Born in Hartlepool in the great North East of England i loved art from the age of 14, i began drawing posters of all kinds, usually boxing advertisements or graffiti style sketches which i built up till i could see and improve on.

I was banned from the art class at 15 and never saw reason to go back to school and school never saw reason to complain, there must have been a welcome silence when i walked out 🙂

I was taught calligraphy or olde english as its more commonly known as when i was 15 by my uncle kev and fell in love with scripture style of writing.

I progressed from writing to pencilwork when i began mixing poems id written in with portraits or scenes relevant to the poem or song.

Bob marley was a big influence and help in the early days cos i just loved to draw and listen as i copied his songs in calligraphy, then sketched a portrait of him alongside the verse.

During my late teens i aquired my city and guilds parts 1&2 in graphic design, and learnt how to etch glass by hand but left hartlepool to live in haslingden.

Here i learnt many new skills but some were to knock my focus and set me back a. few years, never regretted a moment of it tho 😉

My main downfall was. prison, and im not afraid to say so. I was almos 200 miles from home at the age of 17 and the only responsible people around to influence me were the local police and they did a miserable job of it too, the total blame lands on me but i was instigated by the downwards glare of the people i was meant to look up to and realised they had already judged me therefore i shall be as they expected…..as all teenagers do.

sadly this led to almost half of my responsible(17+) life being spent living in prisons all over the England, I wont deny my past and am open and honest, i have no regrets and no shame in talking of my past experiences because i never did anything to be ashamed of, never harmed anyone and that time to myself made me who i am today.

I was given the best education and all the art equipment i needed, the teachers were the best ranging from everyday prison teachers, local college tutors, and sometimes art classes would have pupils at could kick any artists arse they worked with, some are just adaptable to any artform in an instance. I could never deny or forget meeting these friends as some are still the best influences to me today.

When i was 21 i met a tattooist wanting me to paint a shop sign for him, being into stone carving at the time word had gotten round that i was always lettering and painting one strange thing or another and was approached over me back fence by kelvyn foley, sadly within a week of working with with him at his shop in Southport he was forced to close down for leaving his then apprentice steven in charge while he ran out for his dinner, only to come back to find steven had done a tattoo on a bikers son and messed up BADLY…he wrote egland….not england ;/

After a few months working with kelvyn as his unofficial apprentice from the unlicensed cellar of his house he decided he wanted to move to miami with his mum, i bought his equipment and set it up in my friends spare room.

Now before this gets all outta perspective….it was 1992, I had worked with a tattooist for quite a few months previously, been an artist for at least 10 yrs previous to that and at photographic portrait quality….and working from home was not as much of a risk as it is today.

In my opinion the publicising of tattooing on the tv has led to a massive belief by artists everywhere that if they look clossely enough they can learn, channels like DBox (discovery) lend credence to this by advtising it as “Miami Ink……watch and learn how the professionals tattoo here on DBox!!!”

As a keen artist i know how frustrating it is when you cant get the information you want, theres no books what tell you EXACTLY how its done and the internets a dead end because the tattooists just put you down whenever you ask “how deep do i go in?”

The most common reply to that would be “why hasnt your boss taught you that?” or “did he teach you how to sterilise or about cross contamination?”

No responsible tattooist will help you online, how are theyto be sure theres not been a slight misinterpretation or underestimation of how importance of the sequence the process needs to be set out.

id put my tattoo machines and inks away and left them to dry and get rusted in the loft until a good friend showed enough interest and confidence in my abilities to lend me his credit card and spend a month or so running around making necessary arrangements for the rent of my first shop!! When i hit 28 i suppose you could call it a penny dropping moment what made me realise i didnt have long left to make a change or be caught up in the dreams of “what coulda been” and started being a good boy, the most id do to maintain the excitement was to act suspiciously when the police drove by to get their attention before running off like a loon for a half hr chase 😉

Without johns help i couldnt have gotten the shop as prison had left me socially numb not really wanting to take on many responsibilities thinking it could only lead to failure.

After warnings from almost everyone i knew against opening a shop in Haslingden, being a small town everyone assumed i wouldnt be able to generwte enough business to stay afloat or stay interested, on the contrary the town is great for me, i dont like working at a rush and prefer my customers to be sure of what they want to look at for the rest of their lives. Ive had my shop for over 7 years now and its been crazy 😉

Above all tho, i spent all my early years working on good friends who knew i never made one mistake, worked in unclean circumstances, i hit the ground with a running start.

Over the last 7 years i havent had time to sit and relax and get comfortable, everyday i think ive learnt something new i look around to see the people i aspire to have once again gone even further out of view leaving amazing photographs to bring me down to earth!

I have no real excuse for not having an apprenticeship i can really brag about it, i did the footwork, i had the artwork & porfolio, i could sketch almost anything on site, write in old english as naturally as i could with my own scruffy handwriting, the only problem was the closeness of the place i lived in, some tattooists i approached refused due to having small shops, some i avoided cos i heard they were anti social as myself so left them to their own space so i didnt annoy them in future yrs.

Im happy to say theres never been any cross words between the older established tattoo artist locally (porky, jonny & DaveH), it just seems to be the shops thats opened over the last few yrs.

The shop isnt the ideal situation for me, too much responsibilty, too many bills, too much to work on for other people, too many deadlines to keep and notes to make…….too much stock checking and accounting for it. But if i didnt have all that responsibility id be putting my equipment in the loft once again.

I get up every morning to look at my diary and see how its planned out, when im not at the shop im at home thinking of new things to work on… in the shop.

Artwork has been my life since i was a kid, my way of escaping from everyday life, a way i can fly and swim and fight and fall even when im being kept in a cell i couldnt be held in. when i settled on tattooing as my favourite are medium it wasnt long before i started to feel dependant on it as a release, but putting my machines away meant i was focusing on being a tattoo art designer in the hope i could get an apprenticeship in exchangea but this led to very low self esteme and consequentially depression.

This is just before i met john and his offer to help me open the shop 😉

I have 4 kids who along with help from the missus…..drive me up the wall but quick to bring me down to earth when i start gettin that superstar glow ;D