Artistic Expression Unleashed: Inside the Life of Tattoo Artist Sean Foy

So figure it out how to get home.

And then they just bounce.

SPEAKER_01: Welcome to Grit, Great, and Insights.

I'm your host, Kevin Lowe, and I'm excited to welcome you inside.

What's going on?

And how are you today?

Baby, I am excited to be back here on the podcast in the studio for this week.

Me with you, ya baby.

It is episode 187 here on Grit Grace and Inspiration.

And today I have got the story for you.

You never know what you're gonna find when you go to the barbershop.

Now, you might be thinking that you're going to the barbershop to find you a new haircut, a beard trim, a good time, some dirty jokes, some new people.

Well, when I went to the barbershop, what did I find?

I found the next guest for the podcast.

Some people walk into a room and they take up space.

Other people walk into a room and they fill the space.

Let me repeat that.

When you're in a room, there's two kinds of people.

There's those who take up space, and then there are those that fill the space.

When I was sitting at the barber shop the other day, getting my beard all trimmed up, the hair looking fresh, having a good time, and watch somebody who filled the space.

I'm blind.

I have no idea what he looks like.

But all I know is he's got an energy about him, a presence about him.

And he immediately lights up the room.

Now why?

What made him any different than the other people in the barbershop that day?

There was something different about him.

It was his vibe.

It was his energy.

High energy, high vibe, high vibrations were going on when this guy walked into the room.

And immediately I was drawn to it.

Immediately I thought to myself, whoo, baby, we all need some energy, some enthusiasm about life like this guy has.

By the time I left the barbershop that day, I had figured out who he was.

His name, Sean Foy, a massively successful tattoo artist.

Yeah, living right here in my same little beachside town is a guy named Sean Foy.

A man who walks into a room, it doesn't take up space, but he fills the space with his energy, his enthusiasm, his presence about him.

And I knew right away that I needed more of this guy in my life.

And I needed to have him on the show.

I started following him on Instagram, something that I'm going to encourage you to do by checking out today's show notes and quickly realized I gotta just do it.

I gotta reach out.

So I sent the infamous DM letting him know, hey, I know that you probably have no clue who I am, but we recently met at the local barbershop.

And I've got a podcast that I think you would be amazing for.

Long story short, I sat down in the studio with John Ford to unpack his story.

And the story is indeed true.

You're about to dive into the story of John Ford, the real story, a story to show you of where he came from, how he got to where he is today.

And it's been a wild ride.

And I honestly cannot wait for you to meet this.

So with that said, I want to encourage you at this moment to turn up the volume, to get ready, to hold on to your seat, but the belt and get ready.

Because this is episode 187 with tattoo artist John Ford.

John, welcome to the podcast, man.

What's going on, man?

How you doing?

I am doing amazing, dude.

So excited to get to sit down with you today and kind of unpack your story for my listeners.

And I would love to kind of start by kind of going back a ways to give me and my audience some context into exactly who you are.

So I guess I guess the best way to kind of sum up my question is who was Sean Foy before the world knew who Sean Foy was?

SPEAKER_02: Oh well, I was born in uh in Staten Island, New York, and then uh spent a lot of my life in New Jersey, uh, moved there at a younger age, and um, you know, just like regular kind of stuff, but always kind of like uh not the main like I didn't play football, I didn't really play sports, but I skateboarded, I wrote graffiti, this sort of thing.

I was on track to like be actually probably going pro for skateboarding.

Like I was sponsored by a shop, some companies were floating me some shoes and this sort of thing.

Oh wow.

Things were looking real good, and then I blew my knee out, and uh, you know, at 17 years old, you don't take your physical therapy as serious as you should.

It kind of never it never came back.

You know what I mean?

It's it's still to this day it hurts when it rains and stuff.

So then at that point, that's when things started to like not go so good.

Like that's like when uh you know you you had that like, well, this is what I thought I was gonna do the rest of my life.

And um, you know, then you start drinking and hanging out because you know, I felt lost, you know.

So I I kind of like drifted around for a bit.

I went to one of the better art schools in Manhattan.

I don't know if it still is one of the better ones, but in the early 2000s, uh, we're talking like the fall of 2002 and you know, 2003, 2004.

I went to uh the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan.

And at that time, that was probably one of the top four or five in the city, which makes it probably like top 20 or 30 in the world, which was pretty cool.

But uh I just couldn't I couldn't excel in like a classroom environment.

Do you know what I mean?

Yeah, yeah, I totally know what you mean.

Yeah, I just I I you know it stinks because like I think about it now, like, man, I would love to take those classes now that I'm like a grown man and you know what I mean, have a little bit more discipline and stuff.

But at that age, uh, you know, you know, I I wanted to be out, I wanted to be writing graffiti, I wanted to be running the street and this sort of thing.

And um I wound up like getting um politely asked to leave from uh art school.

I like uh watched the movie Scarface too many times for my own good.

I thought I was Tony Montana.

I was like selling weed and stuff when it was uh still very illegal.

And um it was, you know, one of those, you know, one of those times.

And then, you know, so I I get tossed out of there, and uh then my uh go to back to New Jersey and uh you know tried a whole bunch of different things.

I tried going back to school, that didn't work.

I wound up just being like a waiter and like a bartender and a bar back for years, and then I went up living with this uh one friend of mine, and he was actually a tattoo artist.

He wasn't like a great one or anything, but back in 2005, 2006, 2007, that was, I mean, just being a tattoo artist was like, whoa, whoa, how did you even get that?

And um I know that uh apprenticeships were like super brutal, like they would try actively to make you quit or to break you, and it's not like it is now, it's pretty, it's pretty soft now, but uh so really soft.

