CWEldridge

Tattoodles - Tattoo Art, Designs, Articles, Communities
Users Guide Mission Submit Free Swag Help Free Tour Sign Up User Password
The Mag
Tattoo Culture > View Culturama
C.W. Eldridge:
The Youngest Old Timer
by jasonsweet*
August 29, 2005
Contacts
User's Guide
Submit Product for C.W. Eldridge, or Chuck, as his friends know him, is the owner of The Tattoo Archive in Berkeley,
Review California. Chuck is keeper of the secrets; the guard of the juicy bits of tattooing's past. Chuck is a tattoo
artist who look backs and archives the past of tattooing so that generations of tattoo artists that come
Tattoodles Newsletter
long after him can see that people actually tattooed before them.
Editorial Policy
The Tattoo Archive is half tattoo studio half museum. Chuck tattoos 6 days a week and spends the rest of
his time cataloging the past and the present of tattooing, writing a tattoo history newsletter and is an
acting member on the board of directors of the Paul Rogers Tattoo Research Center (PRTRC). Chuck
also attends numerous tattoo conventions every year selling items of tattooing's past and holding history
seminars which are all free. He has worked with such artists as Ed Hardy, Bob Roberts and Greg Irons,
but despite his notoriety, he is possibly one of the most humble people in tattooing. He often shies away
from the limelight and spends his time doing what he loves most, tattooing, collecting historical artifacts
and bicycling. Chuck was gracious enough to sit down and shed some light on his life, his humble
http://www.tattoodles.com/magazine/culture/89/ (1 of 3)3/17/2006 4:18:18 AM

beginning as a tattooist and what he is up to now.
Jason Sweet: Could you please give me a brief history of yourself, where you come from and how
you ended up tattooing.
Chuck Eldridge: I was born in North Carolina in 1947 and spent the first 18 years of my life there and
then joined the United States Navy. I spent four years in the Navy and visited Texas, California, Hong
Kong, Japan and the Philippines. I got out of the Navy and started bicycling and building custom
bicycles for a man named Albert Eisentraut in Oakland, California. I was getting tattooed by Ed Hardy in
the mid seventies. He was opening the original Tattoo City at the time and I got a job there as an
apprentice.
What year was this?
'78 or something like that.
How did you end up getting a job as an apprentice for Ed Hardy?!?!?
He offered to teach me.
He just said, "You want to be a tattoo artist?"
Yes. I had been getting tattooed by him for three or four years and we had spent quite a bit of time
together. He was opening his new shop and he needed some warm bodies to fill the shop.
Who was working at Tattoo City at that time?
(continued next page...)
Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6
Article Comments
This feature is available to paid subscribers only. Membership has its privileges. Please purchase an
account if you’d like to enjoy this feature!
Latest Culturama
● YellowMan pays their respects to Tattooing

● The Pinkie Campaign
● Safwan
● Rock and fucking roll and tattoos dude!
● Tim Lehi
● Danny Knight
● Bugs
● Philadelphia Eddie (a.k.a. Eddie Funk)
● Matt Reed vs. The Volcano
● Ken Whitley:
● Shop Girls
View all archived articles
http://www.tattoodles.com/magazine/culture/89/ (2 of 3)3/17/2006 4:18:18 AM

The Mag
Entire Mag
C.W. Eldridge:
by jasonsweet*
August 29, 2005
Continued from page 1…
Bob Roberts was tattooing and Jamie Summers, who was also apprenticing at the same time as me.
Maybe you could tell me a little about Jamie Summers for those who read this interview but may
not be familiar with her as a tattooist.
Jamie was a well established ceramic artist and had some tattoos. For her it was just another medium.
She was way ahead of me as an artist. While I was learning to crawl, she was learning to jog in tattooing.
Contacts Unfortunately, Tattoo City had a fire and burned so our apprenticeship was cut short. She went on to
make quite a big name for herself in the tattoo business doing real avant guard artistic tattooing at a time
when no one else was; unlike today. Getting tattooed by her was big long process. She was the tattooist
User's Guide
that tapped into something deeper than just the skin. People were drawn to her that were looking for
Submit Product for really emotional tattoos. She was working in New York City and was killed in 1983. She was riding her
Review bicycle and was run over by a garbage truck.
Editorial Policy
http://www.tattoodles.com/magazine/culture/89/?page=2 (1 of 3)3/17/2006 4:19:34 AM

