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8 OF SWORDS
Dave Wallin is both an artist and a collector. For the past 18 years, he has painted on other people's skin, and displayed the work of friends and colleagues all over his body. Since mid-July, he's found more negative space on which to display his work and the work of others: the empty walls of his new custom tattooing studio in Williamsburg. Prior to opening 8 of Swords, Wallin, an illustrator, comic book artist and tattooist, had worked for others, doing guest spots in his hometown, Dallas, and in Hawaii and New York. He grew up in a family of artists and was mentored by artist Jose Cruz, who helped raise him when he ran away from home as a teenager. But it wasn't until 1991, when Wallin was an art student at North Texas University, that he discovered his love for tattooing. Robert Hackney, a friend of the family who owned a tattoo shop, was looking for young artists, and Wallin, who was then delivering pizzas to pay his way through college, went in to talk to him. "The tattoos I had seen until then were almost primitive, done by people who didn't draw," Wallin said during an interview at his new studio. "The new stuff was like paintings on skin. I saw the potential that could be done with it."
Wallin dropped out of college and began an apprenticeship at Hackney's studio, where he ended up working full-time for five years. He practiced several styles, but was particularly influenced by art nouveau, surrealism and pop art. He later worked back and forth between Texas and Hawaii, the place where Hackney eventually relocated to. To Wallin, tattooing in Hawaii was like working in a fast-food restaurant. The entire business depended on the tourists, and once high season came, people would enter the shop, pick something from the wall, and get it done on the spot. "We would work all day," he said. Wallin arrived in Manhattan in '98, but didn't feel at home until he moved to Brooklyn a year later. There, he once again jumped from spot to spot, looking for a good place to work. "I always wanted to have my own place," he said. But taking that extra step meant more responsibility, and Wallin didn't feel ready until earlier this year. He realized that in the past five years he had helped others build their shops, from nothing to success, and that now he had the experience and client base to take it to the next level.
The new Brooklyn studio on North 8th Street is still taking shape (the date for the opening party is TBA), but Wallin has a clear vision of what it will look like when done: the style will be a cross between Japanese Zen and Victorian; the white walls will be covered with art, and the work will change every couple of months; the three artist stations will, at first, be occupied by out-of-town guests and, eventually, by full-time artists; and the modus operandi will be custom, meaning that the artist and the client will brainstorm together at the drawing table until they find the right image, and any style is possible. New Yorkers are "very conservative" with tattooing, said Wallin, meaning that they want either traditional American or traditional Japanese styles. "I can do that, but I can also do more. I like the challenge of doing something that you don't do every day."
And the tattoo that runs down Wallin's right shoulder and arm is exactly that. Done by his friend and tattoo artist Dan Marshall (and not yet finished), the artfully woven narrative shows a jointed puppet hanging from a tortuous tree that morphs into a Japanese ghost. The marionette-like figure was inspired by Japanese artist Amano Katan, who creates doll sculptures that are "at once elegantly beautiful and hauntingly disturbing," a spot-on definition online. The Japanese ghost dates back to an image in a children's book that often popped in on Wallin's mind and scared him. Having the chilling narrative drawn permanently on his body was a way to make sure he would no longer be afraid, he explained. It is a scary image indeed, but a hopeful one as well. 8 of Swords is located at 178A N 8th St. in Williamsburg. Store hours are Wed-Mon, 12-8 p.m. Cost for custom work is $150/hr and consultation is free. Specific designs get flat rates.
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