Like I don't, you know, uh we'll get into that later, but yes.

So this kid uh I live with him, his name was Mike.

He's still tattoos, he's he's still doing good tattoos somewhere in New Jersey.

But uh we lived together, and um the owner of the his partner at the shop, like the main owner was this uh lady, she went by LA, that was her name, and uh little Annie, I think was the abbreviation for it.

She's short, very uh Napoleon type energy, small lesbian woman.

Okay, she was hard as nails, but she came through our apartment and saw that we had uh I had a bunch of paintings that I had done at art school briefly and a bunch of graffiti stuff hanging around.

She asked me, um, you know, who did all this?

And you know, I was a little punk back then.

I was like, me, what's it to you?

You know, like step off my stuff, you know what I mean?

Like you're too close to my my shit over there, you know.

She's like, no, no, I'm uh I I own the tattoo shop.

And then uh she would come around more and uh eventually she's like, you know, uh, you should probably just like quit that job that you got, and like why don't you get like another job and then start helping out part-time at the shop?

And I was like, Well, I mean, I don't got nothing else going on, you know.

I was like pretty much a certified like loser at that point, you know.

I was like, I was like doing drugs and you know, all kinds of stuff, like like really doing drugs, you know what I mean?

Back then.

She asked me to um uh you know start working the desk at the shop.

And I said, uh, all right, cool, man.

You know, not thinking that I'm anything's even gonna come of this.

Now, while all this is going on, too, I'm like actively starting to find out about like crack cocaine, you know what I mean?

Like in this whole same time that this is going on.

And uh, because even the kid I lived with, he wasn't into drugs, but he was like uh a super alcoholic.

So uh we were just kind of living in our little poison apartment together.

And uh the um, you know, so I I quit my my regular job, waiting tables at a bigger restaurant.

Well, no, sorry, I wasn't waiting tables then.

I was managing a small coffee house in Bistro.

So I quit that job and then I go back to waiting tables by doing lunch shifts, which is barely enough to survive.

I'm sure you you know, like if you wait tables, you want those dinner shifts because that's where you get tips, you know.

Exactly.

Yeah, so at this time, I, you know, I I start working at the shop, then eventually she asked me to be her apprentice, and um I said, okay, shit, you know, that's that sounds great, man.

I had like literally have nothing going for me.

Like, this sounds great.

And um, in those days, uh tattooing was like the island of misfit toys, like from the old uh Rudolph cartoon, you know?

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: Uh like everybody, like if you were a felon, a graffiti writer, uh a biker, back then being gay was super not normal.

You know what I mean?

Like super not normal.

And there there would be gay dudes in there, but they were like hard, like tough gay dudes.

It was crazy, you know?

And uh there was all these kind of like all these different characters, but the only thing that the thing that made it all like kind of work was that everybody was not like accepted by what would be mainstream like anything.

So um within reason, kind of got along.

It didn't matter if you were black, white, Spanish, like, oh, you do tats, oh you can't work at a normal job, sick, you just come join the club, you know.

So I start this apprenticeship.

It was pretty rugged.

Like I used to have to do, and mind you, like I'm I have a crack cocaine problem like while I'm doing this.

So there were some rough mornings there.

And uh she would have you in those days, you you would go into a tattoo shop and they would have stuff on the wall called Flash, and you would like, oh, I want A4 and add uh the name Jim and a date to it or something like that.

So someone had to make the tracings of those so that you could run them through the machine and make the stencil.

So that was you're an apprentice, that's what you do.

You had to trace all these things in those days.

Uh, I'm sure you remember you're roughly my age.

All the everything was super like uh new school style with the fat outlines and everything had this kind of like hip-hop graffiti look to it everywhere.

I used to have to trace these.

Yeah, I'm sure you remember.

It was like even like Mountain Duads had like Buster rhymes on them and stuff.

Uh it was in the it was like hip-hop and skateboarding, they like tried to jam it in everything they could.

Like X games and uh graffiti shit was everywhere.

But uh so I traced these things, and um, if you didn't bold out the lines, like you know, double line them to make them have that bolded out edge there, you know, she couldn't use it.

So if I had a little wobble in there, she would come up and punch me right in my neck, dude.

You know?

And um she would make me do all this crazy stuff, dude.

Like I had to walk to the other side of Elizabeth, New Jersey.

It was July.

It just it just rained.

And Elizabeth is it's not like the worst hood, but it's most definitely it's more hood than Daytona.

You know what I mean?

For for sure.

More definitely more hood than Daytona, definitely a little more dangerous by far, by magnitude.

She was like, I need you to walk to Home Depot on the other side of the city.

You have to walk there and you have to get a bracket to hang this one shelf up, just one bracket.

And if you come back smelling like sweat, you're fired.

If you come back smelling like man's sweat, you're fired.

And we're probably gonna beat you up.

And I was like, dang, all right.

Shoot.

So I'm trying to like devise how to do this.

And it just rained, so it's humid, like how it is in Florida.

Like, you're not gonna not sweat.

You know what I mean?

Like, you're gonna sweat.

So had to walk across there.

I wound up taking like I've got the bracket, I wound up taking a hobo shower in the bathroom at like uh a pathmark, which is like a Publix but not a high-end one.

And I bought one of those 3X t-shirts.

Those remember those super big t-shirts in the 2000s, the really tall T's or whatever.

I bought one of those.

Yeah, I bought one of those off a guy selling them out of like a shopping cart in the hood.

And I bought some axe deodorant, and I would walk with my arms out, like, you know what I mean, so that my arm, my arms wouldn't touch my side and the sweat wouldn't accumulate.

And I kept just spraying myself with axe, and I did that for probably like 25 or 30 blocks, and I made it back to the shop with this ridiculous pink Moo Moo t-shirt on.

