1. Iconography
The grim reaper reminds us to live in the moment because life is short, and that there is beauty in death because we are alive right now. My junior high art teacher taught me the basic elements of creating a skull, and it just stuck with me. It’s been in my art repertoire since. Every human being has a skull—underneath the flesh, we’re all the same.
2. Artists
Wes Lang
Wes is also obsessed with skulls. It’s become a character in his story, and it’s so cool to see how he interprets it. In art and painting, genres or movements have been created by specific figures and successive artists who build on them. In the past, I’ve struggled with being too influenced by his work, but now I embrace that connection. I’m trying to do something new and fresh in his lineage.
David Lynch
Best known for his films, he identified as an artist first. He was a painter, photographer, and musician. When he died in 2025, his estate was full of homemade furniture. His entire life was his artwork. I’m constantly asked, “What do you like better: tattooing or painting?” One isn’t better than the other. They’re both what I do. Many viewers find Lynch’s films dark, but I find them beautiful. He created a whole visual language. His films’ endings don’t always satisfy the viewer’s needs for neat resolution. They leave you hanging and force you to pay attention and create your own story. With my paintings, people often ask me, “What does it mean?” But that’s for you to figure out for yourself.
Oliver Macintosh
An English tattooer whose work is exceptional. It’s perfect—identifiably his own while referencing the greats.
3. Music
I’ll be tattooing for up to six hours today, and music helps me access the feelings necessary to do the work. When I’m driving to work or to go surfing, I’m listening to music. When I’m at home, I’m listening to music. Music plays a huge role in the titles of my art. I get obsessed with individual songs and listen to them on loop. I’ll burn a song out and then revisit it later, and it transports me back to that earlier time. Someone once told me, “Your music choices make me want to die,” and I thanked them for that. It brought me joy.
Bill Callahan
On heavy rotation:
4. Old Tattoo Magazines
Most people today find inspiration on social media, which traps them in whatever everyone else is already doing. I look to the past to ground my work in classic style and technique, to hopefully give it a more timeless feel. I search eBay, bookstores, and friends’ collections for magazines from the ’80s and ’90s. Easy Rider made a bunch of magazines, like Tattoo, Tattoo Flash, Outlaw Biker Tattoo, and Tattoo: The World of Dermographics. Old tattooing had a formula and a technique to make sound tattoos. The imagery from that era was classic.
When I first started 20 years ago, I was published in Tattoo and Tattoo Flash. The publisher shipped the magazine to jails. I had letters sent to me from inmates, and they were like, “Man, I’m so stoked for you. I’m here locked up, and I wanna tell you, ‘Keep doing what you’re doing!’”
5. Surfing
Nathan Fletcher
He’s like the Marlboro Man of surfing. He’s got power and he’s fearless. He seems to be an incredible person who’s in touch with his feelings and is present and conscious. In every interview, he has something to say. Guys who are doing what they love and living the lives they want to live, without having to succumb to some bullshit, inspire me.
Misc.
Haydenshapes
I’m 6-foot-4, weigh 170 pounds, and I ride 5 ‘8″ by Haydenshapes. It’s 31.5 liters and I love that board. I’ve got a ton of them. I don’t have to think on that board, I just surf. I rode it at a spot called Naughty Boys in the Maldives. I surfed there for an entire day and got to know the wave really well. The next day, we went out for one last surf before leaving, and didn’t realize how big it was going to be. I saw a proper set approaching and warned my friends, like, “Guys, there’s a fuckin’ bomb coming,” but they didn’t listen. So I paddled out to it, turned, and went on the first wave of the set, and since all my friends were inside, they saw the whole wave happen. It was morning, the sun was rising, facing the wave. I stood up, and the wave just lit up gold in front of me. I rode it as far as I could to the channel and hopped back in the boat. It was the best thing ever.
[For more, read TSJ 35.2’s “This Beautiful Machine: A walk through the doors of perception with tattooer and artist Nathan Kostechko,” by Tony John Andrews. Feature image by Mark McInnis.]
