Timmy doesn't take himself too seriously and comes across like a bit of a joker, yet his tattoos are crafted with style, precision and skill. We met with one of the most casual and influential tattoo artist in Massachusetts.
With a look straight out of "Wayne's World", he's somewhere in his early thirties. He started his career quite early at 17. His start in tattooing was enabled by friends, between parties in apartments and basements. A true self-taught kid who knew that in order to evolve he had to move his activities to more professional settings. So he joined a shop where he wasn't really apprenticing but in which he was pushed to improve quickly or risk being fired. "One of the first tattoos that impressed me was on a girl, a half sleeve, I said to myself, « Holy shit, a tattoo can look like that ! » it was a piece made by Tony Ciavarro, so I stole everything from him when I was young. He was also in Massachusetts, but I only met him much later. » They are now friends. Timmy found his influences everywhere without really wondering where they came from. He admits he doesn't know much about painting, that he isn't a fan of comics and that he hasn't done any art studies. So his talent came without the typical artistic background you'd tend to wanna tag on him. When asked to label or name his tattoo style, somewhere between realism and newschool we'd as-sume, he still answered us very seriously: "Uh... I don't know... shit! »
Early on Timmy's other passion was music. He's a true metal fan. He played drums in a death band for a bit and as time and tours went on it slowly but surely forced him to choose between the two career paths. Not tattooing on the daily seemed unthinkable so his direction and dedication to the craft got cemented. After a long tour in 2008 without being able to tattoo, he left the band and decided to de-vote himself entirely to tattooing. Tattooing is his whole life, he draws tattoo, eats tattoo, drinks tattoo and breathes tattoo. The music is still there though. In the shop, there’s a drum set, guitars, bass, microphones and amplifi-ers, all you need to jam. Timmy plays with his team of tattoo artists as often as he can. His team is pretty much like his extended family, they’re very close and try to share a lot of things together: trav-eling, music, beers, table tennis and of course good laughs. At his side there's Lindsay Baker who of-ten accompanies Timmy on conventions, Seth Holmes, Shane Baker, Nicole Laabs, Dee and Patrick Quirk aka Phatrick Jerk. Let’s not forget Adrian Novo who was with the Niteowl Tattoo team for many years. He stills does regular guest sessions at the shop.
Timmy takes part in many conventions even though he tries to do a little less nowadays, which means about ten a year now. He used to do up to 25 at some point! He whispers to us: "I miss the conven-tions where you had to present your portfolio in order to have a booth, some way to prove the quality of your work. Now you just have to pay..." Times have changed. The Evian Tattoo convention where we met him is one of his favorites, restrained selection of artists (a few hundred), all of them of very talented and a great atmosphere in a superb setting. It's one of the few European conventions where you'll find him. "The first convention I attended was in Texas and it was a big fiesta. The first night, we all tattooed each other, we threw our gloves like elastics out of the window, so we tattooed without them and we inked each other whatever came to our minds, we all made little pirate hooks. . $14,000 worth of damage to the hotel we were in! It was really crazy, we tattooed with sandwich bags instead of gloves, since we didn't have them anymore, it was crazy. I told myself: that’s what conventions are like ?! Wow! »
While browsing Timmy's instagram, it’s fun to see that a large number of artists actually drew carica-tures of him, which probably makes him the most sketched tattooist by his peers.
Finally we asked him what he thinks about the evolution of tattoo in recent years? "Tattoo is more popular now. It's easier, more accessible to become a tattoo artist, there are more shops, conventions and even TV shows. So it gets a little saturated. I think it will balance out later on. There will only be the professional shops left, the most serious ones, but I don't care, I just do my tat-toos, I play ping-pong and drink beer... I do my thing in my corner…". We asked if he'd consider taking part in a TV show? « I'm not too interested, I don't want to be recog-nized on the street. But I would like to make an appearance as a judge or guest, it will please my par-ents to see me on TV. » he told us laughingly. There you have it. We thank Dats for helping us to do this little interview and Timmy B. of course for his humour and kindness. Once more Timmy will be at the Evian convention from 19 to 21 October.
niteowltattoomass.com intagram : timmy_b_413, niteowltattoomass Facebook : niteowl tattoo mass, timmy_b_413 Report by DHK and special thanks to Safwan (imago Tattoo), James Chancé , Sid L-Boy and Dats
