Bailey Hunter Robinson...

http://copperbeehive.wordpress.com/

I cannot get enough of this artist/tattooer.  And, to be honest, I am almost hesitant to share his work with the greater, well, whatever.  I want to keep him a secret, like a good thrift store or an antique shop in a small town that has not yet been picked over.  Not that I need to worry, though - people travel the world over to brooklyn to get a lil' ink from the good gentleman Bailey.  I found out his art via my friend Eric, another artist and tattooer whose work will also soon enough be posted about on this blog.

But, first, of Mr. Robinson - here is an Americana sensibility that precedes Sailor Jerry and most forms of traditional tattooing we are all familiar with.  Here is the lure and lore of folk-art, of tattoo flash based on an exquisite lack of drawing skill, of simplicity that strikes via a terseness and old-fashioned childishness.  Images become flat pattern, like Indian Mughal paintings and Tibetan art.  But, it is truly American - "Americana", akin to early Carnival and Circus art or folksy quilt patterns or advertising graphics from the 1800s.  Landscapes of cowgirls and Indian heads and lucky horses and gypsies and the old west.  A color scheme of subdued earth colors found only in the dirt of a bootlegging bordertown...

The work speaks for itself... and, I am already scheming my next piece.  As you should yours...

His other interests/collecting also dovetails perfectly into his tattooing/arting, making for a seamless world of olden times, rust, and saddle.