Of course, he only had pink.

I couldn't even get a white or a black tee, right?

Like, so I had this ridiculous pink thing on, and she's like, oh, all right, pass test one, man.

You know, then the next one was I had to detail her entire car with only Q-tips and Windex.

And again, it had to be outside, middle of the day, July, that kind of thing, dude.

And they would do stuff like that all the time.

I had to go make her coffee in the morning, and if I made it wrong, she would throw the hot coffee on my face.

The last one they did, this was like a pretty wild one.

They covered me in log cabin syrup, like you put on your pancakes.

Okay.

Yeah, they took the down feathers from inside a pillow and covered me in syrup and feathers and left me outside the projects in uh in Newark, New Jersey.

And they took my wallet and my phone, and they said, you have to learn how to adapt, overcome, and improvise because nothing ever goes right during a tattoo.

So figure it out how to get home.

And then they just bounced.

And uh, you know, I begged a bus driver to let me come on the bus and stand there and not touch anything and promise I wouldn't sit down and all this stuff.

I made it home.

You know, I was like, oh, cool, man.

Like I made the kind of the last like test of becoming like uh the apprentice.

I'm I'm I'm really kind of doing this now.

And after that, I was allowed to start doing like the fake skins.

They're like rubber skins, you know?

Yep.

During that time, you know, I'm ramping up like my drug problem and alcohol abuse is like ramping up pretty high during this time.

I wound up getting arrested for graffiti during that time.

And I just decided that I just wasn't gonna go to court.

You know what I mean?

I had already had like a DWI, so I'm on foot.

I'm like, what are they gonna do?

Pull over my Nike?

He's like, I'm not going to court.

I'm not gonna uh, you know what I mean?

Like, how are they gonna find me, right?

Because the only way they, in my mind, the only way they find you is if you're uh driving and you get pulled over, you know?

I was like, I'm on public transportation, I'm blending in with the crowd.

They'll never I'll ride this out until I have enough money that my career started to deal with this legal situation that I have here.

Because at that time I I for sure didn't.

I was like sleeping on people's couches.

At that point, I had kind of lost that apartment, things weren't going great there.

You know what I mean?

Yep.

Yeah, so I catch that charge.

I decided not to go to court.

So now I'm just you know, I'm riding the bus and yada yada, and no one's uh catching me.

I decide to go into Manhattan with a friend of mine, and now um, you know, we went there to like, you know, party and I forget what we were doing, like something, I forget, but um, we went there partying, we're like drinking and stuff, and then I think we we were doing like doing some cocaine or something, and um no, that's definitely what we were doing.

Yeah, but uh we came back from Manhattan into Newark Penn Station, and um I'm drunk and I'm on drugs, so I I'm I'm kind of making a scene, and it was like rush hour time, so it's very busy there, and I was just being really loud, and uh the transit police had come over to me and they're like, bro, you gotta calm down, or else, like, you know, we're gonna have to take you in.

And I was like, all right, I'll calm down, I'll calm down.

I didn't calm down.

I kept being super loud and obnoxious and drunk and on drugs.

They came back over to me and I like kind of resisted arrest, man.

You know what I mean?

And uh I got uh I got arrested and um I wound up going to the jail there in Newark, New Jersey.

That place was um not for the faint of heart, man.

You know what I mean?

It was like, you know, you're sitting there with your papers, and uh, you know, everyone's like, oh, what are you here for?

And you can you can see your charges, and um, you know, it's like the people next to me, it's like cook up, cook up, cook up, which is like selling crack.

And then uh ratchet, ratchet, ratchet, which is having a gun.

One guy had like three bodies on him, like he murdered three people.

He was like, didn't have any bail.

There was another guy with like a million-dollar bail, and then they get to me, they're like, What do you what you got, man?

What's on your papers?

And I'm like, you know, uh, I resisted arrest and I had a warrant for graffiti, and they're like, Oh man, you're like, this is like not gonna be a cool place for you, dog.

And I was like, Yeah, probably not, dude.

Probably not.

But uh, you know, go through all that, dude.

And um, you know, after a while, I I get home and um I have to be on like a county parole, you know, to make that expedited, that process expedited faster.

You can check into like a um an intensive state run, like a rehab kind of thing.

So of course I did that because otherwise you're gonna drag this uh probation parole on and have it to pee in a cup in front of a dude for how a couple years probably.

And um, you know, so I go through that program.

I actually got like sober during that time, which was you know pretty, pretty cool.

That was good, you know.

Yep.

But the problem with getting sober is is that you realize all the stuff that you did to other people that was horrible during the time that you weren't sober, you know what I mean?

Yes, yes so I had to make a lot of amends, yeah, dude.

Yeah, yeah, man.

Had to make a lot of amends and um get some things straight there.

And uh my parents were cool enough to like take me in during that time, so I'm kind of like living in their basement, and I got like a futon over there.

They let me tattoo people in the house because I would it was the only thing that they had saw from me that like wasn't that had a future.

Do you know what I mean?

Like uh and at that time tattooing was not like you weren't making, you were not making money like you do now, you know.

But it was like a a reasonably safe life, and it wasn't I wasn't trying to sell drugs or do you know what I mean?

Like they were like, okay, and it's art, and he went to school for art, so let's let's do that, right?

So they supported me, and I wound up tattooing all these people that I was like on parole with and in the rehab with, like in my parents' house.

Thank God they were so cool about that, you know?

But I think they were just trying to like save their son, and that was like, I think if they if they threw me back out on the street, I probably would have gone back to the same old stuff I was doing.

