Well known for his artworks with black essence and a prisonners tattoos inspiration, Liam Sparkes is a musician actually playing in the combo Jessica93. He is also one of those who quickly found his talent in old engraving, on russian prisonners photograph or thoses of old french military guys tattoos. From an english generiation of black work precursors as Hooper and Duncan X, he's now talking about his own shop : Old Habits in East London .
You have been owning Old Habits for a year now? How did that happened ?
I was travelling around for maybe several years tattooing around the world and i was working originally for Shangri Las, then about two years ago, the boss of Shangri Las wanted to close the shop, and sell it so it was the perfect opportunity for me. Also, at that time it was the moment to stop travelling so much because i was travelling every week, constantly. Its nice but i'am getting older so its good evolution for me.
Now you have Duncan X joining you, since novembre 2016 ?
Yes its great ! We have been friends for 10 or 12 years, i was getting tattoos from him before i was even tattooing myself and he is my master and a big inspiration. Even Thomas Hooper, is also my master. Its a dream come true to have Duncan working there, its crazy.
What about your college / university years, did that inspired you to be a tattoo artist ?
It was 17 years ago, i was doing sculpture, and it was good inspiration for art and artistic things, i was very interested in art history, so that was good i guess. I put a lot of the things i learned artistically, into doing the tattoo thing. One thing i came to realize is that i've always liked working with my hands, everything i have always done : drumming or sculpture, or tattooing, it was always with my hands.
Do you still do sculpture ?
No i gave up, i went to work for an artist, sculpture artist, big old famous guy for one year, few months after i finished university and it made me want to stop ! Because it was a strange experience. And also with sculpting you need so much space, its stressfull, maybe one day when I'will be older, i will get back to it.
Your style seems inspired by old lithography ?
At the beginning yes, when i was getting tattooed originally that was the things i wanted, but at that time there wasn't many people doing those things, black work wasnt really a thing. Maybe five people i knew were doing this things, and if you want to get just black sometimes tattoo artists wanted to put some colors. So before it was a bit difficult, then i found Hooper and Duncan. I was at the university with Hooper, at the same time, and i got my first tattoo from him and he was doing something similar. But now graving stuff its fine but a little bit boring for me, it's just because i did it for so many years. So now i'm more inspired by telling stories with the tattoos and the brutal, absurd things. It's more about the feeling than the actual technics, but i'm loving graving.
You still like to do this technics of dot shadings ?
Yes, with dots and lines too, definitly a inspiration but now more important for me is the feeling of the piece, you know.
Are you inspired by music ?
I love brutal music also. Things with feelings. I think, Chelsea Wolf stuff, the same with tattooing makes an atmosphere, something strange when people are looking at the tattoo. I'm bored of seeing tattoos that don't say anything or don't have anything, its static. You look at it and its like a wall paper, so i'm not really interested in that kind of tattoos anymore.
After school did you do an apprentiship ?
No,After school i just played music for ten years, and just getting tattooed for five years before I was started tattooing. It was just playing for all that part of my life and working at a book shop, managing a book shop, that was also a big inspiration. I have a big obsession with books. I have many many books. After I started to tattoo at my house, i was married for six years and i was tattooing, and my wife was helping me to deal with costumers in my house and stuff like that and I continued doing it in my house for few years and then i started working in Shangri Las. It's the only shop in London i 've worked for.
You still like dark, black ink, you don't want to had colors ?
I don't like color, i never had colors, at the beginning i was doing colors with old school traditional stuff, all kind of colors, because when you are starting you have to do anything, if you wanted to be a tattoo artist before you have to know everything. Now it changed but i dont like colors so it's just esthetics choice for me.
Which question somebody never asked you and you would like it to ?
I'm very interested in Alan Watts, is a big inspiration for me in life, he's a philosopher and it's big inspiration for me. Thats someone I would recommend to everyone, he puts your mind at peace and make things simple.
Would you like your customer to thing more about the tattoos they wanna get ?
I think in terms of getting tattooed, people shouldn't think about it too much. The way i like to work a lot, is with impulse, I like them to just be open and choose a few option. If they didnt think about it it's spontenous and can be better than something you think about for a long time. Yes, customer in France they are not as spontenous as people in the rest of the world. In general they like to control what they are going to get, which can be a problem. Sometimes its better to let go the control, that's another thing that Alan Watts is saying like letting life happen to you instead of willing to control your life, that's one philosophy that works when getting tattooed.
Did you get tattooed by some great tattoo artist ?
Now, not so much, i'm finished, and everything is full. The last few years i just get tattooed by friends, mostly tattooers. If the moment is right i like to do that. But there is one thing i learned from the begining when i started to get tattooed. I always brought a picture of what i want etc, after few years i realized that it is better to do what the tattooer has, cause the tattoo artist always sees a lot of images every day, they have lot of images and they know how it looks good and they know more than someone looking at some pictures sometimes. So I learned to give up the control when i get tattooed.
You get tattooed by Guy ?
Yes, we use to travel together and i have a lot of pieces from him, all over the place, little pieces, we tattoo each other a lot, it was a really great experience to travel with him, he's one of the best I would say, a really good tattooer.
Who is your team at Old Habits ?
There are two guys now, Ryan Jessiman and Caleb Kilby they are also disciple of Hooper, they both have most tattoos of Hooper, they have the same kind of age and are from the same group of people as me, so its perfect for that. And the other guys and Clare are cool, they are good continuing the tradition of bold black, brutal and interesting tattoos. But i don't want the Old Habits to be just a black shop, the essence of the shop is just to be like an old school shops, like a classic tattoo shop should be. Not like just black, otherwise its not good, i like the old classic & traditional.
What's next for you ?
I want to live an easy life so I'm constructing the operatus around me so I can live easy, yes. Not have the stress of the last few years, but i had to prouve something to myself probably to spread the world of black, brutal, tattoos, and I think I did that, so that was a successfull job. That's like one thing that Alan Watts says and changed my life, he said that : « Let's suppose that you were able every night to dream any dream you wanted to dream, and you would naturally as you began on this adventure of dreams, you would fulfill all your wishes. You would have every kind of pleasure, you see, and after several nights you would say, “well that was pretty great.”But now lets have a surprise, lets have a dream which isn’t under control. Well something is going to happen to me that i don’t know what it’s gonna be. Then you would get more and more adventurous, and you would make further and further out gambles as to what you would dream, and finally you would dream where you are now. » I think life is like lots of different dreams, so the sculpture is one dream, playing music was another dream, working in a book shop is another dream, now I look back and i see them as dreams and they are finished, so maybe tattoo is a dream and travelling another dream and one day i'll wake up. What i am trying to say, is that sometimes you end up doing something, and you just do it. And then you suddenly wake up and say ; this is what i am. You havent thought about becoming this, but beside getting tattooed one day you loook at the mirror and yu say « fuck », i'm old cover of tattoos now, so you wake up and start to dream where you are now. If that make sense. So now I'm on a dream of taking life easy. Informations : Old Habits 364 Kingsland Road London E8 4DA +44 (0) 2o3 609 0931 oldhabitstattoo@gmail.com www.oldhabitstattoo.com Instagram : @liamsparkessok // @oldhabitstattoo
