JEREMY SWAN

If you really want to know more about me you’ve got to know where I’m from, Monterey, a small coastal town in California. In 1967, it all started from there. The Summer of Love kicked off at the Monterey Pop Music Festival that year and would spread ripples of change across the world. I am a ripple, we all are.

Of course, in Monterey, my introduction to tattooing was through music. In 1994 I received my first tattoo from a fresh‐faced tattoo prodigy named Adam C. Roach. He and I hit it off and started playing music together. The friendship would eventually turn me into a college dropout turned tattoo artist. Although tattooing is my metier, it was music that bridged everything together for me.

I have developed a skill set over the years that is very broad. Never feeling complete or like I have arrived. I love to work with the client to help them realize their vision through my design. I only tattoo my own original artwork that is inspired by the wealth of ideas they bring me. And I am humbled by their trust in my judgment.

I always want to make sure all of my client leave with a personal piece of art they can be proud of. My clients are often artists themselves and I love the idea of my art mixing together with theirs. To me, that is a quintessential act of Love. I am honoured to have worked on immensely talented people as Ben Affleck, Linda Perry, Daniel Craig, Anthony Jeselnik, Hayden Panettiere, Amber Heard, Pink, Hole, INXS, New York Dolls, Taking Back Sunday, Robi Draco Rosa. I love my clients, I love them all, no matter who they are or where they come from.

And if you’re reading this, I love you too.

Meet me at Broekn Art Tattoo, 2400 Hyperion Ave, Los Angeles, CA. www.brokenarttattoo.com

MATT POITRAS

Right now I’m a Creative Director for MullenLA, working on Acura and Patron Tequila. Over the past ten years I have written a ton of well-known ads and original content. Some have won awards. I’m from Boston, so I don’t like the sun too much, but LA has been good to me. The California nights are dark and smell like Eucalyptus.

Advertising has been good to me too. Mostly to keep my brain busy. Cadillacs and Maxi Pads. Ben and Jerry’s and Goldman Sachs. Diapers. NASA. Weird fashion stuff you never heard of. It goes on and on. A good friend of mine said we have two specialties – writing and rewriting. I would add re-rewriting to that. I’m a little mental so I need the endless puzzle. Some people can’t hack it. I prefer it.

I also like putting myself out of my comfort zone. God forbid an artist use his tools for something other than his own fantasies. It makes me a better person. Plus it has the best people in the world. Writing ads is one of the few creative industries where narcissism isn’t really a problem. I’ve met the loveliest people in my life doing this shit. No joke.

NICK FOUQUET

No, I’m not an actor, and yes, I’m a real hat maker. My store is in 853 Lincoln Blvd, Venice, California, swing by anytime to say hi. My hats are a little pricey, okay, but that is because I make them how you’re supposed to make them. The old fashion way. There are only 30 artisans like me in US and 300 all over the world. It’s a dying art. Each handmade hat is spun from heritage fabrics, like Ecuadorian straw or beaver fur felt. Beaver fur is the best. Trust me. Celebrities love my hats. Pharrell Williams, Madonna, Chris Brown, Jared Leto, Anne Hathaway to name a few. When you make something real, genuine, people want to show that off. And celebrities are a show‐offs by definition. They told me it’s good publicity so be it. I’m a huge fan of Keith Richards, though, so if he came through and wanted a hat, I’d be like, damn! Keith Richards is like the Pope or the Dalai Lama, you know what I mean? Keith, if you’re reading this, come by and I’ll make you the best hat you’ll ever see.

I was born in New York and raised in Florida and Southern France, I have a degree in environmental sciences and sustainable development, I love nature and there is so much of it here in California. if you don’t find me in my store I am surfing the waves of Malibu or some other spot I’m not going to tell you.

ALANA BLANCHARD

Hi there! I am a pro surfer and a model from Kauai. They used to call me mermaid since I was little. I grew up splashing around in Queen’s bath, Kauai all day with my friends, pretending to be a horse in the green field and I developed my own special relationship with the waves watching the ocean in silence for hours.

The ocean is my life. The ocean is everybody’s life. We all come from there, we’re made for the 60% of ocean water, we’re ocean containers. If you want, we’re just a way the ocean found to walk around on land. Our blood, our tears, our cells, our brains, our memories are made of ocean.

And when I come back to it, I feel that purity you only feel in the arms of your mother. One day we’ll all become ocean again, but in the meantime, surfing is the closest thing I know to “be the ocean.”

Surfing is the art of peace. Because the ocean is the most powerful thing, it shapes the Earth, it shatters columns, turn mountains into sand, make clouds, rain, plants, animals. If you fight it, it always wins. And to surf it is to surrender to it, every surfer knows that to ride a wave is like to make love to the ocean, become a fluid and blend with it.

See you in the water!