I think this is the 5th or so time I've done the NYC Convention. Whenever I travel and tattoo, I work with Diamond Club Tattoo Studio out of San Francisco. The Diamond Club is Bill and Junii Salmon, a very important and famous couple in tattooing. I am lucky to have had them as mentors and am honored to be part of their family. You can check out their work here, http://www.myspace.com/10117559.
We stayed with our friend Shinji, aka Horizakura of the Horitoshi family in Tokyo. He has been tattooing in NY for seven years now, and is the only 100% tebori (Japanese hand poke tattooing) traditional Japanese tattooer in America (meaning a machine outline, but all color exclusively by hand). You can check out his amazing work at www.nyadorned.com.
We had a lot of fun hanging out and he and his wife's hospitality was top notch.
Look forward to visiting again soon...
