Author: Kevin Kelpe

Dave Brewer is a tattoo artist from a different time. Listening to him talk about tattooing is like listening to any serious artist – he’s passionate about his craft and works hard to create in a way that honors its origins.

For the Brewers, tattooing is a family business.

Born in Whittier, Calif., Dave Brewer began tattooing in 1991, and in 1996, he opened Trigger Happy Tattoo in nearby La Habra. In those early days, Brewer took his young son, Dalton, to work with him every day after kindergarten. Dalton went on to study fine art in college and then apprenticed at the shop before moving to Humboldt County in Northern California to continue on in his career.

“It is cool, seeing him evolve as an artist and tattooer,” Brewer says. “I’m stoked that he is a second-generation tattoo artist, but I also think he prefers not to work in the shop I opened. I think he prefers to be known as himself and not somebody’s son.”

Drawn by the quality of life on the Wasatch Back, Brewer came to the Heber Valley a few years ago with his wife, Jennifer, and teenaged children, Kailey and Cade. Brewer’s daughter will start at Utah Valley University next semester and also has her eye on fine art as a field of study. The artistic temperament is a dominant trait, it seems.

A Little Art History

It’s clear from talking with Brewer that his style and point of view are greatly informed by the history of tattooing in Southern California. “Tattooing really hit the mainstream once there were tattoo shows on TV,” he explains. “A kid that was artistic when he was 10 would see those shows and think ‘that’s what I want to do when I grow up.’”

But before Miami Ink, black and gray tattooing came of age in East Los Angeles.

“The style of black and gray evolved from the prison system in the 70s — because the inmates didn’t have colored ink,” says Brewer.

Tattooland was a shop in East LA that brought the style out of the joint and into the mainstream. Artists like Good Time Charlie, Jack Rudy and Mark Mahoney were creating work styled by hard time for anyone who wanted it — without a stay behind bars. “Tattooland was the shop that really made that style commercially available,” explains Brewer.

Around this time, the National Tattoo Convention was held once a year, and to be a part of the association you had to be invited and sponsored by a more established member. This helped legitimize the trade and made black and gray a recognized style of tattooing. “That was really the beginning of art coming into the profession of tattooing,” Brewer says. “The technique and the art have evolved so much, but it all started there.”

The Old and The New

There’s a sense of nostalgia in speaking with Brewer. The internet and social media have made celebrities of relatively young tattoo artists and the broad availability of other artists’ designs has changed the way tattoo artists create. But Brewer is still pretty old school.

“It used to be that customers would come in and look at the books to see what an artist can do,” he reminisces. Customers would pore over pages of designs and ask for something similar, or take parts from those designs to create something familiar for the artist but still their own. Today, a client can bring in a picture of Adam Levine’s forearm and say “I want this tattoo.”

But of course, it’s not so simple.

Tattoo artists work with the skin, muscles and underlying bones of every client — a new canvas for every piece — and a great tattoo is designed for the body it’s going onto. Of course, not every tattoo will work for every body, and so the phenomenon of imitation has also created a need for tattoo artists to learn how to modify designs for the canvas in front of them.

New technology has challenged artists to hold onto their voices, for sure, but there’s also a lot of good happening. Sacred geometry can be created more quickly than ever with design software, and the ability to composite images onto a photo of the client using Photoshop has created confidence in artists and clients alike, as each tattoo can be more finely tuned before needle hits flesh.

Talent + Inspiration = Friendship

Brewer went to California State University Long Beach out of high school and got a degree in psychology. And even though he didn’t have the perennial art school experience, he speaks with the voice of a lifelong student of art. He explains that the experience of critique — an art-school process wherein students share their work with one another and get feedback — is a crucial part of growing.

“A good tattoo shop creates a community of creative development,” says Brewer. “Each artist provides feedback on the work and helps the younger artists grow.” Brewer sought to run his shop in California as this type of creative enterprise, and believes that his work, as well as his son’s, are all the better for it.

And his talent is obvious.

The work demonstrates his 27 years of technical development with an evident nod to the past. It’s also clear that Brewer knows how to give clients the work they want. His approach to design seems to bring the best of his experience to bear for each client’s (often difficult-to-express) desires.

“It’s more than a client/artist relationship, it’s a friendship,” Brewer asserts. “And if you’ve tattooed a person for a long time, there’s a lot invested in that relationship, and it’s part of the art.” While he’s busy in Heber tattooing clients from all over Utah, he still makes time to visit his shop in La Habra on occasion to see his clients with whom he shares this kind of abiding friendship.