So would you say that you two were close?
Yes, we had become good friends and she helped me get my equipment back together after the fire. She
had developed a huge following in the lesbian community and after she died I inherited a lot her
customers. By the fact that I had worked with her and I was in Berkeley as well, many of them came to
me with her tattoos half finished and I finished them for her. I still tattoo some of those people today.
On the other end of the spectrum, you worked with Bob Roberts. How was that?
Bob Roberts was a ball buster. He was harder to work for than Ed. Bob was really serious and I was a
horrible tattooer and he busted my balls daily, sometimes two or three times a day. It was good. Of
course then it is was hell, but looking back it was a great thing.
Are you guy's friends today?
Yes.
A lot of tattoo artists today really credit Bob Roberts as a big influence.
Bob was the first full time employee that worked for Ed Hardy. He was brought there to "do it" and
could definitely "do it". He came out of the [Long Beach] Pike. He did some of his first tattooing in the
back room at the Pike and took that "Pike style" and pushed it to a new limit. He is a classic American
tattooer. When you look up American Tattooer in the dictionary there is a picture of Bob Roberts there.
Why did Tattoo City burn?
Article Comments
The Mag
C.W. Eldridge:
by jasonsweet*
August 29, 2005
Contacts
User's Guide
Submit Product for
Review
Editorial Policy
Some maniac was trying to kill his girlfriend in the flea bag hotel
upstairs so he set the building on fire.
Where did you go after that?

I went to Canada to work for Paul Jefferies. I was way over my head there. I was so far over my head it
was bad. I worked there for a while, but I did not last long. I was not cutting the mustard. It was good
experience though and Paul and I remained good friends.
Where to next?
I worked for Jerry Swallow in Edmonton for a short period and then returned to San Francisco to work
for Dean Dennis. Dean Dennis learned to tattoo from Lyle Tuttle. He was connected to Lyle by marriage.
He left Lyle's shop and eventually opened a shop on Broadway a few doors down from Henry Goldfield.
It was beautiful. It was located between the Mystic Eye and Tibet Shop, two classic 1960's stores that
had been there forever. Our shop was an old butcher shop. We actually tattooed in the meat locker. We
cut a big hole in the side and the walls were like foot thick. Eventually Dean got religion and quit
tattooing and gave the shop to Henry Goldfield. Goldfield closed the shop and we all went to work for
him. At around this time I got my store front in Berkeley.
Tell me about your shop in Berkeley?
It's called the Tattoo Archive. I do a lot of writing and research on the history of tattooing. I run a mail
order business where I sell books, postcards, videos etc. on the history of tattooing. I do couple of tattoos
a day to keep the bills paid and it allows me to do my writing.
How did you create such a place like this?
I was already writing articles on tattoo history. I would get sent more information from people and I
would write more. I knew that I could not support myself simply writing tattoo history articles so
tattooing had to be a part of it and it just came together at the same time. I really enjoy writing about
tattoo history. There are a lot of tattooers, but not a lot of people writing tattoo history. I will also
continue to tattoo as long as I have my eye and my hand.
If someone needs some sort of historical document or flash, they can call you and you will help
them find it?
Yes. I will help them find it or I may have it in the collection to sell. I had a woman call the other day
from Canada looking for The Tattooists poster and I sell it.
I get calls all the time from reporters. I got an interesting call the other day from some university in
Columbus, Ohio. They are doing a show on hot rods and motorcycles and they were looking for specific
tattoo designs that would fit that kind of show. I have a
Article Comments
Latest Culturama

● Safwan

The Mag
Entire Mag
C.W. Eldridge:
by jasonsweet*
August 29, 2005
large collection of tattoo documents. It's always a treat to get a request and then I have to dig through all
the stuff trying to find what they are looking for.
So one does not need to be a tattoo artist to call your shop.
No anyone can call. I am sure that university that called was not connected to tattooing but they wanted
to make the connection in their show of hot rods and motorcycles.
How have you gained such a massive collection?
I bought some of it, some has been donated, some has been traded and some has been inherited. I have
Contacts spent thousands and thousands of dollars purchasing a lot of it. Often boxes just come in the mail filled
with stuff and a note saying, "I was cleaning out the closet and I thought of you."
User's Guide
Submit Product for Can people just drop by and
Review
Editorial Policy

visit?
The shop is open to the public, but I work by myself so I may be tattooing and I cannot give them a lot of
attention. If they call me in advance I will set some time for them and I can have a consultation or they
can request to see something like pictures of Greg Irons' work or whatever and I will set it aside for them
and we can go through it together and talk. I do not get a lot out of hoarding the collection. I much prefer
to share it with others and contribute to shows and presentations, to raise the visibility of tattooing.
This is good because many younger tattoo artists may not know there is a history to tattooing.
Well they don't. It's interesting there are a lot of tattooers who come to my shop that taught themselves to
tattoo and eventually got themselves into a shop and have become talented tattooers, but because of that
missed apprenticeship, they did not get any history. If you do an apprenticeship with someone you get to
hear them talk about those old time tattooers and you begin to think, "Well gosh, who were these guys.
Who was this Percy Waters guy? Why do his tattoo machines sell for thousands of dollars when you can
buy once for $250?"
But if you do not have that exposure early on, then you get short changed on the history end of things.
You pass this message on through seminars at tattoo conventions?
Yes, at every tattoo convention I have attended in the last 20 years I have put on some sort of slide show
or seminar.
Do you charge for these seminars?
Article Comments
Latest Culturama

