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He largely withdrew from the active world of tattooing and died on November 28, 2001. In the Cliff Raven Travel Book: 1969 - 1970, a handwritten note about Phil Sparrow’s shop reads “.tattooing by appointment only”, a far cry from open-books style tattooing but a gesture that was likely welcomed by clients seeking inclusivity, discretion, comfort, and safety -values that are still important to clients.Īlthough Raven retired from tattooing in 1985, he continued to tattoo select long-time clients on a case-by-case basis. A massive piece that could have taken multiple sessions to complete, all in a spot that was only visible when the client was unclothed. Archival photos of Raven’s work show incredibly large, detailed tattoos on men’s bodies that were placed specifically to avoid visibility one photo that stood out to me was a neo-Japanese dragon that Raven had tattooed across a man’s thigh, around his lower back, and back around his other thigh. Even as tattooing was becoming more socially acceptable, being gay was not.
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The relationship between a leather bar and a tattoo artist might seem like a stretch until you consider the context: it’s likely more than a coincidence that gay men were socializing and tattooing together. Renslow went on to found the first gay leather bar in the country in 1958, The Gold Coast. Cliff met Sparrow through a mutual friend Chuck Renslow. However, he learned the specifics of the trade from another famed Chicago tattooing legend, Phil Sparrow, also a gay man. Raven stated that he believes he invented tattooing, at least in the modern context. We honor Cliff Raven all year round, but continue to highlight him in June during Pride month because, in addition to being a local tattoo pioneer, he was openly gay during a time when homosexuality was socially unacceptable and, in some places, outright illegal. Besides tattooing, Raven also has a legacy in Chicago for his social contributions to the local gay scene. It was somewhere in my mid-teens." - Cliff Raven I only did one design (on myself).it was quite small (a butterfly).
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I had to invent it because nobody showed me how to do it. “As far as I was concerned I invented tattooing. The intricate nature of Raven’s work is likely a result of his fine arts training but also adds an element of privacy, even discretion. Raven was prone to drawing designs directly onto his clients using a toothpick dipped in India ink, making the pieces highly detailed and original. Even in-house at Great Lakes Tattoo, Raven’s influence is visible the walls of the shop are covered in flash sheets, vintage and contemporary.ĭespite our collective appreciation for Cliff Raven, little of his artwork is featured on the walls of the shop because Raven’s artwork was almost as ephemeral as the artist himself. With a Fine Arts degree from Indiana University, Raven was able to use his artistic talents to help tattooing transition from the urban underbelly of the State Street arcade-tattooing era, a time where tattooing was criminalized and being forced to the margins of society, into the prototype for the contemporary tattoo parlors we see today. Great Lakes Tattoo’s own Nick Colella refers to Cliff Raven as a member of The Trilogy (a group that also featured American tattooing legends Ed Hardy and Don Nolan), the winner of the first Tattooer of the Year award at the 1976 Annual International Tattoo Convention, and the founder of Cliff Raven Tattoo Studio (now known as Chicago Tattoo & Piercing Company) - Raven also ran Chicago Tattoo Supply out of the same shop. Born in East Chicago, Indiana in 1932, Cliff Raven was one of the most influential tattoo artists of his time.