Indeed, a tattoo is unlike any other purchased work of art. Each piece represents a more lasting and personal connection to the buyer. Brewer honors this truth. And it is clear that while he brings technical skill and great knowledge to each piece, the most important quality he brings to his work is love.  

The Heber iteration of Trigger Happy Tattoo is an appointment-only shop located in Old Town Heber. To make an appointment, contact Dave Brewer at 435-315-6232 or at [email protected].

Before Kristen Lloyd was Krazy Ani, she was Kristen Johnson — one of four siblings who wrangled their penchant for performance into a family wild west show in Georgetown, Idaho. Kristen and her sisters moved to Heber City in 2011 and the Heber Valley Railroad had a job opening that, in hindsight, seems like kismet.

Kristen began working for the railroad as an actor. From the beginning, her character Krazy Ani provided a welcome diversion to train tours, shaking up passengers with a convincing yet all-in-good-fun train heist.

When the railroad wanted to expand the act to include on-train entertainment, Kristen got the chance to show off her musical chops, too. Now, she’s the central figure in the train’s live entertainment for as many as 10 tours a week.

Marriage, Music + My Pal Moo

The Heber Valley Railroad doesn’t serve as a professional outlet for only her passions, either. To tell the story of the Krazy Ani heist, more players have been written into the script — providing a creative outlet for other local performers.

One such performer is the train conductor, Devin Lloyd. Recalling those early days, Kristen smiles and says, “The first couple of times he captured me, it was obvious there was chemistry.” One year later, Devin proposed and they were married in 2012. “You could get more than a job,” she jokes with new employees. “I did!”

While the portrayal of Krazy Ani is still fun for Kristen, six years later, it’s just one part of her varied career in performance. For several years, Kristen has been building a following using her YouTube channel and weekly live performances at Zermatt Resort. Her original music is heartfelt and sincere — and quintessentially folk. “It’s the way I work through difficult things,” she explains.

And it’s obvious. Kristen writes in a constant state of personal reflection. She is vulnerable and earnest. At the same time, the topics are so soothingly universal that any listener can find comfort in her poetic optimism. Her voice is clear and reassuring with a timbre that calls to mind Joni Mitchell or Karen Carpenter — singular artists that came before her and now seem to imbue her music with richness and heart. Indeed, these are the songs of a young woman with an old soul.

Kristen has always been an artist. Today it’s clear that she’s still finding her voice — and her medium. She struggles, like many young creatives do, to focus her passions. But in the process, she’s brought to life original music and original characters — both live action and those drawn with a pen. “My Pal Moo: A Tale of Two” is an original comic series illustrated and written by Kristen and inspired by her childhood friendship with a cow named Honeybee.

“Drawing ‘My Pal Moo’ is my way of keeping our relationship alive even though she’s no longer with me,” she says. As a member of Cowboy Cartoonists International, Kristen also has a chance to place “My Pal Moo” in front of prospective buyers. Leanin’ Tree Greetings sources cowboy illustrations from CCI, and Kristen hopes that one day soon it will use “My Pal Moo” for a greeting card.

There are many ways to be inspired by Kristen Lloyd. She is prolific and hardworking, and her talent for entertainment is obvious in her work. But, more than that, Kristen’s kindness is disarming. Her energy and optimism are contagious. Her creative gifts, impressive as they are, play second chair to her obvious and sincere love for people.

Raised in the Heber Valley, Jason Quinn is a 1991 graduate of Wasatch High School. His close connection to the valley doesn’t end there, as two of his murals still grace the walls of area schools.

Quinn’s work expresses an optimistic and youthful style that is at once precise and unbridled. His mural at Rocky Mountain Middle School features a woodland scene filled with references from 50 beloved children’s stories. The 25-foot-wide, airbrush and acrylic piece took six months to paint after two years of conceptual collaboration — the final product an imaginative rendering of Jason’s original idea peppered with input from the county school board and other community stakeholders.

Standing in front of it, viewers are submerged in a world of fantasy and wonder. His playful style and precise technique bring to life a world that feels as real in person as it does in a child’s imagination.

It’s clear that Jason Quinn is a family man first; we spend a lot of time talking about what it means to have creative children. Quinn’s 17-year-old daughter, Lucy, was recently honored as her school’s Sterling Scholar in art. He knowingly explains that she exhibits the hallmarks of a young artist. “I try to encourage her to find the love in the work — to do it because it gives her joy,” he says, reflecting on perfectionism and other implacable features of the artistic temperament. His eldest son, Sullivan, is currently attending BYU Hawaii, and Simon, his middle child, is currently serving an LDS mission in the Dominican Republic.

His studio, Mighty Quinn, takes illustration and signage commissions from clients all over Utah and the U.S.

