Impressions are everlasting in life. Some are forgotten, or distorted with conflicting thoughts. Some are keep stored away until certain senses summon their arrival. They can cancel out the natural world that surrounds us, and enlighten our being. Impressions model the way we perceive, setting precedence of our likes and dislikes. Just when impressions can not be vanquished, they subdue the conscience with a overwhelming constrained feeling of euphoria. Time seems to stop. Previous ideas of one’s self that were once rampantly scattered have vanished. IMPRESSION has just occurred. A mental branding by an outside force. This is the way that I feel every time I see the work of Joshua Dollins. He just absolutely amazes me. His ideas could constitute as borderline insane to any normal being. But to him they are the same as that cup of coffee that kick starts the day, just plain normal. Of course his cup of joe has been concocted with the utmost precision. Perfectly measuring each spoonful of the finest grain, and packing it with an evenly supply of consistent pressure. Hand eye coordination could match that of any surgeon. Movements are well thought out as the percolator approaches the water press. We don’t know why we do these things, but they are normal routines of everyday life. I guess you could say that every task is a probable challenge. When this young man sets his mind to a potential challenge, the only thing that stands in his way is time. Here is the latest and greatest design produced by Mr. Dollins. He refers to this piece as “Vanity”. This is the breakdown from the top of his head, delivered to you by his hands…
-david d’angelo
“Vanity”
by Joshua Dollins
This endeavor was just happened upon, on an early morning of some Saturday months ago, it was my mother who discovered it in some local garage sale. It was before, far before I normally arose on a Saturday, but her phone call came anyway, she rambled about how she had found something that I may be interested in, she claimed that she had sprang on a used tattoo chair, and being that I was doubling my interests, about the world of tattoos/tattooing, this was a find not to let by for such a mere price. An agreement was made that she would, snag the idem, as long as she was reimbursed for it.
I had no concept on what I agreed to pay for, and was guaranteed a no return policy; hell it could have been a dental device or something for restraining degenerates. Fixing it wouldn’t be a problem if it so happens to resemble the characteristics of anything but. So, it was a good thing to have a tattooing chair, anything decides lawn furniture and an ice chest would have been an upgrade. At this time I had done around 8 tattoos on willing friends and family all though I done my first one upon myself, it was bad, considering I put it upon the top of my foot, not knowing this could be one of the worst places to start, but ya between no knowledge about how to prep and readjust the guns that I purchased, which were very nice weapons at that. Starting with such a sudle yet constant flow of adrenaline, the pain was as nice as plunging a lobster fork into my foot and plowing the skin up and out like a can opener, I didn’t finish the skull on my foot. Deciding after the first one on myself, there was no way I would abuse someone like that, I put it off till I had studied the principles/techniques of the trade.
Back to this purchase I made, it turned into weeks later before I got a gander at the piece, I don’t feel like mom did me wrong at all, this could have been a tattoo chair in it’s previous ownership. It incubated a couple special effects like a hydraulic foot pedal, and a reclining back, “damn right,” it even swiveled. The skin or the upholstery was the color of a fresh spring lawn, and the chrome was not showing any abuse or wear, but I felt I wouldn’t know the whole truth till it got itself deconstructed, this is exactly what it got, I gave it annihilation. My intentions were none, I had no predetermined ideas except this was going to be a newly restored tattooing utensil, that would go into a work station at a good friends tattoo studio, for who evers abuse.
Now, or how do you represent the grit of tattoo, from this assortment of piece broadcasted across the workbench, or how did I feel when I ripped seams across the top of my foot. Thinking with the pain, there after, the skin flakes off someone’s idea, ability, beauty, love, that skin flaking off from bruising, the punishing, there is something being uncovered. I figured just may be I’ll put some pain/punishment on the pedestal, and just maybe if I do some quality work, maybe others could see the pain aligning the beauty.
After a couple thousand miles, a few sleepless nights, a dozen adderal, a handful of hydro codeine, the ideas started to condensate along the perimeter of the brain fog. Of coarse, this condensation had to be distilled, then purified, only because the end result didn’t need to taste of the slurry of a long island ice tea. Well its hard to say the best place to start a project for the fear, but I figured like baking a cake you need to know what flavor you want, and in some cases flavor has a texture, the flavor being the color and the texture being itself, yep, I took to big a dose. Ok, the chairs in pieces, so now it’s just a possible object, meanwhile I meander about a place that deals in such things as upholstery. It was a friend of mine that found exactly what I was wanting to stumble into, the flavor was kinda medium chocolate leather substitute that would actually scar when a semi pointed objects (like blue jean buttons) would drag across its surface. This upholstery would sustain these surface scar, perfect it was.
