Wear Your Dreams: My Life in Tattoos

Rating: liked it

"I only mention it because sometimes there's a man... I won't say a hero, 'cause, what's a hero? But sometimes, there's a man - and I'm talkin' about the Dude here - sometimes, there's a man, well, he's the man for his time and place. He fits right in there." - The Stanger, The Big Lebowski

Regardless of how you feel about Christian Audigier's douchebag regalia and licensing empire (and I call it his because the only things Hardy contributed were old flash and his name (and in return he was fucked out of a lot of money and got his "brand" so diluted that few of those charmed by it even knew "Ed Hardy" was a tattoo artist)), if you participate in contemporary tattooing culture - custom tattooing being the norm, sleeves and body suits being common, conventions legitimizing the industry while magazines show off its finest work, the availability of Japanese-influenced work, and good tattooing being recognizable as art - then you owe Ed Hardy a debt of gratitude.

Don Ed showed up on the American tattooing scene when no other art school educated types would ever consider getting into such a dirty, terminal folk tradition. What he saw there was an assembly line attitude dominated by the applying of small 19th Century designs to the biceps of sailors, with few colors extant and little originality to speak of. Fast forward a few years of networking through Sailor Jerry Collins, and Hardy was the first Westerner to ever tattoo in Japan. There he was blown away by the art style and the heritage, but once again found a small, subcultural population of customers getting tattooed, all pulling from a limited number of designs, hailing from 19th Century images buttressed by a rigid folklore tradition. So he returned to America to do what essentially no one else was doing: he eschewed having any flash in his shop and rather than direct customers to traditional images exclusively tattooed whatever they wanted to have tattooed on them, with a distinctly Japanese willingness to envelope the body rather than just have small, iconic tattoos be merely contained within it (hence his business card of the era reading "Wear Your Dreams").

He also nurtured a chip in his shoulder about the legitimacy of tattooing as a fine art form, and through putting beautiful ink on the hippest of the bay area's residents for 30-40 years, pioneering the concept of tattooing conventions, and founding the first-ever tattoo art magazine, Tattootime, he contributed to a change of course in not only tattooing culture, but also the perceptions held by both the art world and mainstream society.

In essence he's the Bob Dylan of tattooing: he took a centuries-old folk tradition, learned how to do it from the literal best, played fast and loose with the rules of that tradition, and, through extreme talent and an uncompromising work ethic elevated a humble medium to the level of global culture and fine art. (Now, I quote The Big Lebowski above because a lot of this had to do with timing: he wasn't the only tattoo artist consciously supplanting the past in the 1970s, and many other phenomena going on in our culture at large contributed to making these changes in attitudes possible. Also bear in mind that I intentionally call him Dylan (and not, for instance, Jesus), because Dylan himself neither invented folk or rock music nor was the first person to write original songs, he was just the very best at a time that was ripe for massive change and he anticipated the ways that things could and should change for his own underappreciated corner of the art world.)

All that said, this book is a reflective as-told autobiography of the sort that tend to be dictated to ghostwriters by former sports champions and ex Navy SEALs, and suffers from issues that are often avoided when the biographer is an enthusiastic professional but otherwise an unconnected third party. For instance, the timeline is very evenly spread across the page count - equal weight is given to learning to tattoo from Phil Sparrow as is given to stuff like getting back into surfing as a late-middle-aged man and finally adopting a dog. Many notable figures in tattoo world are also featured (Bert Grimm, Lyle Tuttle, Phil Sparrow, Norman "Sailor Jerry" Collins, Don Nolan, Pinky Yun, Jack Rudy, Mike "Rollo Banks" Mallone, Thom DeVita, and Henk Shiffmacher, among others) but while most get a detailed enough description of who they are/were, only Sailor Jerry gets fleshed out much as a character, and Hardy relies on the reader knowing a thing or two about who he's talking about - much in the way someone like Michael Jordan wouldn't feel the need to tell you all too much about Scottie Pippin in his biography, Hardy feels too safe in the notion that you're more or less on the level with the people and events being described and only came for the "story" of it all.

Going on the cultural history described alone, I'd give this book five stars, but it is brought down by being merely passable in writing. While it will meet the needs of a casual tattoo history enthusiast that wants a good sketch of the causes for the transition into the contemporary tattooing era, it still remains a basic celebrity biography in tone and structure.

Perhaps after Hardy dies a better writer will work with the Hardy estate to create a more thorough and definitive biography, and hopefully it includes a lot of full-color photos. Or perhaps Alan Govenar's Ed Hardy: Art for Life is the book I'm imagining (which is oddly credited to Hardy on both Amazon and Goodreads, despite being written by the same academic folklorist who wrote the genre classic Stoney Knows Best. It seems few people are putting enough effort into the editing of and marketing of tattoo books, and I can only guess it's because those interested enough in tattooing to read books about it tend to be tattooers themselves, and either are often too busy practicing the art to navel-gaze about it, or are too familiar from the oral tradition to bother reading a written recounting, or, if they're really old school, are functionally illiterate). I'll eventually get around to checking it out, and draw what conclusions I can.

Rating: liked it

This was an interesting book about Ed Hardy's history in tattooing. From a very young age Ed was interested in tattoos and would draw them on other kids. He ended up going to art school and was moving away from his interest in tattoos when in one of his last classes he did a presentation on tattooing as a "forgotten American folk art" and in doing the research for that presentation he was back on tattoos and never looked back. Through the course of his career Hardy traveled all over the world and met hundreds of other artists and tattooers. He was one of the pioneers of large size, custom tattoos. In his early days most of his clients were military servicemen who "collected" small tattoos from all the places they traveled with the military. Most tattooers had lots of small images for patrons to choose from, but Hardy wanted to expand the artwork of tattoos and expand his creativity and the creativity of the people getting the tattoos.

The very end of the book dealt with the Ed Hardy designs on everything from t-shirts to cigarette lighters and how that happened. What's sad is that Hardy probably got screwed out of a LOT of money by greedy people in marketing who could see how popular his designs would be. He ended up in an expensive lawsuit and only recently regained full control of his brand.

The only reason I didn't rate this book higher, is that a lot of the book is almost a laundry list of names and how Hardy met or came to know these people and that can get confusing and old after awhile. He obviously knows TONS of people and made a lot of connections through tattooing and art, but that was a little distracting. Overall, it was an interesting book and it's very interesting to see how much the art of tattooing has changed in just the last few decades all through the eyes of one artist right in the middle of things.

Rating: liked it

I know the name Ed Hardy but I know nothing about him as a person. In fact, I have never purchased any item with the Ed Hardy name. This is the same reason I have never purchased anything with Tommy Hilfiger, South pole, or any other famous name. It is because one I don’t believe the price is really worth the item just because of the name that is on the item and also because I am not going to be a walking billboard to advertise some famous person’s name.

So for me I thought this was an interesting read as far as memoirs go. It was funny reading that when Ed was younger he would charge all the neighbor kids to be tattooed. He would use eyeliner for the black outline. Also, there was Ed’s first time trying to tattoo his first back piece on anyone. It was a woman which back than was not so common as now a days. Let’s just say that it did not go well…alcohol= passed out client, motel room, and an unfinished piece. I have to say that learning from many different people and finding out what you like to master in will only make you a better artist.

Rating: it was ok

My take, extremely narrowly focused:
It was written in a slightly boring a blocky style for an individual who revolved around in a circle of Hell's Angels, Yakuza and other people who "liked to drink" and "party."

He was abandoned by his father in favor of a Nipponese "wife," and so the only ties he had to him were the East Asian trinkets that were delivered in the mail. Hardy spent the rest of his life chasing his lost parent by looking for tough guy role models in the tattoo parlors near his childhood home and then embracing everything Japanese that came his way. In his quest, he was able to combine the two by becoming a pen-pal with a famous Hawaiian tattoo artist, Sailor Jerry.

Rating: it was amazing

Loved it. It's an easy read and I feel like it gives you a basic course in the history of tattoos. I recognized a lot of names in this book from flash sheets on the walls of tattoo shops. It was great seeing how they all intermingled in a scene and how many could be traced back to being taught by the same old school tattooers.

Rating: really liked it

SO INTERESTING! His art is so vivid, and I have a whole new appreciation for body art. I'm not going to run out and get a tattoo myself, but I have a lot more respect for WELL-DONE tattoos.

Rating: liked it

I liked it but so many names got thrown out it was hard to keep track. Tattooing was his main focus on this. His clothing line was an added bonus. Most everything he experienced was what he made happen. The book had a lot of sporadic moments but if you read this like you are having a conversation with Ed I think you would get the book. This was one aspect of his life and probably the most realistic part of who he is.

Rating: it was ok

Just not for me. I like books about tattoos and tattoo artists so I should have liked this. But, no.

Ed's a famous tattoo artist and is one of the very first to bring tattooing into mainstream. But I just couldn't finish. Got about 20 pages in.

Rating: did not like it

DNF

Rating: really liked it

A quick enjoyable read.

Rating: it was ok

Interesting guy, terribly ghost written book. So much of a 'met this guy, tattooed this guy' and not much deeper and definitely not enough depth into his creativity. Skimmed the last half to the end because I really wanted to see how how got ripped off by selling off his brand.

Rating: really liked it

Why I picked this up I have no idea. Only recommended if you're extremely interested in tattoos, the art scene of the 60s & 70s or Ed Hardy. Needed lots more editing. I understand that it was a stream of consciousness type of memoir but there were several glaring grammatical/editorial errors and I was only up to page 40. Having just typed all that-if you're a tattoo or Ed Hardy fan by all means read it!

Rating: it was ok

Interesting personal history of tattooing and being a long-time player in the business. However, I found the name-dropping, America-centric aspects of it pretty unpalatable (apparently Hardy re-discovered the virtual extinct Pacific tattooing culture!). But if you love tattoos and his work, this is very informative.

Rating: it was ok

I ended up skimming the entire thing. Yes, it was fascinating to follow his entire life as a tattoo artist, but the writing was rather dry, and I honestly could care less about the booze and the drugs. The most interesting parts were of his time in Japan, especially the tattoo skins, and the photos of those skins as well.

Rating: it was ok

Meh, a bit long and drawn out. Sometimes he would focus more on tattoo history and that would get interesting. Overall I wasn't all that captivated by Hardys story. The writing style is a bit dry and there are even some basic grammatical errors (i.e.: a "that" when it should've been "they").
If I could've, I would've given it a 2.5 I would've bc at least I finished it.