the connotation that he is looking for an affair.

dick, bastard in spanish

It can also mean "dude", "nice" or be a generally insulting word. It can really mean anything, you can get a smile or a stab. It's all in the delivery. That guy is a cabron. (being cheated on)

Ese tipo es un cabron (Spanish)

Hey cabron! (Hey dude)
Mira cabron (Spanish)

That damn cabron (insulting)
Ese cabron (Spanish) 

Someone is screwing your girl you know about it, and you do nothing about it. (Puerto Rican word that can get you killed so don't use freely)

-from: The Urban Dictionary

Ay caramba!

So many definitions for this word. The first time I was "aware" of this word was when I heard it in a Red Hot Chili Peppers song appropriately called "Cabron".

It was from the "By the Way" album circa 2002. I was 16 then, I think.

In the chorus, Anthony Kiedis repeatedly shouts out, "Cabrooon...cabroooon!".

It was a catchy tune, and when I found out that cabron meant "asshole", I loved the song even more.

The name got stuck on me, somehow, and when I started tattooing, I chose to hold fast to that name.