100 Years of Sailor Jerry

"I guess I knew that tattooing was gonna get real popular," declares the late Mike Malone just minutes into the critically-acclaimed feature-length documentary Hori Smoku Sailor jerry. Many people fortunate enough to have their skin inked by Norman 'Sailor Jerry' Collins may have also predicted his revoluntionary style of tattooing would assist in triggering an expansion within the industry.

Certainly, tattooing has become "real popular" and, unquestionably, the pioneering craftsmanship jerry offered the tattoo community can be credited with commanding a great deal of its growth. If you want to see how far afield Jerry's artistic impact has spread, just look around you. The occupancy of Jerry's art in pop-culture is so wide-spread that it is replicated indifferently on the skin of individual the world over and embellished on everything from footwear to rum bottles.
According to his former protege Don Ed Hardy, Jerry was a "social chameleon" and led a truly varied lifestyle. From skippering Hawaiian island tourist boats to hosting political radio programs he was comfortable in many settings. Remarkably, he even  had no apprehension when it came to disregarding the racial hatred he received for befriending Japanese tattoo masters- or 'Horis'- while serving in World War II. It was through these friendships that Jerry eventually acquired the moniker 'Hori Smoku'- which sounds like 'Holy Smoke' when pronounced with a thick Japanese accent- and absorbed techniques that would diversify the western American style he taught by Tatts Thomas at the start of his career.
Contrasting with the depiction of Jerry as leading a rather animated lifestyle, he was renowned for the private manner in which he conducted his affairs. His sovereign hatred for self-promotion and interaction with the media was well accepted. Jerry was vigilant in ensuring his techniques were not copied, and gaining his trust was not easy. He would even go as far as playing ingenious pranks on rival tattooists that tried to get too close to him. One such time, he insisted that the way he got his red ink to look so bright was by mixing it with sugar- this resulted in cockroaches eating the freshly inked flash sheets from his adversary's shop wall.
Of course, if it weren't for Erich Weiss's magnificent insight into the tales that coalesced to shape Jerry's life in the form of the film Hori Smoku Sailor Jerry, most people would still be largely uneducated on what a complex character Jerry was. The documentary focuses heavily on the chaotic Hotel Street district in Honolulu, Hawaii. This is where Jerry spent most of his life, tattooing clientele that were predominantly adventurous American military personnel. Hunched over boozed-up sailors, charging three dollars a poke- the same fare they had just discarded for three minutes with a hooker- was how Jerry etched the majority of his artwork. Aside from being Jerry's stomping ground for many years, Weiss explains that utilising such a large portion of the film to reveal what life was like on Hotel Street was essential, as it was "a time and a place in American history that was so crucial in the development of our modern times."
Weiss' three-years-in-the-making masterpiece also includes conversations with industry buddies Jerry rubbed shoulders with. The topics they discuss range from personal pop-culture evaluations to tales of the mischievous pranks Jerry executed to amuse himself.
Securing some of these interviews, however, was far from easy. While discussing the conversation he had with Mike Malone, who took over running Jerry's shop after his death, Weiss explains that the first time he phones Malone he basically told me to go to hell- but not in such friendly terms." Actually consummating the interview involved a couple of trips to Chicago and guys like Ed Hardy vouching for him. In Weiss's opinion, however, these challenger essentially made the film and enriched the footage to become more worthwhile and important.
Jerry entered the world on January 14, 1911, picked up his first tattoo gun at some point in the 1920s and settled in Honolulu later that decade. Before reaching Honolulu, he served in the United States Navy for a few years. This experience initiated Jerry's lifelong infatuation with the open seas. Throughout World War II, Jerry once again served in the Navy for a period of time. Ironically, it was after Japan's devastating military strike on Pearl Harbour on December 7, 1941 that a myriad of eager canvasses- in the form of young American males- came to Jerry. Prior to this attack, there were a mere few thousand military personnel based in Hawaii. Subsequently, almost a million men ended up passing through, and many of these go-geters devoted a portion of their usual 48 hours on land to collecting a new travel stamp.
As he became more inventive, Jerry's innovations helped the industry's progression through the introduction of sterilisation and creation of new colours. The formative years of Jerry's endeavours also assisted considerably in establishing the community of today. Early American tattooing aficionado and online editor, Nick Schonberger, who has for the past 10 years focused on American tattooing from the years of 1875 to 1930, explains: "These were pivotal decades in the formation of the American tattoo industry, and for the rooting of specific American images in the tattoo vocabulary."
Schonberger's involvement in bringing Hori Smoku Sailor Jerry into existence came about in 2010. At the time he was acting as curatorial consultant for an exhibition on sailor tattoos titled Skin and Bones, which ran in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. During this time Schonberger became acquainted with Weiss, who was unquestionably the perfect candidate to coordinate the construction of the book. After a few discussions it became apparent that they both has a clear desire to tie Mr. Collins back to the earliest days of American professional tattooing through the medium of print. In doing so, it was crucial "to provide film context for his career and for his innovations." And so the task of unifying the visual and historical elements of Jerry's life had arrived.
In order to truly convey what Jerry was about, drawing from a wide range of perspectives was necessary, and so a number of writers became involved. According to Schonberger, the input of numerous writers from differing backgrounds assisted in providing a full view of Sailor Jerry's life. An American university history professor by the name of Dr. David Farber even contributed to the publication. "Dr. Farber provided an excellent essay on Honolulu's Hotel Street," says Schonberger. Perhaps a little less unexpectedly, former American Inked magazine editor Jason Buhrmester scribed Jerry's biography for the book. On his personal blog, when discussing the publication as a whole, Buhrmester said it does "a great job of detailing the birth of American tattooing and the importance World War II played in its evolution." Continuing on, he claimed that the book provides an interesting look at a moment in time for target audiences that include anyone who is either "heavily tattooed, an art nerd or a History Channel buff."
Coinciding with the 100-year anniversary of the birth of the artist himself and available exclusively from the official Sailor Jerry website, Homeward Bound: The Life and Time of Sailor Jerry Hori Smoku provides written insight relating to 20th century tattoo shop lifestyle and historical information relative to Jerry's impact on the spread of tattooing across America. Sprawled across 128 pages, these penned-passages are fused with visual imagery, including rare and unseen photographs of Jerry and the environments he existed within. Of course, you will also find pictures of Jerry's boldly-lined, astutely-designed flash art, which tell tales of romance, travel, friendship and adventure. Decades after they were created, these designs remain relevant, inspiring and invigorating to tattoo enthusiasts all over the world.
Thanks to both the documentary Hori Smoku Sailor Jerry and the book Homeward Bound: The Life and Times of Hori Smoku Sailor Jerry, now everybody can appreciate the stories that shaped Jerry's existence, despite the fact that maintaining his somewhat secretive lifestyle was always of capital importance to the artist himself. So how would he feel about the fuss that is presently being made of his conquest? "It's hard to think he wouldn't be proud of the recognition," muses Schonberger. "Would he have said anything? Who knows?"