But um, yeah, it's kind of the start, and that's like because I had to, I was on that parole, I had to take a um a job where uh You know, you can't tattoo when you're on parole because there's no pay stubs, especially in those days.

There was no incorporate anything.

It was cash.

I mean, you were you were kind of operating the same way a drug dealer would.

Like, all right, well, how much am I gonna even put in this bank account?

Like, you know, am I even gonna have a bank account?

You know, kind of thing, dude.

Yep.

Yeah.

So I had to get a job at uh I was like, where what place is gonna at this point in time?

You know, this is 2000 and 2007 into 2008.

You know, what place is gonna hire you?

In those days, I had a hand tattoo.

I had something that came onto my neck, and that was like, it is not like now where I go to Dunkin' Donuts and the chick that gives my coffee has like a a face tat.

You know, this it was not like that, man.

It was it was totally not that was not regular, dude.

You know, like literally I got coffee yesterday and the chick like had a bold face tat.

I'm like, that would not have you would not even be able to get a job picking up dog poop with a face tattoo back in 2005, 2006, 7008.

Yeah, so Starbucks hired me and I was like, oh, sick, dude.

Because they were like, oh, we're artsy, dude.

Like, yeah, you could have tats, bro.

Like it's totally fine.

You could you could do that here.

And I was like, all right, sick, dude.

And then uh they had like, you know, insurance.

You could only work 20 hours a week there, and you could get medical, dental, and vision for 20 for part-time.

And I was like, okay, sick.

So I was like, I'll do this, get this insurance, and then I'll tattoo in my parents' basement and try to like get this portfolio up so that hopefully I can get hired at a shop.

Now I'm straight garbage, I'm a hot pile of trash at tattooing at this point.

Like the only thing that I knew how to do was be sterile because of the thank God for the apprenticeship, because otherwise I probably would have gave people like staph infections or something.

But but I, you know, I was committed, you know, that same energy that made me a good crackhead.

I just tried to turn that into, you know, into something positive, into, into the art, into tattooing.

And um, so I would take the bus to the Starbucks early, like two hours before my shift, and I would sit there and I would draw, and I would show up there with like drawings that were like 75% done.

So they were like, you'd walk past, like, oh, that looks cool.

Like they were far enough along that it would pique people's interest.

And I would sit there and try to bait people into getting tattooed by me and like showing them my crappy MySpace page or whatever it was back then, and you know, trying to convince them, and I would get, you know, I always find up tattooing all these young, like broke kids, and I almost like wish I could find some of them now and like pay for the laser removal and like do a nice cover-up on them because you know it was rough, dude.

It was rough, you know, it was for sure rough.

But that was like the yeah, that was like the start, you know.

SPEAKER_01: Wow, well, well, dude, that's so crazy.

So now I have to back up.

So now you talked about being a kid and you really only talked about like graffiti art, you talked about skateboarding, but obviously art was a big deal for you growing up for the fact that you went to this art college.

So was that indeed the case?

Art was always a big thing.

SPEAKER_02: My mother didn't like get the art gene per se.

Like she wasn't like a painter or anything, but she had like a really she did hair and she in in Staten Island, New York, that's like a a big deal doing hair in the 80s and the 90s, right?

Like, you know what I'm saying?

So that was like a big deal, and she had always had a knack for like fashion and interior design stuff, like much to my father's chagrin, because she she definitely spent a ton of fucking money doing shits at the house I'm sure he wasn't stoked about, but it looked really good, it looked really nice, dude.

But her mother was like an a real artist, and her my grandmother's father was a really accomplished uh oil painter.

He used to, you know, he uh I think he was, you know, I don't want to misquote the man's been dead a long time, but I'm pretty sure he was like an alcoholic that, you know, they didn't have like AA or anything in those days.

So it's like you had to just find something else to do instead of drink, right?

He started like oil painting and he would he made all these reproductions of Van Gogh's that are so deadly accurate, like people have legit thought that my mom had some high-end print of uh Van Gogh or uh in the house.

Like, no, my fucking grandpa did that.

So that was like always in the house, and my my parents would sign me up for stuff for all kinds of art programs, but I, you know, I didn't like get along with a lot of those kids because they were very kind of like private school, sort of like elite kind of kids.

Or there were people that were in those programs that like had no talent at all, and their parents wanted to just drop them off so they could get rid of their kids for an hour or two, which you know, parents be doing that.

But uh so they'd have me in all these programs, and but it wasn't really.

I always would draw to draw comic book characters and monsters and all this kind of stuff, but it wasn't really until I remember like really seeing because it was about the 90s and graffiti started to get like good.

Okay, you know what I mean?

Like where you you would be like, oh wow, that that that looks sick, dude, you know?

And I was getting old enough to comprehend that it was like, oh wow, those guys are they're on to something here.

And uh there was just something about that.

I knew that these guys were doing it because they loved it.

I knew that they weren't getting paid at all, anything.

If anything, they were spending their money and like risking going to jail.

So I knew that there was like something special there with that.

Like that these guys weren't, they weren't trying to sell to people in art galleries or cater to some really rich cat.

They weren't doing like boring portraits of someone's kid or something.

They were like, they were doing, they were doing them, like whatever they wanted to do.

And I saw that there was like this art form where there was like no rules.

Yes.

And you made up your own rules, and like that that appealed to me 100% through skateboarding.

For whatever reason, especially in those days, those two cultures kind of ran side by side.

Skateboarding was like not popular by any means at that point in time.

It was starting to get that way a little bit.

So you you were doing kind of like hip-hop was popular, but not all the way.

So you all these things like went together.

Like you'd always see the skateboard kids would be at like an underground hip-hop show, and so would the graffiti writers, and then everyone started becoming friends like because of that.

Yes.

