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TAT the TOWN BY GRACE DONNELLY
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itting in Love Hawk Studio on a brisk spring morning, David Hale describes tattoos as “intention[al] time capsules,” explaining that since human skin regenerates every six to seven years, the carbon making up the ink will soon be older than our skin itself. When you die, the carbon from your tattoos goes back into the earth. And it could be in another tattoo in 1,000 years.
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ale’s room in the Chase Street Warehouses is narrow with high ceilings, and tattoo stencils he has drawn over the last few years crawl halfway up the largest exposed brick wall. He’ll soon need a ladder to continue adding to the collection. Hale, a local tattoo artist who gained notoriety for his folk-inspired aesthetic and intricate designs, began drawing and painting at a young age. His earliest recollection of making art dates back to kindergarten. “I think it’s the first time somebody really put paint out in front of me,” he says, “and I can really remember well the paint being squeezed out onto this paper plate and being completely amazed that I was given this material to just make whatever I wanted.” He painted a picture of himself going down a waterslide and he was hooked. “In making it, it added a deeper level of joy to an experience I had had and that really stuck with me,” Hale says. Creating art allowed him to connect with his sources of inspiration both in the physical world as well as the spiritual. He often signed his pieces “to God, from David.” “It’s not really changed much since then — the reasons I made art as a child,” he says. “I want to preserve.” Hale’s tattooed knuckles peek out of his dark gray jacket as he takes care of some managerial tasks: sending emails, sweeping the floor, organizing supplies. His interest in tattoos came a little later, when he was in middle school. Growing up in the suburbs of Marietta, his encounters with tattoo art were limited. Then his sister got a copy of The Red Hot Chili Pepper’s “Blood Sugar Sex Magik” album with interior artwork depicting the band members’ tattoos. Hale was intrigued. “I just thought that was so awesome. They had drawings on their skin,” Hale says. He started drawing tattoos on himself and his friends, eventually getting his first real ink the day he turned 18, using an image of a sun he drew himself the year before. The interest carried over into his time at the University of Georgia, where he pursued an art degree. While in school he met his wife, Emily at Snelling Dining Commons where they recently returned to celebrate their 10-year anniversary. Hale made art in the Athens community before he ever gave people tattoos. He painted some early murals at New Earth and Sunshine Bicycle. Recently, he created the artwork for Condor Chocolates. AMPERSAND APRIL 2015
P H O T O S BY G R A C E D O N N E L LY
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Hale shows me a poster he’s working on for the Avett Brothers’ upcoming show at MerleFest and points to other promotional pieces he created for the band Nahko and Medicine for the People and Conscious Alliance, a nonprofit organization that supports impoverished communities through hunger relief and youth empowerment. Conscious Alliance is a group Hale works with often. The executive director (and one of Hale’s friends since he began working with the group in 2006), Justin Levy, is coming in at 11 for a tattoo. Hale turns on Fleet Foxes as he prepares, first creating the stencil for Levy’s tattoo, an astronaut holding an ice cream cone. It doesn’t scream his usual folk or tribal-inspired aesthetic, but the level of detail in the spaceman’s suit still reveals Hale’s intricate style. He sets out his materials on a stainless steel tray: a razor, the stencil, a bottle of alcohol, petroleum, a bottle of witch hazel, green soap, ink caps and the tattoo gun. They sit beneath his bright fluorescent lights like doctor’s tools waiting for surgery. Levy arrives and Hale shaves his upper arm, applies the stencil and sets up his table. This will be the third time Hale tattoos his friend. “He said the last time he drew an astronaut was in grade school,” Levy jokes, “and I figured he’s gotten to be a better artist since then so I think it’s gonna be pretty neat.” Hale begins to poke the needle into Levy’s skin and his face gets a bit more serious. “I think David puts a lot of intention behind his work and fits kind of my own personal beliefs as well with his style,” Levy says. 6
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“I feel like you’re stuck with a tattoo forever, right? So it’s part of the experience -- getting the tattoo and the connection with the person that’s doing it.” Hale’s latest endeavor, The Ink and Earth Project, will consist of a series of camping trips with his family over the next six months. At each location Hale, along with his son, Crow, will collect items from nature and create a large drawing incorporating those materials. The final trip will be to Pine Ridge, an Indian reservation in South Dakota where Conscious Alliance focuses most of its efforts. The project came about largely due to Hale’s desire to spend more time outdoors with Crow who is five and a half. “Having a kid gives you an excuse to do those things again,” Hale says. The balancing act between work and family is difficult but possible and Hale makes some concessions, like not having a television in his house, in order to maximize the family time. Emily Hale will also create written works over the course of the project. “In some ways I feel like she’s more of an artist than me,” Hale says of his wife, “she just doesn’t have one particular medium she works in. If there is [one medium] she’s a mother, but she’s so creative and her voice shines through so much in my work.” Hale’s pieces are in high demand. He isn’t accepting new clients, but you can go to lovehawk.com to join his newsletter for information on schedule openings and for a chance to receive on of Hale’s 12 to 15 “Gratitude designs” which anyone can apply to get as a tattoo.