The Art of the Tattoo

Art i facts
spring 2011
The Art of the Tattoo
The Conservation Center for Art & Historic
Artifacts (CCAHA) has treated thousands of
works admired for their beauty, detail, and
innovation, but a recent project that meets these
criteria stands somewhat apart from others. The
flash art, drawings, and stencils of tattoo artist
Norman “Sailor Jerry” Collins are unlike most
art seen in the CCAHA lab.
Perhaps the greatest tattoo artist of the 20th
century, Sailor Jerry first experimented with
tattooing as a teenager in the 1920s, practicing
with nonmechanical needles and whatever ink
he could find while hopping freight trains from
California to Chicago. He eventually enlisted in
the Great Lakes Naval Academy. His subsequent
voyages through the China Seas inspired an
interest in naval culture and Asian imagery,
influences that he would draw from not only
when tattooing in ports of call at the time but
throughout his career.
In the early 1930s, Jerry settled in Honolulu,
HI, a relatively peaceful city until the start of
World War II, when hundreds of thousands of
sailors passed through either on their way to
war or just returning from it. Hotel Street, the
sailors’ designated district, buzzed all day and
all night with sailors frequenting the bars and
brothels—and, of course, the tattoo shops, which
occupied almost every other storefront.
Jerry navigated merchant marine supply ships
through Japanese waters for part of the war,
and he then returned to Honolulu to hone his
tattooing skills on the ever-present crowds of
sailors. Jerry’s take on classic, or “old school,”
American designs with bold, black outlines and
solid, bright shading made him famous, and his
craftsmanship and precision set him apart from
his Hotel Street competitors.
Many of Jerry’s designs originated in
naval culture, symbolizing the adventures,
superstitions, and romances that marked a
sailor’s life. He incorporated anchors, which
signified that the wearer had crossed the
Atlantic; rigged schooners, which denoted a trip
around Cape Horn; dragons, which stood for
strength and luck; swallows, believed to guide
their wearer safely home from sea; and pin-ups,
taken from the posters often seen on barrack walls.
These images appear throughout the 26
sheets of flash art (full-color designs that
Jerry would hang in his shop for customers
to choose from) and the 19 pages of crayon,
charcoal, and graphite drawings treated at
CCAHA. Conservator Samantha Sheesley, who
managed the project, assembled a team of
conservators, fellows, conservation assistants,
and technicians, including Rachel Wetzel, Corine
McHugh, Jessica Keister, Marion Verborg,
Heather Godlewski, and Tamara Talansky. They
painstakingly removed each flash art sheet
from its backing board, reducing any remaining
adhesive residue, and then surface cleaned the
sheets, mended tears, and filled losses.
Jerry had sketched his drawings on
tracing paper, and, over time, each sheet had
discolored to a different shade of white or yellow
and had ripped, leaving irregular edges. After
surface cleaning the creased sheets, conservators
carefully flattened them and used toned inserts
to square out the torn edges.
A collection of 148 acetate stencils, which Jerry
used both to transfer designs to his customers’
skin and to create “rubbings” to trade with other
artists, also received treatment. Conservation
staff surface cleaned the front of each stencil
with a sponge, then gently cleaned the back with
a soft brush so as not to disturb the pigment Jerry
had applied to the incised lines when using the
stencil. They mended breaks that had occurred
as the acetate grew brittle with time. Facsimiles
of each stencil, drawing, and flash page were
printed and placed in protective sleeves, while
the original works were framed by Manager
of Housing and Framing Jessica Makin and
Conservation Technician Stephenie Bailey.
Sheesley, a tattoo fan who researched Jerry
before beginning treatment, noted that many
of the conserved designs reflected Jerry’s
sarcastic sense of humor. “He was an interesting
character, a troublemaker, and a notorious
prankster,” Sheesley said. Like many tattoo
artists of the era, Jerry carefully guarded his
knowledge of the craft. When he sent rubbings
to other artists, he often included purposeful
errors, deeming the recipients unworthy of
future trades if they failed to notice.
Early in the 1950s, Jerry—who was strongly
anti-government—closed his shop to protest
paying taxes. By the time he returned to tattooing
in the 1960s, he had developed higher artistic
ambitions. “His most important achievements
occurred in the last nine years of his career,”
Sheesley said. After opening a tiny shop off
Hotel Street, Jerry began exchanging letters with
the Japanese tattoo masters called hori (from
the Japanese word meaning to dig or engrave).
“They would trade—Jerry would give the hori
information on pigments, and they would
critique his designs,” Sheesley said. As a result,
Jerry incorporated Japanese design elements
into his tattoos, and he began using Japanese
shading techniques to achieve greater tonal
range. He was the first American to embrace
Japanese tattooing traditions, and his resulting
work surpassed that of his peers in complexity
and sophistication.
Jerry also developed the first successful recipe
for purple ink, which previously would shift
on the skin or fade away. At a time when tattoo
artists regularly reused dirty needles, Jerry
advocated for making sterilization a standard
practice. A self-taught electrical engineering
enthusiast, he reconfigured his tattoo machine
to build a smoother-running model that informs
the design of machines used today.
Sheesley believes that Jerry, who defended
tradition in tattooing and believed that
beginners ought to learn the necessary skills
only from respected masters, would appreciate
the preservation of his work. “He looked forward
to a day when tattooing would be recognized
as fine art,” she said. Novices, experts, and
devotees alike can view examples of Jerry’s
conserved flash art at two current exhibitions:
Sailor Jerry Limited, which owns the work, has
loaned it to Mystic Seaport (Mystic, CT) and the
Columbia River Maritime Museum (Astoria, OR)
for exhibitions exploring tattoos in the lives of
sailors.
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—KATHERINE MAGAZINER
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FOR MORE INFORMATION...
…on the exhibitions:
• Skin
& Bones: Tattoos in the Life of the
American Sailor at Mystic Seaport (Mystic, CT)
runs through September 5, 2011.
>> www.mysticseaport.org
• Tattoo: The Art of the Sailor at the Columbia
River Maritime Museum (Astoria, OR) runs
through September 30, 2011.
>> www.crmm.org
1 / Conservator Samantha Sheesley surface cleaning a sheet of Sailor Jerry
…on Sailor Jerry:
flash art that incorporates naval, Asian, and romantic imagery 2 / Jerry’s
sketch of a dragon, which would mark the wearer’s crossing of the International
Date Line or symbolize strength and luck 3 / Jerry’s rigged schooner design,
famous for its realistic details 4 / Japanese-inspired drawing of a geisha
5 / Conservation Technician Tamara Talansky surface cleaning the front of
a stencil 6 / Conservation Technician Stephenie Bailey constructing a sealed
package, to be placed in a frame 7 / Dragon flash art
• Watch Hori Smoku Sailor Jerry, the feature-length
documentary about Jerry and the history of
American tattooing, or read Homeward Bound:
The Life & Times of Hori Smoku Sailor Jerry.