And then that's how I met some of these people and learned, like, oh, okay.

Because before then, I would just go to Home Depot or something like that and steal spray paint.

And I didn't know anything about different caps or anything like this, but that was like the catalyst was that.

But I don't, if I didn't do all those other art programs coming up, I don't think I would have understood how to even get started with that, like understanding, you know, your different flow, structure, dimensionality.

So, in a lot of ways, like, you know, taking these programs where I had to draw spheres and cones and cylinders and and shit, and uh still life of um plants and stuff actually really did set me up for for that to be good uh, you know, good art form to be into.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely.

That's very, very cool.

Now, we talked earlier, you're talking about, I would call it basically initiation into this apprenticeship program.

So after you went you went through hell and back with those different tasks that you were put through, how long did you stay doing that apprenticeship for?

SPEAKER_02: The apprenticeships were pretty long back in those days.

Like you were supposed to do an apprenticeship for probably like three years.

Like you were, you were under the you were supposed to be like under the supervision of your like mentor for at minimum a year and a half to two years, most likely three, where they were kind of watching over you and making sure that you weren't screwing anything up and you know, blah, blah, or helping you along, whatever.

So I made it through about nine months of that, and then I and then I had got arrested.

That was kind of the kind of the end of that.

Okay, okay, gotcha, gotcha.

And then, you know, tattooing at the at the house and stuff, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, definitely.

So now the art of tattooing, I mean, obviously, obviously you have this artistic ability about you, but I look at it and I think whether we're painting, we're drawing with crayons, or we're using spray paint, that's like one level.

And then I feel like you step it up a whole nother level.

When you start talking about needles and ink and permanent and like no erasers, talk to me about uh how it was for you as an artist kind of making that transition from something that you know we can say is quote unquote easy to this whole new dimension of art where we're talking about tattooing.

SPEAKER_02: Uh it was it was scary as hell.

It was so scary, man.

And also, too, the clients that were getting tattooed.

This wasn't like the pumpkin spice latte chick with Ugg boots getting uh breathed on her wrist.

These were like hard guys.

Like, yeah, if you these were like dudes that were in one percent bike clubs and like street dudes, like gangster dudes off the street that were, and I was tattooing in the hood.

You know, if you messed up on these dudes, like you they might fuck you up, man.

They might really they might like like give you, you know, they might chip you up, you know.

So it was scary, and um, there's no eraser, there's none of that, dude.

And um, man, I remember like not sleeping before, even the simplest tattoos the night before, like knowing I had to do a name on somebody the next day, like laying in bed, like anxiety ridden, like you know, like oh man, dude, thinking about everything, what can go wrong, and this and that.

And it was actually really counterproductive because you end up screwing up more when you're not relaxed, man.

Yeah.

So I think most uh apprentices go through that.

But um, and the equipment was a lot more archaic compared to now.

Like the machine I use now is uh it's all completely wireless, it has like an ergonomic grip.

Like you don't put standard needles on a bar in there anymore.

There's all these self-contained needle cartridges with like a little plunger on there, and you could just switch off the tips and uh you know, you don't have to worry about the machine like breaking mid-tattoo, which would happen all the time with the older coil machines.

So it was it was definitely different, man.

It was but there was something about it that when you did nail it, you were like, Yeah, dude, this is sick, man.

Like uh, you know what I mean?

Like it felt a little bit more you know what when I think about it, it almost gave me the same when you would really crush one, it was like almost the same as when you would like land that one trick skateboarding that you like you, you know, you took a bunch of spills to like to get there, you know?

And uh you finally landed and it it felt like that, or like, or similar even to to graffiti where you would, you know, you you went on this mission and you and you didn't get arrested.

You know what I mean?

You know, and and and the piece came out good.

It had that same you kind of got like a little bit of a high, and then um, you know, the feeling that you would get like seeing the person looking at their skin and being like, oh yeah.

You know, I've handed people paintings and drawings before, and there was not a reaction that was as fulfilling as it was when um you would do a really nice tattoo on someone.

They uh because it's it's on them, they're wearing it.

So it's even more personal when you do a really good job and you meet or exceed that client's expectations, it it feels really good.

It feels really, really good.

I know it makes them feel good because I know they're they come in and they they trust you, you know, or at least most of them do.

And uh they um, you know, most of them do.

Some people are are they don't trust anybody, right?

But they they sort of know what it's gonna look like, but not really.

And there's a a million factors that go into it, right?

Like I have to like when I'm if I'm doing like the eyes uh uh on like a face or something uh when I'm tattooing, I have to tell people, like, look, man, if you have to sneeze, fart, hick up anything, like you better tell me before you do it because we need to pull back, like, you know, so uh there's so many factors that can make it come out great, come out or or not great.

Even the person's like if if you're tattooing someone that is super unhealthy, it's gonna be more difficult and probably not come out as good.

Like if someone's like they drink too much, like their skin is like a less good canvas, you know what I mean?

Yeah.

So there's a there's a million different factors.

I actually think that the the easiest skin to work on with the coolest ideas, a lot of times is um like uh tough kind of kind of women have that because they'll like want to get some hard stuff on them, like a skull or something, but they're like cool with you putting like pink in it or something like that, which is like pretty cool.

Yeah, that wasn't always the case.

I remember people like tripping out, like, yo, bro, you better not even look at my tattoo with that pink, bro.

I can't walk out in the street with that color like that on me, dude.

You know, back more in the in the more like uh macho tattoo days, man.

You know what I mean?

Now I think people just want it to look super sick, you know what I mean?

Like um as crazy as you can make it, really.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, no, that is absolutely insane.

That's so cool.

Now, when did you realize that you like had this passion for tattooing that you didn't want to explore other uh careers or other art forms that like you knew like this is my jam?

