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Paul BoothAugust 2003 Supreme master of the macabre image The following is taken from an interview carried out by Johnny Thief with Paul Booth at his New York studio, entitled "The Nightmarish Stylings of Paul Booth". In this interview, Paul talks about how he came to be a tattoo artist, his approach to his art and his love of tattoo conventions. I love getting out there. That's my social life, other than that I don't have much life outside of it. It's like, when I come home I'm a stranger, I travel so much. I like getting out to shows and seeing my friends and seeing new places, plus I really get off on the energy in the air at a show. So many people, so much creative energy floating around. I've always viewed tattooing as a craft, whether it's an art form or a walk-in shop or whatever, it' s still like I don't treat it any different than if it were stone cutters. You just don't order some stuff out of the back of a magazine and become a stone cutter. You have to apprentice to someone who knows what they're doing and I wish tattooing would stay that way. I had been air-brushing ever since I was a Freshman in High School. I used to teach airbrush actually. I used to do a lot of airbrush illustration - everything from hot-rods and motorcycles to ad agencies in the city, photo retouching and stuff. And then the computer came in and took that over. I did a lot of stuff sign-painting murals on bikes but I was living hand to mouth. I got a tattoo. I fell in love with the idea of being able to do it. I didn't care if it was something I was going to be able to make a living at or not. I was so intrigued by it I had to know it. I'm kind of funny like that. The guy who was tattooing me at that time, I kept bugging him. I showed him my art because I drew up all my stuff and had him put it on me so I kept bugging him and he finally said "OK", but in those days - I don't know how people do apprenticeships any more - but at the time it cost me five grand. I went in and signed a contract and worked for him for three years and was able to make the money back, so it wasn't so bad. But if I hadn't have done that, I wouldn't be where I am now. That gave me the base of what I needed: the technical knowledge, the walk-in shop experience. I've done the whole spectrum. I was there doing walk-ins, doing Tazmanian Devils, hearts and roses and all that, that's how I came into the scene. It was two and a half years in the shop I learned in, and it was a gradual direction into custom work. I started out with the hearts and roses but it got to the point where, every time I did a Tazmanian Devil, I made it a little different just to keep it interesting, so that by the end of it they all had muscles and veins, gleams on their teeth and it just started getting ridiculous. Some guy's coming in for Taz and a beer mug and he's getting Hell-Taz! I went as far as I could over there and I ended up out in California for like six months. My dad was sick and I had to go out and take care of him, so I moved out there, got a job out there. It was the first time I'd been anywhere other than the shop: it was a real eye-opening time for me. I had no-one breathing down my neck. I could do what I want, like the cat I worked on. I sleeved his arm just because I had the opportunity to do a sleeve. I did a back-piece on this girl I was dating at the time. Not a full back-piece but a quarter of a back I guess and then I went to a convention like trying to win a trophy for my dad who was dying at the time so that was my big push. He ended up dying three days before the show. I got a lot of attention at that show, not a lot, but enough to inspire me to continue, so I moved back to Jersey and started going out with Barbara. We went to the Pittsburgh in '91. I did a back-piece on her and, I don't know, it just exploded. It was crazy. I had to scratch my head because she couldn't walk five feet without people wanting to take her picture. Being such a photogenic girl really helped a lot but it really freaked me out because I wasn't prepared for it. When I got home from California my job wasn't waiting for me so ended up going underground and doing tattoo parties and bike meets and whatever I could do to make money and survive. Then I did that back-piece on her, went to that show, just hoping that I could hook up with a job somewhere and presented her piece as a portfolio thing. I ended up finding a job with no problem and the next thing I knew, she was on the cover of the next magazine and doing an interview with me for the next issue after that. It was just insane, I didn't get much time to breathe and take it all in and it just progressively went up from there ever since. I was really afraid of trying to do a portrait and fucking up you know because I really take the ethical part of this pretty seriously, like making sure that the customer gets my best work. I don't think the customer should have to pay the price for me doing something I'm not really prepared to do, so it took me three years to attempt it. I would fine-tune it and see where I could take it back, experiment with various textures, lighting effects, depth, and warm and cold compositions, whatever technical approaches. I'm like, "This is my art", I'm not going to compromise it. If people like it great, if they don't that's all right too, I'll still make a living. I don't think people are going to bite on my style so hard but I guess that I touched on a nerve that had not been touched on, so I'm pretty fortunate in that department. I saw a section in a magazine where they put "Biomechanical", "Tribal", "Dark Side", you know. I pondered that, I was like "Did I initiate that?" For me as a visual artist it's a goal to be recognised, have my art recognised and appreciated. To inspire someone else to do art and things like that tell me that I'm doing things with my art that makes it all worth it, not to get too mushy. |