My roadtrippin’ journeys this late summer have been outstanding, on the road fairly close to home, and up and down the west coast. Some glamping trip with friends around Oregon and Washington, a bellydancing art festival in Portland, a didgeridoo festival near the central Oregon coast, and a rocking music festival in San Francisco. I found some great tattooes along the way.
Starting at Indidjinous, a didgeridoo based wild weekend fest held on gorgeous land in the middle of nowhere off the coast, put on by the incredibly generously spirited fellow, Chad Butler, with his amazing tattooed head (done by the talented tattooist from Infinity Tattoo in Portland, Miss Amanda Myers). I first met Chad about 20 years ago when I was photographing him for a tattoo magazine. This year he asked me to bring Gypsy Caravan, my bellydance troupe of musicians and dancers, to come and perform and teach a workshop for the festival goers. I gathered up six dancers and three other musicians—my Gypsy C man, Jeff Rees, along with Keith Holt from Seattle and Chris Jacobsen from Portland, and included myself on percussion besides joining the dancers with some hip shaking good moves!
Keith’s wife,Siobhan, happens to be in a bellydance troupe in Seattle, and was camping alongside us too, and she has some amazing ink work. So off we went into the woods to find this gorgeous waterfall and I had my camera in hand, lucky me. Us bellydancers have the opportunity to get body art to show with our costumes, jewelry, and the swaying or shaking movements, and get to show them off on a regular basis. In fact, I think I’m due for a bit more ink, as it’s been over 3 years since my last piece. (sounds like confession, forgive me father for I have sinned!) Most people ask me which came first, tattooes or bellydancing, for me it was the tattooes! Great subcultures come together…
Jeff and I then was asked to perform at Art in the Pearl with our friends, Gypsy Heart Tribal and the musicians of Ripe Fig Rhythms, in the Pearl district of Portland, which is an annual art festival that I’ve been dancing at for the past then years or so. This is an outstanding art show, wow, with inspiring and stupendously talented artists. The rows of paintings, sculptures, textiles, etc. go on and on, and when you think you’ve seen all there is and it can’t get any better, there are more artists and even greater art. And then there is the entertainment with some lovely tattooed women.(that would be us!).
Soon after that show, Jeff and I switched gears and got our guitars and keyboards and headed down to the fabulous city by the bay, our old home, San Francisco, to play some rock shows with old band mates from the early 80’s. I had not seen some of these folks since the, but we had reunion parties, quick rehearsals pulling out the old songs, and played two nights of shows—at the Red Devil Lounge and Slim’s. What a blast! And of course I was scoping everyone out for their body art and hallelujah, it was there!
Aleph and Kent from the band, Altar de Fey, are full up of ink and gorgeous, wow….
Aleph, the majority of his ink is from Chris Conn, Freddy Corbin and Kahlil Ryntie.
And Kent Cates with his fantabulous ink work:
arms – Dragon by Dan Higgs (sf), bat by Shopi (Amsterdam), Mans Ruin by Criss Conn (SF)
Chest – Griffen tribal Chameleon by Freddie Corbin (SF), Devil mask By Philip Lou (Amsterdam)
Back- Tiger By Ed Hardy
neck – 5 blessings by Igor (SF)
They played on Saturday night at one of the festival venues, and blew everyone away, they sounded great…I was the lucky one, though to get to photograph their art.
ok, part 2 to follow, more great tatts, and more fabulous music and fun!…
love you ll,
by the way, I will have a brand new website and blogsite coming up real soon, reinvention in progress, and pretty exited about the whole thing!
to see the first copy of this in print, please visit Tattooroadtrip.com
a great tattoo online magazine… this is my copy in full….