SPEAKER_02: Well, because like I had gone to the art school, right?

And so I got to go to see a lot of the what was the that point in history, uh contemporary, like fine art scene in New York, right?

And New York was one of the New York City was definitely one of the biggest scenes, and and and you were at that time I just didn't fit with those people.

It was like a lot of verbal masturbation and like, well, I think that the painting, the emotion, when you look at these three lines I did with blue on this otherwise blunt canvas, I was really trying to convey this, or and I just I was like, man, if if your art is dope, it should just speak for itself that it's dope.

Like, you know what I mean?

If you have to give me, and I felt like you know what I mean, if you had to give me people were giving each other these like over-the-top exclamations about like why this one brushstroke was like it is like it'd be like a canvas, like just a brushstroke on it, and like you know, like come on, dude.

You guys are just trying to, you guys are just trying to outweird each other, dude.

That's uh and it felt like that, and and uh it's interesting because actually I think tattooing right now is getting to that point of an art form, but we we'll touch on that later.

But at that time, tattooing was uh the far more preferable art form for me because it was more regular people I was dealing with, you know.

Like I'm tattooing a guy who's a plumber.

Like, dude, I I I got stuff in common with you.

You know what I mean?

Like my dad worked at a supermarket growing up, my mom was a secretary to nursing home, you know.

Like, we're not, I wasn't part of this, like this wealthy artist group of people, and that and you kind of had to in fine art to even think about making it at that time.

You had to like really know people, you had to be like a part of that scene, all that, dude.

And tattooing was like, well, I can actually make I can go to work every day and make money and like be with my people, like my like regular working class Americans, dude.

You know what I mean?

Yep.

It was also cool too because there it didn't, there was no like all walks of people I would deal with.

And like you had this this bond where it was like, you know, clearly if you were getting tattooed like even remotely heavily back in those days, you were not a part of conforming to normal things in in society, you know what I mean?

Yeah, um, which which was cool.

So I had all these like uh really cool, like-minded people, or they were like, or they would just be cool people, like it would be like a dad that was getting like something for his kid, or like a mom that got you know what I mean?

Like it was all like really relatable people, and there was this trajectory trending upward that these guys coming from the 80s into the 90s had started with tattooing, like they they really they really took the bull by the horns and started changing it, working towards making it viewed more as an art form.

So I I could see around the curve that this was going somewhere too.

Like I knew, and uh around that time the TV shows had started to.

You had like Miami Inc.

and LA Inc.

This is like pre-Inkmaster kind of stuff.

You could see that it was gonna go somewhere, and that the equipment was getting better, and um, that there was gonna be some art fulfillment if I took this path.

And there was this guy from uh Spain, and he's still one of my favorite art, like uh any medium, he's still one of my favorite artists of all time.

His name is uh Robert Hernandez, and I remember I I got a magazine with his stuff, and I was like, whoa, dude, you could do that, you can do that as a tattoo.

Like, holy smokes! Like he was breaking boundaries, and it was in it was in with black and gray at that time.

There was a little bit more, I feel like a little more boundaries being broken because it was more similar to drawing, so it was easier to manipulate than color was and the color pigments weren't so good back then, but uh yeah, that's neither here nor there.

So I saw that stuff and I made it a mission to go get tattooed at the places where that guy would go to when he would come to America.

And in the process, I wound up meeting all these really sick artists because it was you know, if you're like by Miami, New York, or Los Angeles or one of these major cities, like you have access to all kinds of artists that come through there, you know.

So I took full advantage of that, and uh I said, well, there's this guy coming from China, I gotta get with him.

There's this guy that's now working at this place, he's from France, he doesn't even use a stencil, he only draws stuff on with Sharpie, and he's like killing it, you know.

So I started going to that shop and seeing um these guys, and I was like, holy smokes, man! Like there is some limitations with the skin, but not as many as I thought.

Like, like these tattoos don't have to be like the tattoos that my grandpa had from World War II on his arm.

You know what I mean?

Like these things, this could be something, you know.

Yeah, man, it was crazy.

Like, I got in in the industry at this moment where people were a lot of the really big time guys like Robert Hernandez or or Paul Booth or uh Guy Hatchon, these are all like industry moguls to me.

They they really put their neck out there to change the perception of how tattoos were viewed.

And look where we're at now.

Like literally, I got coffee yesterday from a chick with a face tat at Dunkin' Donuts.

Like we've come pretty far and acceptance there, man, you know?

And um, you know, it's crazy, man.

You know, it's really interesting.

And uh, there's so many styles now.

It's just cool, man.

It's just cool.

And it and it's still a place where you, if you want to, now a lot of people don't want to, but if you want to, you can still attempt to carve out your own niche and do something that hasn't been done before.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: And that's pretty hard to do in the other art mediums because you got to think about it.

Like, okay, so you go back, we'll go back to like the Renaissance.

Those dudes basically crushed anything human form four or five hundred years ago.

Yep.

Like, you know what I mean?

Like, you're you're not gonna sculpt more accurately than Bernini, dude.

You're you are not, you are not gonna break through these glass ceilings that Da Vinci and and Michelangelo and Hermonius Bosch and all these people, like it's going to be very hard to come out with something that is fresh and new to look at.

That's what I was saying before.

I think we're almost there with tattooing because I'm starting to see some of the ridiculous stuff that I would see in the fine art world.

Like, because pretty much when you get past Picasso in in fine art, there wasn't really too much stuff that was like groundbreaking that would that where you're like, oh wow, you know, it was it was a lot of people making uh uh theories and conjecture and like what and and pretty much just trying to be weirder or or than the other person, dude.