The Mag
Entire Mag
C.W. Eldridge:
by jasonsweet*
August 29, 2005
Contacts
User's Guide
Submit Product for
Review
Editorial Policy
No, it's always free. Sometimes a promoter will

want me to charge a fee, but I will always balk at that. It's hard enough to get them into a free lecture
about history; it would be even harder if I start charging. I am very pragmatic about this sort of

thing (laughs).
Tell me about the Paul Rogers Tattoo Research Center?
Paul Rogers was born in 1905 in North Carolina. He was a cotton mill worker that became a tattoo artist
in 1928. He ordered his first equipment from Percy Waters and then spent decades on the road working
for carnivals and circuses. In the winter he would settle in a cotton mill town and tattoo the workers. He
eventually went on to work with Cap Coleman in 1945-1950. He quit tattooing full time in the 1960's
and started building tattoo machines in Jacksonville, Florida at his home. In 1990 he had a stroke and
died a few months later. However, before his stroke, he realized that his family was not interested in his
tattoo career and the tattoo related collection he had amassed. I had known Paul since the 1970's and he
was aware of what I was doing with the Tattoo Archive, so he wrote a will out and left his whole tattoo
collection to the Archive. After Paul died I went out to Florida and packed up his collection and shipped
it back to Berkeley.
In 1993 Ed Hardy, Hanky Panky, Alan Govenar and myself decided to form a non-profit in Paul's name.
We did this because we decided that we wanted to share Paul's life with the tattoo world rather than have
this belong to one person. Since that time, we have been raising money so we can buy a building and
create a museum, a monument to Paul Rogers.
How is the PRTRC supported?
It is supported by members.
Can anyone become a member?
Yes, anyone can become a member.
Are there dues, or can you contribute whatever you want?
There is a suggested $30 minimum donation, but you can donate whatever you like. It is an annual
donation. We have our 501(c)3 so your contribution is tax deductible. We are also doing EBay auctions
to raise money as well.
What was your personal relationship with Paul Rogers?
I met Paul in the 1970's through Ed Hardy and we became friends over the years. We even did an early
convention in the '80s in Reno together. I got to spend a lot of time with him in Jacksonville at his home.
Paul was a major link in tattooing. He learned machine building from Cap Coleman and Charlie Barr and
then built machines for Ed
Article Comments
Latest Culturama


The Mag
Entire Mag
C.W. Eldridge:
by jasonsweet*
August 29, 2005
Contacts
User's Guide
Submit Product for
Review
Editorial Policy

Hardy. Paul was a major link to the past, a link between the
Coleman school and the Hardy school.
Why was he the link? I mean there were others of his generation.
His link was not his tattooing, it was his machine building. That was what he passed on from Coleman to
Hardy, the knowledge of machine setup and building.
How do you think that link affects tattooing today?
If you go on any machine builder's website, every one of them has a Paul Rogers style machine. I think
that speaks volumes about Paul's impact on tattooing today. Everybody is mimicking what Paul did.
What Paul learned in the '40s, they are still trying to figure it out and make it work for them. At the time
in the '70's, he was building the best tattoo machines in the world. He would build one tattoo machine a
day. He would build every aspect of the tattoo machine. He would hand cut the steel, wrap the coils,
spray paint the frames, hand cut the springs, he would run them for hours to break them in properly. J.D.
Crowe once had 50 of those machines. Tattooers looked at them as money in the bank.
Paul was quite an amazing man. He would tell anybody in the world how to do it. If you had a day and
you went to visit him, you would walk away with a machine that you built under his guidance.
So back to your life, you tattoo 6 days a week and, run the PRTRC and you suddenly find your self
as one of the old timers.
The youngest of the old timers!
When you started with Ed Hardy, did you every think you would find yourself an old timer tattoo
artist?
No, of course not. There were too many real old timers. I mean real tattooers like Bob Shaw and Colonel
Todd and Paul Rogers. I think it is inevitable that if you stick around long enough it will happen and I
guess it's here.
I have seen many tattoo artists burn out in their 40's, but you still tattoo so much. How do you
keep your freshness for tattooing?
I only tattoo a couple of tattoos a day. It keeps me from tattooing myself into the ground. I think my love
of bicycling is a big part of my mental sanity. I tell young tattooers all the time to find something away
from tattooing that you enjoy. That way you can get your mind and body away from it, and then when
you come back to it, you feel refreshed.

