Excerpt from the article:
“I got the first tool tattooed in 1991 and completed the legs in 2012. I tried to get one tool every summer when I could afford it, pulling a tool from my toolbox and taking it to my tattooist, Joe Leonard. Most of the tools were ones that I had ‘borrowed’ from my father or had been handed down to me from my grandfather. Others were just the old weathered tools that I used every day. All of them are hand tools. Joe is someone I trust, to the point that he would just lay the tool down beside me and start tattooing. After we had filled up both legs with tools, we started on the puppet leg design. My parents were both puppet makers from the 60s to the 80s. When I showed my father the completed legs and pointed out that they were referencing him, he said, ‘If you want to honor me, you can just keep your pants on.’”
—Todd Barricklow, Artist, Santa Rosa, Calif.
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