You know, I'm sure I'm gonna have some fine artists uh roast me for some of the stuff, but you know, and I'm gonna get smoked by somebody on my Instagram or something, but uh you know, like but I just saw the other day, you know, like you you know Jackson Pollock with the splashing the painting and and and this sort of thing, like tattooing is like almost at that point right now.

I saw this kid, I think he's from like Italy, and he is doing stuff like that, but like on people, man, like but not in a cool way.

Like he's going to a he went to like a public park on the grass and like laid this kid on his stomach, took his shirt off, took this giant protractor thing, and just like had the machine running and made a circle on his back.

And it was a horrible, horrible done.

And then like, but just doing it for like shock value or to be doing something different because all the interesting Stuff has already been done.

I feel like that's what's going through his head.

Like everything, I'm never gonna stand out because everything that's cool has already been done, and those guys have a rep already, or whatever, right?

And one time he had a kid take a pee on a wall.

He took a photograph of the pee, made a stencil of the shape of the urine drip on the wall, and then tattooed it big as hell in a guy's stomach.

Oh wow.

And I'm like, dude, what is going on here?

Yeah, no, legit, in the shape and filled it in solid black, man, solid black, urine stain on this kid's stomach, dude.

And then another time his him and his client go to a skate park, and you know how they have like the quarter pipes, you know?

Yep, yep.

Um, it's just like a like a ramp going up.

So the kid would sit on the top of the ramp, and every time the his client would come up, he's like wearing high high shorts, and every time his client would come up, he would just like take a whack at him with the machine running with black ink in there.

And like that was his piece.

What?

And I'm like, bro, what are we doing here, dude?

Like, but you see what I'm saying?

Like, this is and and there's more than it's more than just him doing this, man.

Like, you know, so we're like at this like weird time, man.

But I feel like it's always like there's like uh a period of like maybe stagnation, or or maybe you get little blips of some people, you know, because obviously there's amazing artists that have come out between Picasso and now, right?

A lot of it wasn't getting traction or or whatever, right?

But at the end of that period, you're gonna get this push of like some really something new, something cool.

And I and I think about it uh with some of the really cool fine art stuff in the in the 2000s was awesome.

Like there's this uh this painter, Greg Simkins and uh Chet Czar.

Chet Czar made all the um the monsters for the Hellboy movies, the ones from the 2000s.

Okay, so his stuff is is all really cool, yeah.

And uh, but those guys came out of like all this weird verbal masturbation art theory stuff, and they were like, nah, we're just gonna do stuff that's cool and fun.

Yeah.

And then there was a good push for a while, like really interesting stuff.

I mean, I could sit there to this day and watch uh that Greg Simkins YouTube channel just watch him paint for like literally the whole entire day.

Yeah, dude's imagination is endless.

So when I see this, or like you ever notice with music, you know what I mean?

I know that you can't see a lot of the stuff, but you can for sure hear shit, dude, right?

Yep, yep.

So the um with music, like okay, so I look at my my dad grew up in the 60s and 70s, right?

And think about that music that was coming out there.

I mean, pretty, pretty incredible, you know, almost nothing like it, right?

Yep.

Then I remember watching my dad like suffer through 80s music.

Now I like some of the 80s music, but to him, it was beyond offensive, dude.

You know what I mean?

I think he said something like one of only like one of the kiss albums, and then like uh a couple other bands got him through the 80s, right?

But then after that kind of period of like weird kind of pop, everything was very pop culture in the 80s, right?

But then what do we get in the 90s?

We get we get the grunge movement, and then you get hip-hop really coming out.

And it was they both were like really raw sounding.

So then you get a whole nother decade of sick music, but only after that, like late 70s into the 80s, like point of like, do where where are we taking this?

What's you know what I mean?

Like, yep, what's going on?

Like uh let's appeal to all uh mass culture, you know, that sort of thing.

And then it and then it comes out again.

So I think, I hope, and I believe that something is coming.

Because I mean, I haven't really heard uh listen, I'm sure my my young homies would disagree with me strongly, but I haven't really heard any new music that's come out in probably 10 years at least that sounded like whoa, really fresh.

This is this is sick, this is something new.

This artist is someone to watch.

Like, you know what I mean?

Yeah, I feel like uh we're in this kind of culturally weird point.

Yeah.

But uh that just means that whatever's coming next is gonna be dope.

So yeah, no, I agree.

Wait and see, right?

SPEAKER_01: You know, yeah, I agree a hundred percent, man.

I love it.

So now I'm curious, how would you describe your style of art, your style of tattooing, and how do you keep it real that people are lining up, you know, wanting to hire you to do tattoos?

SPEAKER_02: Well, that's one of the cool things about, you know, because social media is like a blessing and it's a curse, right?

Yep.

It's really cool because you can reach people that you normally would never like.

I don't even tattoo a lot of people from Florida.

They mostly fly in from other parts of the country or they drive in from other parts of the country.

I think I probably have like 15 Florida clients out of the hundreds that I have from other other states, right?

So that part is really cool, you know.

Meeting people through there is really cool.

But what I what I realized is that you can find your tribe that way.

So I sat down after like years of doing like portraits and roses and things like this, because you knew like I could get some fulfillment out of doing that, and I know I can feed my family, and um, you know, I have three kids, so that's obviously very important.

But it got to a point where I was like, man, I don't this doesn't feel so genuine.

You know what I mean?

Like I I want to try something.

So I sat down and I really thought about like what is the stuff that made me like art in the first place, and what visual things like really got me excited?

And I thought about it and I was like, well, as a kid, I would read all these like image comics and graffiti and sci-fi movies like crazy, like and they didn't have the CGI back in the 80s, so like when you watch Terminator or Predator or Alien, it was all lighting effects, like a red glow uh under something or uh green lighting on something.

