Thanksfishing?

It's that time of year again. The holidays are upon us. This also marks the slower season for tattooing. Last week was definitely quieter than usual but I'm not sure if that's because it's getting slow or because we have no guest artists, Jason's gone, and Iggy's on paternity leave.

I'm happy to announce that starting in December, Cecilia Altamirano will be working at Idle Hand! I've been the only girl tattooing at the shop for the last 5 years so now that there'll be two of us you can expect lots of cat fights, tampons, emotional breakdowns, and bon bons in the shop. Oh and more Tegan and Sara on the stereo!

So last week when I told you about my plan to interview the artists, I forgot to say that we want to hear what questions you'd like answered. You can post them in the comments section here or email them to me at holly at idlehandsf dot com.

We've got the art walk coming up on Friday, December 4th. Hightower will be playing from 9-10pm and we're going to be doing $60 Get What You Get Tattoos. It's going to be so much fun! I can't wait! Next week I'll go into more detail about that night but I just want to give everyone a head's up that the Lower Haight is where you're going to want to be next Friday night.

Here are some pictures of things we made this week:

Jason Donahue

 

Jason Donahue

 

Holly

 

Start of a coverup, Holly

shiny...

This is what Iggy made last week. I got to visit him on Sunday and he is such a precious little baby!

 Jen and Iggy have a blog where you can read about Magnus and send them your best wishes.

We've all got them in our hearts and minds this week and send all of our love to them tomorrow while Magnus is in surgery.

Have a happy, fulfilling Thanksgivin everybody! And a happy ThanksFishin to my Lower Haighters!!

h.e.

Magnus Opus

Well it's been one of those weeks where things are a little quiet as far as things to write about. Everyone has been busy working and drawing so that's exciting but pictures speak louder than words in that department. I was trying to think of things to write about in the coming weeks and it dawned on me that our clients ask us a lot of the same questions; how long have you been doing this? what got you into it? where's the weirdest place you've tattooed? etc. etc. and I thought it would be nice to interview the artists who work here so you can get to know us a little better.

I thought I would start with Iggy for a few reasons. He's our grumpy old man (or he WAS a grumpy old man...not so grumpy these days), with a long history in the business and in San Francisco, also, he's been here from almost the beginning of the shop's incarnation. He's seen it's many transformations and has been a huge part of those. He's also a pretty interesting person with interesting thoughts and ideas. His son was also due to be born December 8th and I wanted to get him in before he went on paternity leave. Well the interview is going to have to wait because Iggy called the shop two days ago and cancelled all appointments because it was looking like his little guy was ready to enter the world. I got the word this morning that Magnus Ulysses Vans was born, strong and ready for what life has in store for him. Everyone at the shop is so excited to meet this little baby with a big name! Little Magnus is blessed to have such awesome people for parents. We just want to let everyone know how happy we all are for Iggy and Jen!

Welp, that news trumps all other news at the shop so I'm just going to post the weekly photos!

Holly

 

 

Holly

 

Jason Donahue

 

Jason Donahue

 

Jason Donahue

 

Erik 

 

Erik

 

Cris

 

Cris

 

Cris

 

It's weird because I took this as a color photo and it came out all old-timey...

Over n Out

Holls Balls 

Sea Monsters, Wompertinkers, & Gold Teeth!!

The blog this week was written by a 28 year old man-baby named Isaac who works with us at Idle Hand

 Bill Falsetta came here.  He tattooed me, its a sea monster.

 

 He tattooed my friend Petey Dammit also!  It was holy shit! Haha get it, holy shit!!!

 

The previous night was pretty roudy in lower haight, so we did shot after shot of gatorade and got soooooo hydrated.

   Bill, or Mr. Falsetta as he asked me to call him, also cooked ribs for me and some of the other dudes at the shop.  Well, he cooked them at Jason Donahue's house, not the shop, what I meant was that the other dudes that ate the ribs also work at idle hand.  They were good, I also liked them.  Thanks Mr. Falsetta!

