Skin & Bone is a combination gallery and tattoo studio. The gallery will exhibit art and ethnographic handicrafts related to tattooing, while the studio will have Colin Dale tattooing alongside various guest artists throughout the year. Through his years of travelling and tattooing around the world Colin has had the pleasure to meet and work alongside a wide range of tattoo artists and experts working in ethnographic and other specialized styles. Amongst these friends, we have hand-tattooists from Borneo, Polynesia and Japan as well as some of the world's leading artists in Blackwork and Dotwork coming to visit. Check the homepage http://www.skinandbone.dk/ to see some of the work



Tuesday, 9 October 2012

"Spiritual Skin: Magical Tattoos and Scarification" by Lars Krutak

Well the new book is out... written by my friend Lars Krutak www.larskrutak.com
 and published by Edition Reuss www.editionreuss.de

Matthias Reuss came around at the London Convention and presented copies to all of the traditional hand tattooists who are keeping the culture alive :-)
Lars had mentioned using some of my work in the book and I was more than pleased when I saw the results. 4 pages of text (split into English and German) decribing Ötzi and his accupuncture tattoos along with recounting a pilgrimage I made to the site where he was found to conduct an experiment using the same techniques and materials. The trip was organized by my friend Kai Faust and I was joined by French photographer Claire Artemyz www.artemyz.com who documented the experiment.

This however is just a small part og the book which also records other medical and magical tattooing practices from tribes Lars has visited in Africa, Indonesia, New Guinea and around the world... historical references to traditions long lost as well as documentation of others very much alive today.

The book is available from Edition Reuss and I will also be having some copies at the studio for sale.
We also have a few autographed copies of Lars' first book "Tattooing Practices of Tribal Women" as well as the rest of the tattoo publications by Edition Reuss :-)
Come have a look if you want to see more :-)

Front cover of the 2 kg monster tome which is too big to fit in the scanner :-)


Position of Ötzi's tattoos.
As these designs located on joints and median lines that are not easily visible it is assumed that they were for medical purposes. Several on the lower back coinside with where he suffered from arthritis and could not have been tattooed by himself

Tattooing David up in the mountains close to the site were Ötzi was discovered and photos of some of the lines we made to treat David's ailments
The center Sunship design on David's back was tattooed by Kai using only a piece of flint

Close up of Ötzi's tattoos

I was fortunate enough to be allowed to add to "The Tattoo Hunter's" collection of ethnographic tattoos a few years back with some Inuit sewing
Here Karen is also shown with the tattoo she got for her 103rd birthday :-) 

As an added bonus, Nanna got an artists credit for her photographic work in the book :-)
Although she's been contributing to tattoo magazines for many years this is the first time shes had work published in a book :-)

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