What is Flash?

Flash as I came to know it.
Were made on 11 x 14 sheets of poster board. The elaborate designs, were either hand painted directly on the boards or paintings that were adhered to these boards. They then would be wrapped and sealed in clear shelving paper to protect them from cigarette smoke and other possible damaging mishaps.
This Flash was used to show case what the tattooer was able to do or wanted to do on folks.
They would be stapled and or framed to the sides of the walls of the shop or in flash racks as you entered the lobby. The idea was to be able to pack these boards up easily on the go and set them back up when needed. Part of the left over carnie traveling tattooer mindset and process.
The flash helped folks pick designs on the whim. Or imprint on a person to think about and later come back in to get done. They were used to inspire ideas. They still are.
When I began tattooing. It was very normal for people to wander in and pick images off the walls. The flash made it easy for people to decide on what they wanted. Even if it was based on nothing more than impulse.

There was something dangerously liberating about this random act for people.

The little stickers on the side of each image had a price. It made it easy to pick what you could afford or budget. There was no resizing available then. And depending on the artist. Some like myself would change a color scheme if requested at no additional charge. But usually, you got what you picked off the wall or out of the flash racks, as is.

Before having the luxury of a copier in shop and a thermafax machine.

Don taught me by using acetate stencils. Simple engraved line drawings based on the flash off the walls that were scribed onto acetate pieces, that helped transfer the image on to the skin. Having the flash on the walls not framed was helpful so you could take down the board and use it to follow the color and shading used on the original for reference.
The process of using an acetate stencil wasn’t always an easy process. After cleaning and shaving the area, you would lay down a thin film of vaseline over the area to be tattooed. Then you would shake some carbon powder onto the stencil and very carefully lay the stencil onto the vaselined skin.
Nothing as frustrating, as loosing your stencil mid way through lining a tattoo, due to someone sweating it off before you could finish getting it done. There were little tricks to getting it done right for sure. And learning how to free hand when shit went sideways, sure came in handy.
I would start from the bottom right corner of the design, as a right handed person and working my way up very methodically, without touching the stencil. Of course if you were a lefty. That routine would be different.
Don had me scribe the stencils off new artworks he acquired, before they would go up on the walls. Or make new ones for old flash that had gone missing.
Each sheet had a number and a filing system that stored the acetates. Everything worked out well as long as folks put the stencils back into their given folders. That didn’t always happen. Which as an apprentice was also part of my job to make order of.
Thankfully flash shops still exist out there in the world that cater to clients that enjoy picking designs off of the wall and collecting keepsakes of their brave impulsive moments.
Most shops now use flash just as decorum. I have some up at my shop.
And use them to keep that nod to the old tattoo shop feeling and as visual points for client inspiration while they are getting tattooed.

When did I do my first set of tattoo flash?

I had painted my first set at the Sea Tramp that was next to Satyricon off of NW Couch and 6th Ave. here in Portland in 1987.
A set, which right after finishing, was destroyed in a bombing that totaled the shop and most of all of it’s decades worth of collectables. Having lost my first set to fire and water damage took the wind out of my sails and was disheartening. I mustered up the energy to start over and attempted another set after we moved to the new location off of Grand Ave. in 1989.
There are a few of these still around as exampled.

The next full set I created was at Everlasting Tattoo in 1994.
Talk about exploring outside your comfort zones and breaking out of the molds. SF certainly began that process for me. Working with the guys I did at the time. Who all were incredible artists. Helped me to open up to be less conservative, willing to do riskay designs, explore unbounded erotica and create more humor filled twisted imagery.

The next full set I did was at Outer Limits in 1996.
Living in LA also had a major impact on my artwork too. I feel this was a darker period for me. Though I was in a mostly happy mental space. I continued my exploration into pushing my comfort zones and dipping into unfamiliar territories.
With this set, I was trying to showcase how to blend existing tattoos that may not have had any connection with a particular style or context. And show how a tattooer could bring continuity to a bunch of random tattoos by using elemental back grounds to promote movement and inclusion.
Most of the flash that I was exposed to at this time, were composed highlighting individual images neatly balanced on a single sheet. Following the standards. But not really addressing backgrounds or connecting components. Since more folks were starting to get larger works. The trend had not quite grown to the point where the masses were doing full themed large scale works yet. It was catching on most definitely. But that pool of clients was still small and had not hit mainstream. What we did have was a growing base of tattooed folks, like myself, that had collected one shot tattoos and needed to figure out how to make them all come together and read as a finished suit.
The standard for most traditional tattoos, as many of you have seen. Were stars, puffy cloud frames and one dimensional wind bars or other basic fillers. I was hoping to bring some life to the images by generating a realistic option with more dimension.

Currently, I am working on a set of flash for Fortune Tattoo. I have finally become inspired to produce something for my own shop. I had lost interest in doing any more flash. I didn’t want to regurgitate the same iconic imagery that seems to be making it’s rounds in every form imaginable. Even the deconstructed versions. And at some point, what hasn’t been done already?
In following with tradition, what I do want, is to show case what I would like to do for my clients and to inspire them with what can be done no matter the content they might have in mind. I figured trying to explain what I see, is much easier by offering examples.
I have always enjoyed doing pieces based off of dream interpretations. Blending styles. Balancing images to read as stories with continuity. Even in the abstract.
This latest project will have seven panels.
The theme for this set is “Horses and indigenous plants of Oregon”.
I had begun with the intention to only do Mustangs of Oregon.
But some of the horses I like that have cool names, that I could play with, using multiple layers of imagery. Are not all from this state. And then I started throwing in some friends horses. Just because.
Much of the flora and plant life I am depicting, I see on the trail when we ride and wanted to incorporate them in these arrangements.
I hope you will enjoy them as much as I have had in pulling them together. I forgot how temperamental water coloring is.
The arguments with my paint, the recycled paper I am using and my brushes have been insightful.

My beloved Thangka teacher Sanje Elliots’ words sit by me, “Practice every day to make friends with your brush.”

*I will be adding all my sets of flash with line drawings, prints, and individual pieces for sale on my website very shortly.

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