 
   Cris went to Arizona.  I hear thats really really far away.  Maybe as far as Australia.  I met a guy from Australia.  He stayed at my house.  His name is Dan, he likes metal, eeeewww.  Sadly, he went back to Australia.  Here is a tattoo that Jason Donahue did on Dan.  Scaaaary!

   Cris told me that there are many different kinds of plants and wildlife in Arizona.  I asked "You mean like wompertinkers and jackelopes?" "No, Isaac", he said, "like cactai and coyotes!" I like to think there was probably a whole hurd of cactais and coyotes near Mike Roeper's studio where cris worked.

    He made these color pictures on someone's feet there.

 
Jason Donahue stayed very busy this week.  I think this tattoo of the snake must have taken his whoooole week!  Look at all the pretty lines!

Erik started this tattoo of leaves...

And Holly put this old guy on somebody's arm!

    ........................................................................................................................................................

Picture Show!!  Yay!!

  Mr. Falsetta & Iggy totally hangin out!!

Cris made a globe!  The world! Cool!

Darth Vader ate soooo many of the ribs Mr. Falsetta made!!

Jason Donahue has a beard!

Aaron Hodges has blue eyes!  Look!

Coooool!! I totally got a gold tooth!!

What a goooood week!!

Bunnies have pink balls and rarely ash their cigarettes.

One thing that's great about conventions is we get to see a lot of old friends that we sometimes only see at conventions. Some of us have certain ones we go to every year and when you see people you know it's like you're on vacation with your friends! Only you don't have to travel with them and listen to them complain about the food or the weather and you can ditch them when they get annoying.

Last weekend was the San Jose convention so we had a slew of friends coming through the shop. Tony Derigo of Chronic Tattoo in Ohio was here and hung out and tattooed at the shop one day. He drew a fantastic panther for Jason in about two minutes and tattooed it in about 3 minutes.

Not only is Tony a damn fine artist but, you know, for a tattooer he's also a pretty nice guy. So I really wanted to get tattooed by him, too. I made an appointment for the convention. And now I have this very cool tattoo of a harpy with Eleanor Roosevelt's head. Tony's going to be back sometime next year and might do a guest spot at the shop so we'll keep you posted on that.

Tony tattooing Holly

   

Tattoo on Holly by Tony Derigo

 

Tattoo on Aaron by Tony Derigo

Aaron, Jason and Iggy all had a great time at the convention and got to do some fun tattoos as well:

Tattoo by Iggy Vans, done at the San Jose Convention

While they were busy having fun and being cool in San Jose Eric, Cris, Jerry, Isaac and I were all doing the same back at the shop.

  

"All these pics of Cris were while I was asking him how long it took to warm up his time machine to get to work from 1896 every day, he said the flux capacitor has been on the fritz so he's been stuck in present day Oakland this week which sucks cause the bay bridge has been closed so every asshole in the Bay is on BART, I know all too well how much BART sucks hahaha"....Isaac

by Cris Cleen

by Holly

 

by Holly Ellis

 

by Eric

 

by Eric

 

by Aaron

After the convention our friend Andrew who is in town from Boston, came to the shop and got this weird but cool devil guy from Iggy. Andrew was one of the refugees stuck in San Francisco when Katrina hit his hometown so we put him up with a spot to work at at the shop for a bit. It was really nice to see him again.

 

by Iggy

Robert Ryan from Electric Tattoo in New Jersey stopped by also and tattooed this weird bird puking up a star flower mandala thing on Isaac. Seriously guys, I think you need to chill out on the drugs...

 

 

by Robert Ryan

We also have Bill Falsetta and Chad Hunt (I bet he's glad his folks didn't name him Mike!) from Name Brand Tattoo in Ann Arbor hanging out. Bill's gonna be tattooing at the shop this Friday so you should get tattooed by him while you have the chance.

All in all this was a pretty good week at the shop. The only thing I regret seeing is this:

Aaron tattooing Isaac

And maybe this, too: