Because we weren’t bringing you enough initials already, the WG News + Arts will be covering SXSW (South By Southwest) this week, straight from the eye of the cultural hurricane.
In our fair Brooklyn neighborhood, the birthplace of many a fine musician, filmmaker and media innovator, we are constantly barraged with more entertainment than we know how to process on a single Saturday night. But nothing can quite prepare someone – even a savvy Williamsburgian – for the storm of cultural/entertainment/informational offerings to be found at the nothing if not immense, South By Southwest.
It is Dave C. Wallin’s love of numerology that prompted him to name his new tattoo shop on North 8th (bet Bedford and Driggs), “8 of Swords.” The shop is located at 178 N 8th St, (“One and seven is 8, and 8, North Eighth Street,” he spells out). He continues, “In tarot, when you get the 8 of Swords, it means all the obstacles around you are created by yourself,” a particularly poignant analogy as Wallin breaks out of his ten-year role as guest and staff artist at shops like Roebling’s Tattoo Culture, and finally takes the helm at a shop of his own.
By that he means, he adorns bodies with one-of-a-kind designs that reflect both his unfettered imagination and impeccable craftsmanship. He will paint your arm with a jewel-colored, fully landscaped sci-fi sleeve. He will send a dandelion up your back, twisting the stalk with the curve of your side and blowing it’s seedlings across your shoulders and down your arm. And he will, if you like, bedeck your calf with a connect-the-dots pattern, which, when completed, reveals a boxy, preschool-friendly giraffe. He is willing to be experimental (“though not at the risk of the tattoo”), and is committed to customization, which involves both molding a design to fit your body’s shape and movement, and conceptualizing a design that is one of a kind.
Like leaders of a SWAT team, Edward and Ricky came barreling towards me on the bridge Monday morning around 11:20am dressed in matching black Under Armour shirts and black, double-striped workout pants. Their faces were intense. Their concentrations, focused. And yet, I couldn’t help stopping them to ask, “What’s up with the twin getup?”