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INKEDblog takes you beneath the skin of today's tattoo culture. Our mission is to celebrate tattooing as a modern art form which incorporates art, fashion, style, and pop culture. While paying homage and respect to the past, we look to present a contemporary take on the present and future of skin art.
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Friday Jul 22, 2005
Horiyoshi III - An Introduction
Horiyoshi III, the legendary Japanese tattoo artist, can claim many accomplishments. He’s published several books, and is widely recognized as one of the premier tattoo artists alive. In addition, his close relationship with Don Ed Hardy played a large role in both the popularization of Japanese-style tattooing in the U.S. and the modernization of tattoo techniques in Japan. There’s also his Tattoo Museum, which in addition to housing rare tattoo paraphernalia and numerous pictures, also includes preserved skin on display.
Yet one of the more fascinating, if minor, aspects of his life and the museum is the display of letters written to him by Charles Manson. Manson apparently became obsessed with Horiyoshi III in the mid-90s, writing him numerous letters with such as this: "Looking DEEP, LONG, now becomeing wonder in the mind Now is when as its always been writen in the SUN. Right ON. I been comeing HOLY WAR as Gods Marks say behold words. Nows the 1940s Hall of prisons in the USA. When behind the judges chambers the English words came that Japan was to be hung for crimes. Then Crime became the war behind the merrows of minds in forever."
The irony is that the tattoo artist doesn’t read English, and never understood the letters.
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