05/14/2024
Tattooing has lost a pillar, and the has lost one of our most innovative and creative geniuses to create under our magic roof. passed away Saturday surrounded by family in Oregon roughly 20(ish) years after beginning his journey beyond our walls.
This gets harder every time it happens, and absolutely pushed the boundaries of tattooing and pushed me personally to become a better artist every day I spent with him. We collaborated so many times I can’t count them all. We discussed every tattoo either of us did. And now after a long inspiring battle w/ cancer he is no longer suffering and for that I am grateful.
He leaves legions of tattooers who wouldn’t be what they are today if it were not for him whether it be his seminars or the original DVDs that we did Wayback in the day or is it online tutorials or even just the coil tattoo machines that he used to build by hand in the back, he touched thousands of Tattooer’s lives, myself included.
We are blessed to have all of this still hanging all over the studio decades later so many articles and awards everywhere some even spelling name correctly, as he had just won, what seemed like an endless amount of awards for the work that he did on her that was towards the beginning of my experience with him. Every single day that I came to work, he challenged me. We were polar opposites. He was very quiet, somewhat timid, and I was very loud, and outgoing, he over, thought everything, and I didn’t seem to think about things enough, so we balance each other out, artistically in a way that I do believe changed, tatttooing forever in a way.
When we started working together, we got lots of email about not using lines in our tattoos or the painterly style. Wish we later named, “Ala Prima” meaning “All at Once” a style of tattooing that we had never seen done and constantly pushed each other to achieve that now I see in my shed every single day from all over the world.
Not enough credit has been given to Joshua, although I’m seeing it now in comments underneath hundreds of posts in my feed. Rest well brother, you’ve earned it.