Quinn exudes a reassuring practicality and centeredness that no doubt dampens the stress of being a full-time freelancer. With that said, the normal pressures of production and commerce do seem to bubble up at times, just beneath the surface. “If you’re not scrambling for work, then you’re scrambling for a deadline — or scrambling to get the right kind of work,” he explains.

At the same time, it’s clear that his career has reached a kind of cruising altitude, where priorities take their place and the work flows freely. “My whole life, I’ve always just made time to take everything,” he says, “but now, I’m a little more careful. If I’m not excited about [the work], then I don’t have to do it.”

In 2011, Quinn was hired to install a mural at Wasatch High School and worked closely with then-principal Paul Sweat (who is now the district superintendent). Quinn’s outsized artwork illuminates the academic and athletic heritage of Wasatch High, giving form to fabled Wasps that made local history. In celebration of the architectural timeline of the district, the piece also features renderings of each of the three school buildings constructed over the last 100 years. Taken in as a whole, the mural masterfully displays Quinn’s distinctive, balanced hand: whimsical geometry applied to meticulous proportions, exaggerated gestures tempered by patient technique, a graphic novel unwrapped and presented page-beside-page.

Jason Quinn’s work is a case study in balance, his vivid imagination made even more impressive by his keen sense of restraint. Every vignette is a memory frozen in time – not just the scene, but the emotion, energy and atmosphere embodied in each captured moment.

While it is clear that Scott James Jewelry is a well-run business, there is no doubt that the man at the helm, Scott Whitaker, is first and foremost an artist.

In 1991, train tracks cut across 100 South just west of the North Fields in Heber. This was the year the Whitaker family took permanent residence in the Heber Valley. They found a home in Midway, “on the other side of the tracks,” Scott Whitaker says cheekily — almost poking fun at his small-town roots.

Whitaker’s grandfather and his grandfather’s brothers once owned the Homestead Resort and the land surrounding it, so the family has some serious  local cred. Indeed, if you’ve lived in the valley for a while, you’ve met a Whitaker. His grandfather was also an artist, working a storied career  as an illustrator at Walt Disney Studios in Anaheim, California. He died in 1976 after helping establish the film studio at Brigham Young University, just two years before young Scott was born.

“I always had an affinity to work with my hands,” Whitaker recalls. And it’s obvious. The office where we talk sparkles with tiny sculptures of metal, pieces cast or fabricated and placed just so; a sample of some smaller world’s greatest works of art. In high school, Whitaker studied metalsmithing, 3D art and ceramics with Sue Villella, a teacher at Wasatch High, whom he credits for much of his early inspiration. “She put her passion into teaching even though it was obvious that she could have been a professional artist.”

Before moving into his shop on 100 South, Whitaker apprenticed for several years at Tommy Knockers, a family-owned jewelry store in Park City with a 31-year legacy. “My passion is definitely in the fabrication — working the torch and working the metal with hand tools,” he says.

This passion becomes palpable when the conversation turns to the natural beauty of Utah. Whitaker shows me a few pieces from a series featuring topographically rendered landscapes beloved by locals: Mt. Timpanogos and Bryce Canyon cast in sterling silver, perfectly formed to fit comfortably around the wrist. This is the work that seems to light him up. As Whitaker describes the series, he’s at once uncertain and excited, enlightened, confident and tortured — a man in the throes of inspiration.

Whitaker’s tone is deliberate and thoughtful. As we talk, it’s clear that he wrestles with the pressures of any contemporary art career: commerce, likability, originality and the 80/20 rule. And it’s no wonder; Whitaker and his wife have three preteen and teenaged boys at home. They opened up shop in 2006, right at the peak of an economic boom and bust.

“Through the lean times in 2008, we got creative and branched out into the catalog market,” he tells me. Sundance and Olive & Cocoa also feature Scott James’ pieces as regularly as his time allows.

The memory of those lean times clearly keeps Scott Whitaker grounded, although it’s also clear that the pressure to produce something marketable hasn’t dampened his urge to simply create. “The more I create pieces about who I am as a person and my passions, the more they resonate with people,” he says. “I’m learning to always do the work I believe in.”

Side Note: Casting Verses Fabrication

“Casting” describes the process by which molten metal is poured into a mold, cooled, and then broken free. “Fabrication” describes jewelry made by assembling pieces of metal and other materials, which are then formed with a torch and hand tools.

80/20 Rule

Also known as the Pareto Principal after Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, the rule as it applies to business management theorizes that 80 percent of sales come from 20 percent of clients. The  principal is a common tool used to maximize efficiency.