Acquiring the upholstery was also the first thing to be finished since it’s in pieces that I can work with individually. The cushioning needed well more cushion; some one might have to deal with a healthy time span, while receiving a tattoo in it. Needing a pattern that I could sew some additional foam into I went along with a basic vertical elongated diamond pattern, it always reminds me of something medieval. On the stitching where it crossed itself I inserted large chrome studs, studs have there own universal meaning that need not explained.
After sewing, and manipulating the bottom, back, head, and arms cushions, as well as fixating the studs in the threaded intersections, and attaching the pieces to the more rigid skeleton. At this point I noticed something sticking out of the right side of the back reclining part of the chair that was actually the lever for releasing the back to recline or decline. It was only a solid piece of chromed steel that had to go but still
I needed it. A knife would work just as well, and it has a handle, though not any knife, some knife with character one that’s been used for all the right and wrong reasons, a knife who’s blade has not been respected, maybe shaped with bones. Well I found this knife on EBay in Israel, or that’s what the description said where it was. It was also perfect. I cut the old handle back, and cut the knife handle down so as to weld it back on the original handle, this was only to mimic that the knife had been plunged into the side of the chair. It still works, that was important that it did.
Lets see, the nickel plated (brass knuckles), or nickel knuckles, I wanted chrome I got nickel. OK, the hydraulic foot pedal, there is nothing else it could be except a fantastic, shimmering, fist running into teeth, that is beautiful steel coated in nickel. It took a large scaled drawing for a pattern, some quarter inch plate steel, a grinder, plasma torch, eye protection, elk hide mitts, and a mig welder. This wasn’t all for the pedal there was a lot of shiny metal that needed to be broke-up not literally, a solution for this was searing the word “vanity,” into a piece of red oak, that rested upon the top of the newly coated pedal.
Picking up the pieces, and luckily noticing something that need attention was a large white space on the back of the chair that was never considered for any kinda production. Mostly I had just covered it in some fake white leather, I did recognize the blank, abused, and nothing that was void of my attention. On some following day, on a drive, and some scrambled short fraise came, it started to materialize along my drive, these words seem to fit almost a principle, of what one should consider when prepping for a tattoo, toward any decision really. Getting the words on the back of this chair was going to be a shit job, cutting out stencils with exacto knives are shit jobs. Regardless, it worked out, I feathered the paint so as to give high and low contrast from background to foreground, as well as misted some water so to convince the black paint to coagulate in these water droplet areas. This was to give an appearance that the words whore flaking off, something else while the paint was still tacky, the use of Q-tips and finger nail polish remover to pull the fresh paint down, I’m forcing the paint to bleed.
All that remains is the centerpiece, that I’ll force myself through explaining; this is really the most important part to me. The skull fused with a scroll is still being perfected though this is the foundation upon which I’m building new. It says “For All Or None,” this is a idea that has always been repeated deep in my head, from so far back when, I just can’t recall the first time, I paid no attention to that echo in my head. This will be the first time I have ever said it out loud, here on this dried layer of skin centered on this seat. The words can correlate to many things; I believe they speak on their own. Like I say before, I don’t know when the words, ideas, whatever this was that came to me, I’m saying its only necessary that I also put on a second scroll that I hammered into this sheet of skin the words, “est. the eve 1979,” this is before my birth.
From one to another, I believe it very difficult not to believe that things occur for a reason, I just can’t see how you could think any other way.
When you think of spring break the first thing that comes to my mind, since I am technically considered “old-school”, is Mtv’s Spring Break. It’s usually in some hedonistic location with plenty of sun and an endless supply of ass and drunkenness. But for my spring break this year, which will be my last as a college student, was taken in NYC. I withdrew from the snail pace of Stillwater, Oklahoma to once again emerge myself into this sprawling metropolis of 8+ million inhabitants. I had some job interviews lined up during the the daylight hours. I was doing the hustle and bustle, train hopping, and getting my daily dose (Continued)
