Aaron Sheppard / Lazorbeam Roadkilla
the Artist and his trusty Tattoo Facility
Paint, Perf, Sculpt, Draw, Vid, Install, Writing, Tattoo
2018-20 ATP, Ink & Steel
2006-09 MFA, UNLV
1995-99 BFA with Hon., Corcoran School of Art
2018-20 ATP, Ink & Steel
2006-09 MFA, UNLV
1995-99 BFA with Hon., Corcoran School of Art
Aaron Sheppard does it all: painting, performance, sculpture, drawing, video, installation, writing, and tattooing. He also owns the only mobile tattoo facility in Joshua Tree, CA. It’s a fully-equipped RV available for individual sessions and events. It was a delight to chat with Aaron virtually where we connected on all things art, writing, Las Vegas, and New Zealand. Then, he let me pick his brain about his innovative endeavor in my favorite desert. Read on for thinking outside the box during COVID, getting knuckle tattoos during an art performance, and floppy fish first tattoos.
You have the first and only mobile tattoo facility in Joshua Tree. Tell me more about how and why you started doing this with "Lazorbeam Roadkilla" during the COVID days?
"The tattoo shop I worked at in Joshua Tree closed down during the COVID pandemic. I already had the RV so I decided to see if I would be able to jump through all the county and state law hoops to comply converting it into a mobile shop of my own. I worked closely with the county, helping them develop some of their own specific policies since no business, other than Lazorbeam, had ever managed to pass the regulations already established. They used other California county regulations as overarching templates as we honed in on details together. I enjoyed the challenge of even attempting to achieve the goal of owning not only my own tattoo business, but the first and only in the county of San Bernardino, much less succeeding."
You're a highly-trained visual artist and you seem to incorporate the body into your work and performances. Maybe tattooing is a natural progression but how did you move in this direction and get started with body art?
"I always enjoyed tattoos and wanted to have more, but was unable to afford getting them as often as I might otherwise have liked. In about 2013, living in downtown LA, I approached another art friend of mine, Phil Kim, who was spending more time giving tattoos than painting in his studio. He showed me the ropes: told me which machine, inks, etcetera to buy, while also showing me some basic techniques before I began attacking my own legs with needles.
"Phil and I collaborated on a performance together at Western Project. I presented myself as a morphing-gender mermaid caught inside a net/hammock while simultaneously receiving knuckle tattoos (HEAD and TAIL) and a nail-extensions manicure (administered by another artist friend, Catherine Kim).
"I often have ideas about incorporating tattoo further into my performance work."
What kind of tattoos do you love to do? What inspires you?
"In no way do I consider myself a seasoned tattooist, meaning that I have never attempted photo-realism on the skin, as one example. I am most interested in designing and tapping in tattoos with a heavy concentration on line work. I've enjoyed attempting to translate my canvas artwork onto the skin and vice versa by tattooing on rubber and foam-core for exhibitions. My artwork and tattoos are most often heightened sexually, also incorporating a bit of tongue-in-cheek humor. I enjoy seeing loose 'cartoonish' or 'sketchy' tattoos—especially ones that disregard sanctity of the body and tradition bring me the most pleasure. (I saw the other day that David Shrigley, the fine artist, was drawing tattoos and it’s a similar aesthetic that I adore.)"
What was your first tattoo?
"I believe I was 17, perhaps 18, had just moved from Nebraska to Washington DC to study art at the Corcoran. My part-time job was working at the American Bar Association, where I met an intern attorney who let me take her out on a date one night. I drew two different fish on bar napkins, one with an overbite, the other with an underbite, both of them blowing out heart bubbles. Immediately after the bar, we went to get each of the fish tattooed on our right hip/groin region—very small, perhaps only the size of a quarter (I ended up with the overbite). Our intent was to have the fishes meet up, yet it wasn't until later that night in the sack that we realized too late that our fish would not be flopping around onto one another without reorganizing or strategy to involve awkward and drunken acrobatic maneuvers."
What's next for you? What's on your tattooing and artistic horizons?
What's next for you? What's on your tattooing and artistic horizons?
"I continue to gratefully exhibit my artwork in each and all of its manifested glories, with writing being an added concentration since the pandemic... However, I am making it a focus, beginning in 2023, to REALLY DO SOMETHING with my tattoo business, Lazorbeam. It has been legal and legit for over one year now but I gotta get more business by promoting it and hitting up festivals and desert weddings. I really don't want to sell the RV as a business package at this point so I better find something that works better lucratively. (Perhaps I can make a business out of converting and legalizing mobile units, as I obviously know how to make that work somehow.)
"I'd also like to have more tattoos on me, myself. I don't have more tattoos because THEY HURT! I know, I know, it sounds stupid for me to say, but it's true that I'm a bit of a lightweight when it comes to extended sessions of pain. I could be covered from head to toe! For a time there I was trying to give myself at least one new tattoo each week. I must remember that along with the pain comes fantastic euphoria. As with many tattooists, I'm part sadist and part masochist having tattooed sensitive parts of my own body many times (foot, nipples, penis, nutsack, taint), yet it's the big time-investment tattoos that I'd like to also explore next year. Who knows, maybe I'll meet another local tattooist on Tinder who would be willing to tattoo the backside of my body to balance out all the ink I've put on my reachable front."