My brother and I were born and raised by our single mom here in Cobble Hill. I’ve got 2 kids, 13 and 16, who were both born at Long Island College Hospital, and they split time between my home here in Cobble Hill, and their mom’s home in Bay Ridge.

I have been living and working in this neighborhood all of my life except for college and a few years after college. I was born in 1969 and lived here through high school. I went to P.S. 29, where my mother eventually ended up teaching. I went to Music and Art High School and then the Rhode Island School of Design. I moved back to Brooklyn after graduating in 1991 and lived in Bushwick until the late 90’s, then moved back to Cobble Hill in my late 20’s and have lived here ever since. Our tattoo shop, Brooklyn Tattoo opened up in Boerum Hill in 2002, and we have moved the shop 4 times within a 15-block radius in the last 25 years. My art studio is currently at the end of Court Street by Lorraine Street in the Cube Smart building. 

The beauty of what I do is that there is no typical day. I am always working on something new, sometimes I'm at the studio, sometimes I’m at the tattoo shop tattooing. But as typical as it gets, I work on illustration, graphic design and drawing up tattoos for half of the day and then I switch to fine artwork that’s mainly for myself, commissions or for upcoming art shows. If I’m caught up in my professional work, I’m just creating art all day. 

When I was growing up, our mother would take us to the Metropolitan Museum of Art on the weekends. They had free kid’s art classes. She would drop us off and go wander the museum by herself while we made art. My mother was an art lover herself, mainly a collector of African art. She was always supportive and encouraging of my work. 

 

We had a family friend who taught at the Art Students league in Manhattan and despite there being an age limit, I was able to get in at 12 and start drawing the nude figure which is a core tradition in fine art education. 

 

Of the many extracurriculars I was exposed to, art has been the only thing I tried when I was young that stuck with me and the only thing I would work on and practice on my own. I always knew I wanted to be an artist when I grew up but didn’t know in what capacity. Going to high school at Music and Art (which later became Laguardia High School of the Arts), I started to see a future in “commercial art”. I wanted to design record covers, concert posters and make comics. I’ve done all that stuff and now do a wide variety of things, not concentrating on any one medium or field. That's what keeps things interesting for me. 

I am inspired by living in the city. Most of my work relates to cityscapes and urban iconography. Whether it be painting, illustration, comic book work, and even in my tattooing it all swings back to reflections of my urban environment. I also get inspired by music, other people's art, my children, standing on the Smith/9th Street subway platform looking out across Gowanus and into downtown. I can get inspired by a stain or crack in the sidewalk. Inspiration comes from all over and sometimes in the most unlikely places.

Most of my painting is of scenes I have walked through repeatedly before I decide to capture it on canvas. Scenes from where I grew up and the surrounding neighborhoods - details in an ever-changing landscape that I want to capture before they fade, get developed over or are taken away altogether. I would say my cityscape paintings are the most meaningful. At the same time, tattooing can be deeply meaningful to the person who receives it and I enjoy being a part of and providing that experience as well. 

I am partially colorblind; I found this out when I was very young. I see color, I just have a hard time identifying it and mixing it. My palette, once you notice, is pretty uniform, and not very complex. If I am doing a commission, or want to get something ‘correct’, I will have my studio mate and friend of 35 years Jason Mitchell help me out with it. People are surprised when they find this out, it’s all I’ve ever known.

There are so many things, and I bring a lot of it up in these other answers, but one thing I bring up a lot to people is that in a city of skyscrapers and ever-continuing development, this neighborhood rarely goes above 4 stories. You don’t have to look 90 degrees straight up to see the sky.

I don’t eat out a whole lot, but when I do, I choose places I know my kids will enjoy. Lobo has been a favorite of ours since they opened and my kids love it. Buddy’s Burritos has been around forever and is always awesome. The Tacos Casamigos truck on Court Street, great. I’ve been going to Vinnie’s of Carroll Gardens on Smith Street since they opened, and they’re always great. Sadly, living here for so long, my list of places I love that are no longer here may be longer than the places I frequent now.  

 For kid-free hanging I’ve been known to be seen at Bar Great Harry, Wing Bar and Zombie Hut. They are all on the same block. For 7 years Brooklyn Tattoo was in the middle of them, so we all know each other, and we have tattooed many of the staff and a couple of the owners of all these places. 

Cobble Hill has been my home for most of my life. Walking through Cobble Hill Park or Carroll Park reminds me of being a kid. Smelling D’amico’s coffee, pizza cooking or bread baking on Court Street, feels like childhood. Waiting in line at Court Pastry for ices with my kids is very nostalgic. 

I have been stepping on the same cracks in these sidewalks for half a century, it all feels like home. There’s so much nostalgia from my childhood that I try to share with my kids. They get tired of me telling the same stories over and over. As they get older, I feel they’ll start to get it. 

That isn’t to say this neighborhood hasn’t changed a great deal and is changing as we speak. A lot of people who have lived here a long time lament the changes. Everything changes and there are good and not so good changes. There are good and not-so-good things about the way things used to be as well. You roll with it, welcome the new stuff that’s good, show newcomers the old stuff that’s good, and remain positive about everything, be inclusive and you build a great community. 

My main inspiration is being in the moment. When I’m on the subway and the train goes outside, just like when I was a kid, I stand up and go to the window and just look out at the city. Taking long walks from Cobble Hill through Red Hook, or Park Slope. Walking through Brooklyn Bridge Park towards DUMBO, just watching the Brooklyn Bridge get bigger and bigger as I get closer. One of my favorite muses, the bridge is always inspiring. 

I would say Jimi Hendrix but that could be weird, as he died at 27, and I’d be twice his age, same with Keith Haring or Jean-Michel Basquiat. But Francis Bacon died at 65, so he’d be older than me, maybe that would be more age appropriate.

I am very excited for this year’s Gowanus Open Studios this month. Our building, TI Art Studios, has over 100 art studios in there and it’s a great community of creative people of all ages and backgrounds. Most of the studios open their doors. It’s very interactive as well as kid-and dog-friendly. One wouldn’t imagine there is such a huge art community this close to Cobble Hill and many of its artists live in the neighborhood. It’s a really great way for art lovers to interact with the artists, check out their processes, collect artwork directly from the artist. It’s a lot of fun. It’s the weekend of October 18-19th. TI Studios is at 183 Lorraine Street (3rd floor of the CubeSmart building) off Court Street, under the Gowanus Expressway.