Abrasions: tattoo skateboard art: Presto Art

Thrasher Magazine, Oct, 2003 by Oakland L Childers

The parallels between skateboard graphics and tattoo imagery are undeniable. In the '80s that link was especially strong, with skateboard companies' art departments churning out enough skulls, blood, and fire to make Pol Pot proud. The art of the day had a profound effect on the kids that rode those boards, but not in the way their mothers thought it would. These days many of them are still skating and also regurgitating the images of their youth, with a few twists and turns, in their new lives as tattoo artists. Sean Crowfoot is just one of a legion of tattooers whose formative artistic years were influenced not by the great masters, but by people like VC Johnson, Pushead, Jim Phillips, and Wes Humpston. In an attempt to document the unique art of some of the country's best needle-driving skateboarders, Crowfoot put together "L'Art Pour L'Art," an art show featuring skateboard decks designed by tattoo artists. Abrasions is a documentation of the event. "Both of those are my main passion," says Crowfoot, who owns and runs Devoted Tattoo in Greensboro, NC. "For leisure I skate and for income and fun I tattoo. I guess my main idea was to give as much as I can to both and to take as much as I could from both." Crowfoot got the idea for the skateboard art show while drowning his sorrows in a bar with Chris Mullins, who owns Skateboard.com. Mullins liked the idea and told Foundation Skateboards owner Todd Swank, who ponied up 25 decks for the cause. From there, Crowfoot was off to the races. Like so many ideas that form in a bar, things got off to a slow start for the show and the book. In the end, the bulk of the work for both fell to a handful of people. "Tattoo artists are a bunch of slackers," says Crowfoot. "I did everything. I drilled all the decks, hung them in the gallery, hung flyers, made phone calls--all while trying to run my shop." Most of what makes Crowfoot an amiable if reluctant curator (and a damn fine tattooer) he learned as a skateboarder. Growing up in the '80s in North Carolina, Crowfoot learned quickly that not doing it yourself meant it wasn't getting done. "When I was a kid in North Carolina, there were no skateparks," says Crowfoot. "There was an old bulldozed skatepark from the '70s and the rest was just parking curbs." Things haven't necessarily gotten better for either of his two loves. Crowfoot says the mainstreaming of both skating and tattooing has made them a little hokey. "When we were growing up, skateboarding was the bad thing," says Crowfoot. "That's the same way the tattooing community was. Now there's little girls dropping out of gymnastics to go skateboarding at Vans while Mom gets a tattoo right over her box." It's not surprising that many of the leading tattooers in the world have some connection to skateboarding, says Crowfoot. "Most people that tattoo and are generally badasses are skateboarders."

Abrasions is available at www.prestoart.com