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Jeff Gogue
honesty...from the gut
Interview by Crash
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I met Jeff Gogue at the Seattle convention in ‘07 and, while passing his
booth, I was stopped in my tracks by the intensity of the artwork hanging
there. There were powerful yet sublime female figures, dragons, beasties,
and skulls...lots of skull paintings. Every time I go to a convention I am
on the hunt, so to speak, constantly looking for someone’s art to blow
me away whom I’ve never heard of. Now I don’t know every tattooer out
there, obviously, but I have my ear pretty close to the tracks normally
and I usually hear of people long before I meet them. Not this time. I was
struck by his work, staggered, flabbergasted you might say. We struck up
a conversation that lasted, on and off, over the whole weekend and at the
end of the show Jeff gave me the skull painting that had caught my eye all
weekend long but which I could not afford. How cool!
One of the things we talked about at that convention was that I didn’t think
his tattoos, though awesome and flawless, were reaching the potential
that I saw in his paintings. It’s often pretty awkward to talk to tattooers
about their work. All of us have egos and not many of us ask for or can
take a real critique...but Jeff was asking for honesty, (a keyword in Jeff’s
vocabulary, as you’ll soon discover), and seemed genuinely interested in
hearing what I thought about his w ork. We talked a lot about potential vs
actualization and theories of how to intentionally move ourselves and our
work positively in a particular direction with a set goal in mind. We talked
about art, art theory, and some of the ageless principals of solid tattooing.
These are conversations Jeff and I have had many times since then, but
the conversation started then. There’s something almost sacred about
these conversations, in fact, we now refer to it as “the conversation”; it’s
deep, intense, and quite reflective...and it’s ongoing. At the end of the
show we decided that we’d wait a while before beginning the interview
process and getting him in the magazine beyond some submission photos
and a 1-Pager.
Well, over the next year I saw Jeff several more times- at Milan, Long Beach,
and then Seattle again where we finally decided to do the interview. He
was quickly building an incredible worldwide reputation, even being tapped
to do the poster for the Milan Tattoo Convention, long considered an honor
for any tattooer, particularly one so relatively new and unknown.
Now for some fun. To do the interview, since Jeff is such a quiet and
assuming fella’, we started with some drinks to get loosened up. That
process continued over three evenings...the drinking and the interviewing!
“Drunk words , sober thoughts”, he said. Beer and saki were the poisons
of preference that week, but it was the conversation that mattered. We
talked a lot on a myriad of topics ranging from God to art to history to
family, future, career, and about what it means to really by “successful” in
life... and, in the end, we still hadn’t really scratched the surface.
Jeff has been more than a little worried about this article coming out.
He doesn’t feel ready. He’s a harsh self-critic. He knows that most of
the principals we talk about in this interview are not yet fully integrated
into his work. The future holds so much promise. I finally had to tell him,
“This isn’t your last interview, Jeff. It’s your first one [in TAM].”And if I
could distill that conversation, it would come down to this: “This is about
letting other people see where you really are now, today, and give them
some insight into the things you’re learning how to apply to your work
now and in the future. They’ll see that unfold over the next year or two...
or twelve. But you gotta be honest about where you are now. That’s what
matters.” In the conversation we talked about living openly and honestly
with ourselves, our families and our peers...but walking
it out in the open is a whole lot different than talking
about it. And I gotta say, though he is truly exposing
himself to a degree I don’t think we’ve had before in this
magazine, openly talking about his goals, aspirations
and shortcomings, it’s in spite of the inherent fears
we all know when feeling vulnerably exposed, and he’s
courageous enough to believe it in principal and then
to do it. He’s walking it out. And I know this much, Jeff
Gogue is a guy that I want to know the rest of my life and
I have a feeling that our “conversation” will continue for
many years to come.
On a final note, I had the chance to sit in on his seminar
at the Seattle show and I would highly recommend it
to everyone. It was inspiring on so many levels. I saw
people come in rather unsure of themselves and leave
with a completely new outlook on art, tattooing, and life
in general. Now I can’t promise that will be the result,
but I’ve been privy to a lot of different seminars in the
past and this one, Jeff’s, is a shining light compared to
all the others I’ve attended. The topics ranged from basic
principals of composition, color, light/shadow, focus
to some nifty tricks in application...but the odd thing
was that every topic he discussed could be interpreted
and applied not just to the narrow view of art theory in
general, or tattooing specifically, but life itself. I don’t
know how many times I’ve heard that Jeff’s seminar
literally “changed someone’s life”. That’s heavy! Sounds
kinda’ silly to say it out loud or type it, but it’s true. Best
I can recommend is that you check it out for yourself. In
the meantime, sit and sift through our “conversation”
and let me know what you get out of it. I hope it’s half as
much as I do every time I’m lucky enough to participate
in it with Mr. Gogue.
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