So that kind of high contrast stuff always appealed to me.

So I sat down and read this list, and I we had moved from my wife and I, and my kids had moved from New Jersey, right outside New York City, down to like the Ocean City, Maryland area, and I had opened a little studio there, and I said, uh, I just want to see if I can try to get this stuff out there that's in my head that I think will be awesome.

I'm gonna make a bunch of pre-made designs and uh see if I can get some people to get it.

And I said, just give me six to nine months to try to get this going and see if I can uh if people like it, then then obviously we'll we'll go with it, you know.

And if not, I'll go back to doing roses and and whatever so that we can eat, you know.

But I knew I'd have to do things a little cheaper.

So I made a bunch of these designs and it it wound up coming out like kind of like uh sci-fi creepy, graffiti fantasy, surreal kind of thing.

I I don't know that there's one like label and it's always changing.

Like right now, I think it's moving more in the direction of like the fun, playful aspects of what you see in like graffiti murals and characters, like those cool, weird kind of um almost playful faces and then this sort of thing, but mixed with like a darker sci-fi kind of element.

So it's it's like like a balancing between the your like inner child and like the weight of the stress of being an adult, right?

You know what I mean?

That's kind of where I'm trying to push it, and we'll see what goes on there.

But for sure, uh like I tattoo a lot of cats that are into sci-fi stuff, like I tattoo a whole lot of conspiracy people, a whole lot of uh people that really are deep into aliens, uh, people that play uh hella video games, you know.

But there's like a look to it though.

It's like got that, it's almost got a feel of like a darker organic cyberpunk or something.

I don't know how to explain it, but something like that, I guess.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I love it.

I love it.

And and the way that I that like your artwork and stuff has been described to me is just literally just this realistic, but obviously fake, like crazy detail, just as you said earlier when talking about other artists, like how could that be a tattoo?

You know, and and and I do notice that you do seem to do a lot with dinosaurs.

And is that something that yeah, I love them, dude.

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: Well, that's kind of what I was saying.

Like, with the internet here, whatever thing that you thought was like that nerdy sort of thing that you were into that you didn't think a lot of people were about, if you just put it out there, man, those like-minded people find it.

The bounds of like, yeah, like I'm sure here in Ormond Beach, like I probably wouldn't do a whole lot of like sci-fi dinosaur tats, right?

But uh, but when you cast that net into a bigger pond, like the whole United States, there's a lot of people that are into that.

And they see it and they go, Oh, yeah, that's that's me.

I I I think that same way.

Or I bet you this guy is like-minded to me just by the kind of stuff he's making.

You know what I mean?

People that are like, say someone that's they're super into dinosaurs, right?

Like they're that's a certain kind of person, right?

You know what I mean?

Like they probably were this certain way as a kid, and they probably, you know what I mean?

Those people see it, it resonates with them immediately, and they're like, let's go, dude, you know?

So yeah, that's uh definitely the dinosaur stuff is popping.

And I love it.

And I got kids and I got three kids, all different age age ranges.

So dinosaurs are something dinosaurs, sharks, lions, snakes, all that stuff is like on YouTube playing for the kids while we play with action figures all the time.

You know what I mean?

So and I get to be a kid again too, because I love that stuff still.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.

Well, well, Sean, man, listen, dude, I love hearing your your whole kind of story, this evolution from teenager up, you know, growing up and getting into really finding your groove.

And then, of course, kind of finding your niche inside the the realm of tattooing.

And man, I just I love your spirit, I love the whole attitude, I love just what you're putting out there into the world, both just through your personality, you know, combined with with what you're doing as a tattoo artist.

And I want to thank you for for being here.

Where is the best place for people who want to check out your artwork, who want to follow you?

Where's the best place for them to go?

SPEAKER_02: Probably the Instagram.

And uh, my Instagram handle is just at Sean S E A N underscore FOI F O Y.

And that has all my information.

Pretty much almost all the tattoos I've done are on there, and uh, it has all my contact info and um any locations and travel dates that I might be at too.

So definitely Instagram, yeah, man.

SPEAKER_01: Well, fantastic.

Well, Sean, man, again, dude, thank you so much for being here.

I really appreciate it, dude.

SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much for having me.

It was an honor and a pleasure.

What a fateful day to be getting a haircut when I met you, dude.

SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.

You never know what's gonna happen at the barbershop.

So, yeah, man.

Well, fantastic, yeah, dude.

Well, for you listening today, I want to thank you for being a guest here on the podcast, joining me as we're sitting down with another just awesome guy, Sean Foy.

So, again, this is Kevin Lowe with Grit Grace of Inspiration.

I will see you guys next week.

Hey, real quick before you go, I have one last thought to leave you with.

I of course hope that you've enjoyed today's episode, but more importantly, I want to remind you that I never want you to listen to an episode of this podcast to hear something that I have to say or that my guest has to share and think, wow, I wish I could be like that.

I wish I could overcome my own challenges and do the great things that they are doing.

But I just can't.

Well, friend, that's where you're wrong.

unknown: You're wrong.

SPEAKER_01: You are capable.

You are able to darn sure are deserving of having all that you can imagine in this life.

There's nothing special about me or any guests I have on this podcast.

We are all just normal people trying to make it in this life.

And so I encourage you to take a look at yourself in the mirror and remind yourself that you know what?

I can do it too.

Now, of course, if you would like help along that way, reach out to me.

Whether that's as a listener of the podcast, a friend, or if you'd like to work with me as a coach.

My contact information is inside of every episode of show notes, just like this one.

So go down, check out my contact information, and reach out to me today.

With that said, I encourage you to take on the day every day.