ESU- Steve Haworth

Two updates in one day? Crazy.
Taking a sick day today; damn summer flu has me knocked out and in sleep mode. In between naps and movies I’ve been going through old photo albums; these date back approximately 12 years or so. I took them at the South Beach Tattoo Tour that Crowe and Dwyer put on.

I could be remembering incorrectly, but I think this was the first time Steve and I met. At the time (1996-ish) he was making waves doing publicly what a lot of people were doing privately; which made him an enemy of established underground practitioners. At the time I was just getting the SPC site started and was publicizing things people were doing privately, so we were well aware of each other’s reputations when we finally sat down and began a two hour conversation, sitting on the floor of a hotel bar exchanging photographs and ideas… I found him to be effortlessly charming, a bit devilish and amazingly open about his background, his training and his technique.

I directly credit Steve’s ESU branding as a main influence on the newer generation of Scarification artists; his high detail branding (which caused a stir when it was featured in IN THE FLESH, BODY ART and BIZARRE) showed people that you could do more than just dots, chevrons and geometric shapes.

After the break there’s a photo of the finished brand (which took around 10 minutes or less). I photographed the client a few months after the branding was done; hopefully I’ll come across that photo soon!