I hear a lot of people complain that tattooing is dying with the T.V. shows and it's all been done
and it's stagnant. Do you subscribe to that attitude or do you think there is a future to tattooing?
There is a future. Any art form that has been around as long as the caveman is not going to die from two
reality shows on cable T.V. People said the same thing when the electric tattoo machine was invented,
that it was the death knell for tattooing. They said the same thing when the tattoo conventions started.
They said the same thing when the magazines started. There are always going to be those doomsayers
out there. Tattooing is currently experiencing its biggest renaissance ever. There are many tattooers
doing beautiful work. I do not know where it's all going, but the bubble is not going to burst and
everyone is going to get straight jobs, I don't think it is going to happen.
If anyone is interested in getting a tattoo from C.W. Eldridge, finding out more information about the
Paul Rogers Tattoo Research Center, PRTRC EBay fundraiser auctions or general tattoo history
information, you can find the Tattoo Archive at www.tattooarchive.com.
Article Comments
Latest Culturama

● Safwan
● Tim Lehi
● Danny Knight
● Bugs
● Philadelphia Eddie (a.k.a. Eddie Funk)
● Matt Reed vs. The Volcano
● Ken Whitley:
● Shop Girls
View all archived articles
Home Gallery Hood Magazine Privacy Terms of Use Site Map Help Advertise Contact Us
Copyright © Tattoodles Online Inc. 2005

CWEldridge

Hochgeladen von

Dokumentinformationen

Copyright

Verfügbare Formate

Dieses Dokument teilen

Dokument teilen oder einbetten

Freigabeoptionen

Stufen Sie dieses Dokument als nützlich ein?

Sind diese Inhalte unangemessen?

Copyright:

Verfügbare Formate

CWEldridge

Hochgeladen von

Copyright:

Verfügbare Formate

Tattoodles - Tattoo Art, Designs, Articles, Communities

Tattoo Culture > View Culturama

August 29, 2005

http://www.tattoodles.com/magazine/culture/89/ (1 of 3)3/17/2006 4:18:18 AM

beginning as a tattooist and what he is up to now.

What year was this?

'78 or something like that.

How did you end up getting a job as an apprentice for Ed Hardy?!?!?

He offered to teach me.

He just said, "You want to be a tattoo artist?"

Who was working at Tattoo City at that time?

(continued next page...)

Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6

● YellowMan pays their respects to Tattooing

View all archived articles

http://www.tattoodles.com/magazine/culture/89/ (2 of 3)3/17/2006 4:18:18 AM

Tattoo Culture > View Culturama

August 29, 2005

Continued from page 1…

http://www.tattoodles.com/magazine/culture/89/?page=2 (1 of 3)3/17/2006 4:19:34 AM

So would you say that you two were close?

Are you guy's friends today?

Why did Tattoo City burn?

(continued next page...)

Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6

Tattoo Culture > View Culturama

August 29, 2005

Continued from page 2…

Where did you go after that?

http://www.tattoodles.com/magazine/culture/89/?page=3 (1 of 3)3/17/2006 4:20:26 AM

Tell me about your shop in Berkeley?

How did you create such a place like this?

(continued next page...)

Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6

● YellowMan pays their respects to Tattooing

http://www.tattoodles.com/magazine/culture/89/?page=3 (2 of 3)3/17/2006 4:20:26 AM

Tattoo Culture > View Culturama

August 29, 2005

Continued from page 3…

So one does not need to be a tattoo artist to call your shop.

How have you gained such a massive collection?

http://www.tattoodles.com/magazine/culture/89/?page=4 (1 of 3)3/17/2006 4:21:17 AM

You pass this message on through seminars at tattoo conventions?

Do you charge for these seminars?

(continued next page...)

Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6

http://www.tattoodles.com/magazine/culture/89/?page=4 (2 of 3)3/17/2006 4:21:17 AM

Tattoo Culture > View Culturama

August 29, 2005

Continued from page 4…

No, it's always free. Sometimes a promoter will

http://www.tattoodles.com/magazine/culture/89/?page=5 (1 of 3)3/17/2006 4:22:03 AM

Tell me about the Paul Rogers Tattoo Research Center?

How is the PRTRC supported?

Can anyone become a member?

Yes, anyone can become a member.

Are there dues, or can you contribute whatever you want?

What was your personal relationship with Paul Rogers?

(continued next page...)

Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6

● YellowMan pays their respects to Tattooing

http://www.tattoodles.com/magazine/culture/89/?page=5 (2 of 3)3/17/2006 4:22:03 AM

Tattoo Culture > View Culturama

August 29, 2005