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Atlanta, Georgia

Deano Cook—Psycho Tattoo

By Bob Baxter with photographs by Bernard Clark

Back in the day, tattoo studios looked more like motorcycle repair shops. Both the clientele and the surroundings were rather rough-honed and foreboding. But in the last few years, tattoo shop owners have cleaned up their acts and the focus is now on cleanliness and efficiency. At the top of that list is Psycho Tattoo, Deano Cook's dentist-office-on-acid in Marietta, Georgia.

Perfectly laid out (every tattoo station his it's own TV and sound system with earphones), every corner, from the waiting area to the piercing room is meticulous, clean and modern. While the predominant theme is marine life (there's assorted aquariums and snippets from amazing Deano's underwater photography on flatbed TV monitors wherever your eye wanders), the most striking element is the efficiency. Deano has it just the way he wants it. Much of this is due to his brother, Russ, who took charge of our visit, lined up the models to photograph and, seemingly, all in one breath, not only provided the answers to all of our questions but made us feel comfortable and at home.

However, the star of the show is clearly the sun-tanned, fit and athletic, Deano Cook himself. While it is clear that he is currently crazy for anything aquatic, Deano has been a lover of the ocean since childhood. He had an uncle who started him out, crabbing, fishing, snorkeling, doing a lot of activities around the ocean.

"My love for it developed, literally, when I was still in diapers," recalls Deano. "My uncle already had me out doing things in the bay—he had a house in Florida—so it's always been a strong passion of mine. It wasn't until a little way into my tattoo career that I figured out how to marry the two together. This was a purposeful tactic on my part, to keep me doing something I love. The one helped me perpetuate the other. Now there's a blurry line between when I'm working and when I'm playing. Because of it, all my vacations become part of my work. I dive and do underwater photography and it all adds to my image bank, my reference library."

Up until Deano came along, the predominant underwater tattoo subject was an octopus, the one where the tentacles are wrapped around a shark or a giant squid, for example. You saw it over and over. And then we started seeing Deano's tattoos of marine life, plants and coral. I think he was the one that started to bring in all the diverse aquatic elements to tattooing.

"It was almost like punching out a wish list for my clients who would say, "I want this and this and this." But I wanted to more scientifically correct about the images. I wanted to portray an underwater environment that would fit the particular species. I wouldn't, for example, mix a Pacific fish with Caribbean ones. I'd try to stay away from showing deepwater fish around coral, for example, although some customers just want things that they love, whether or not it is scientifically correct.

"I found that a lot of the techniques I had learned by doing portraiture were very applicable to marine tattoos. I see a lot of sea life in which the colors are very cartoonish, so it's very easy to slip into a style in which those elements have a cartoony look to them. Other artists tend to do it that way, and there's nothing wrong with that, it's just that I prefer a more realistic look. For years, I was one of the few people doing color portrait work, and it really helped in making the crossover to creating tattoos of marine life."

While many artists have a problem with tattooing and painting at the same level of excellence (they often say that it's the great difference in the tools), Deano is equally adept at tattooing and painting huge one-hundred-foot-by-eight-foot murals on the sides of huge buildings.

"Time under your belt goes a long way to perfecting a particular approach or style of art. Once you work with certain tools for a extended period of time, you begin to understand the limitations and what you can get out of it. Basically, an artist is going for a finished look, and he knows in his mind''s eye what that is. So, whether you are doing a building or a canvas or skin, if you know how to use the particular tool you have in hand, you can still get to the same finish point. You just have to know how to make this tool do that job. When I first began painting those huge murals with Wyland, it was pretty much a pay-your-dues kind of thing. Wyland is the leading marine life muralist in the world. He was the official artist for the 2008 Olympics. He painted his hundredth wall in Beijing just for the Olympics. He did the roof of the Long Beach Convention Center to promote the Disney movie Earth for Earth Day, which is the world's largest portrayal of earth on top of the Convention Center. He's not just going to put someone on these massive, literally world-record-sized murals with someone who hasn't the appropriate skill or knowledge. The very first one I did with him is a world record.

"The size aspect is overwhelming. We're painting everything from a whale to little, tiny fish. We did a Blue whale that was life-size. That's a hundred-and-five-foot subject, and Wyland doesn't use any pre-sketching or grids or anything. It's all just free-handed up there. That wasn't the way I used to work, but it's becoming the way I work. The reason I haven't worked that way in the past isn't because I'm incapable of it—I can do a portrait of you that will look just like you, from scratch, with no stencil—but, in tattooing, in order to keep the cost down on a tattoo that is proportionally correct on skin that stretches and contorts, to keep the time factor down, and as a little insurance plan, I start with a stencil. Otherwise, if you are free handing a sketch on someone, the end result doesn't really change at all. So, if you're charging by the hour, a stencil is a time-saving measure. Working with Wyland has added a lot to my confidence, and, when I tattoo, I find myself drawing right on the skin.

"For example, I'll start with a yellow marker, because it's close to skin tone and I can lay something out quickly. It's not very pretty, sloppy, of you will. That stage is just to get it positioned correctly. I don't want to spend too much time working on details. On the first sketch, a head, for example, might be too big for the body, so I rough it in in yellow and then go back in with orange, to refine it a little. I use Sharpies. Then I go into a green or purple to refine it even more and make the final changes in the actual tattoo version. During each of these steps I'm familiarizing myself more with the subject matter. Each step helps me notice maybe a little flaw that was there—this arm might look better if it were in a different direction or the flow is off here, that kind of thing. Even with all this, the main objective, whether it's a gigantic mural or a tattoo, is not to screw up. When I was much younger, I used to say that some of the best artists learned to make their mistakes work for them and, often, the mistakes would become a better part of the piece.

"I like it when customers are not that specific and let me do what I want, but, often, as things go along they realize it may not be what they really like. Then, part of the way into the project, they want to become involved in the design aspect. I welcome both people who are specific or just want anything I do. Sometimes, I'll ask a customer to send me a wish list and tell me what they like about the ocean, but, as I get older, I feel that often less is more, and I'll opt to do large subject matter than cram a lot of little details into one piece.

"To me, the toughest part of running a tattoo shop is the human element. But the hardest part is also the best part. You can't control people, so you're very vulnerable, at times. But if you choose wisely and try not to make the same mistakes in choosing people, if they have integrity and pull their weight, that really helps. It's quite normal for me to have decade-long relationships with members of the staff. We have a really good environment here at the shop, because we purposely choose family people. I find that people with families strive harder. It's not just all about themselves."

Deano has four shops. Two of them have been around eight years, one twelve years. The Marietta shop has been around fifteen years, but having four shops to oversee and solid customer bookings for the foreseeable future, he still has a slight, unresolved problem. "I'm very busy here," says Deano. "Because of that, I miss doing more fine art. But that's really a good problem to have."

Deano Cook
Psycho Tattoo
1289 Roswell Road #400
Marietta, Georgia 30062
Phone: (770) 977-8287