My best friend in high school was a gorgeous, raven-haired Macedonian girl named Bibby. I spent most of my spare time at her house. I loved going there because her parents would let us smoke cigarettes, drink wine and stay up all night. I watched my first R rated film and had my first drug experience there. Mostly I loved her place because she lived there and to me Bibby was everything wild and exotic in the world.
Perhaps the most delicious thing about Bibby (beside the way she would sit with her legs across the table, chain smoke, talk and sip espresso while she lazily ate her food, sometimes taking an hour to finish her dinner) was a little tattoo on her ankle. She had self-administered the pixellated beauty when she was 13 or so. The series of dots were meant to form the initials of a previous flame, but the compass she’d used hadn’t served her well and the result was a clumsy colony of spots. When she’d kick of her shoes and socks after school, I’d catch a sight of her mark and feel a pinch of jealousy. I loved that tattoo. I could picture so accurately how she’d done it – carelessly one afternoon, only wincing from pain occasionally, not a care in the world. Sometimes she’d remark on it with a little shame, but mostly she loved the innocence behind it. I loved that tattoo.
Contrary to common opinion, homemade tattooing isn’t a symptom of adolescent anger, nor is it an unsanitary disaster infecting ‘today’s youth’. ‘I’ve been interested in homemade tattooing for a while and every time I look into it all I find are people talking about how bad and dangerous they are,’ says Thomas Jeppe, author of the yet-to-be-released book,
Homemade Tattoos Rule. Inappropriately dumped by the media into the same basket as either self-mutilation or gang branding has meant the real and diverse culture of homemades has remained underground. Jeppe, like many others, considers homemade tattooing a valid and artful aspect of tattooing, ‘It’s a very vibrant and exciting end of tattooing and I think being a DIY thing makes it more intimate and personally relevant than any other kind of tattooing’.
While some may bundle homemades in with jail tattooing they are in fact worlds apart. ‘While there is a culture of jail tattoos and an aesthetic caused by the limitation, the aesthetic of homemade tattoos is comparatively limitless,’ Jeppe explains. Couple this freedom with your imagination and you are left with tattoos that are as beautiful by means as they are to an end. There is an undeniable charm in creating a design and applying it yourself. There is comfort in the knowledge that what you are creating is no cookie-cutter marking, ‘You can end up with anything and a whole part of homemade is that you’re prepared to end up with anything’.
There’s an intrinsic fait accompli ethos – you give up design perfection in lieu of something more individual. ‘If they fuck up, that’s what you’ve got,’ Jeppe states bluntly. ‘But that’s just part of it being homemade and personal.’ Jeppe, who has been tattooing himself and friends for around three years, considers each of his homemades a success, regardless of whether they turned out exactly as he planned. ‘I’ve messed up a lot of mine in small ways, but I’ve not been unhappy with any of them. If anything it’s made them more endearing in a way.’
Unlike ‘shop tattoos’, homemades have a sparkly element of spontaneity. It is the antithesis to the long and arduous process of contemplation and self-assurance inherent for many in getting a professional tattoo. On a fundamental level homemades require no appointments, no cash and have no age restrictions. On a more personal level the absence of such boundaries allows for a more open mind when considering what the individual will tattoo on him/herself. Jeppe has an esoteric outlook on the things he chooses to tattoo, ‘I kind of hate that attitude of worrying about the longevity of things. I think if an idea has enough energy in it when you first think of it then as far as I’m concerned it’s good enough to look at forever’. It’s this belief that has made Jeppe’s ritual of tattooing himself, ‘absolutely impromptu’.
The techniques of homemades are as diverse as the motivation behind them. They range from very basic pin and ballpoint ink, to expert homemade machines and professional ink. ‘It can be pretty difficult to get a reliable homemade machine together, but I’ve seen them and made some myself from all sorts of bits and pieces.’ It’s the freedom to experiment as much with administration as with design that makes every homemade truly unique. Though there is an undeniable appeal in the process and the tattoos themselves, homemades haven’t rendered shop ones obsolete to those self-administering. ‘Most people have a pretty even mix of both,’ Jeppe clarifies. ‘I still love the tradition of tattoo shops run by tough guys that make you feel a little uncomfortable.’
While Jeppe is a passionate advocate of homemades he is devoid of any pretence or snobbery. He merely and humbly offers it up as a valid culture, one that has sadly remained relatively unknown but for some negative media hype. He is cautious never to speak too broadly about any one aspect and mindful never to generalise or misrepresent – a testament to him and his up-coming book. ‘My interest in it is strong so it made sense to follow up this way,’ Jeppe says of his
Homemade Tattoos Rule, for which he also photographed 90 per cent of the images. The collection of over 90 colour images celebrates the technique in a high quality format, a crucial point for Jeppe. ‘What these people are doing should be on the level of the highest end art because there’s just as much value in it.’
Set for release worldwide in June, this limited edition book is only the first in a series for Jeppe and the ‘boutique Melbourne street faction’ The Serpents, of which he is a part. This group of about 35 artists and creatives (including bands, tattoo artists, screenprinters, fine artists, writers, graffiti artists, graphic designers) look to publish books on anything they think is ‘worth a damn.’ Expect coming projects from The Serpents to have the same ingenuity and integrity as this, their first.
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Handmade Tattoos Rule