Thursday, August 13, 2020

Mahalo, for the last 14 years.

I decided to go to Wordpress. It was a hard decision; I really love the interface and look of blogger. I have had this blog since late 2005. 14 years here on this platform.
I took this blog, and my personal artist website and combined them into one site. 2020 has been a dumpster fire of a year so far and it looks like its just going to keep on burning, so I took advantage of all the free time and changed all the websites, edited my books for 2nd edition printing, worked on some oil paintings, played some PS4, and just took a good look at the way the world is going to change and did my best to try to anticipate how I will need to adapt to it as a working artist.

I have been a working artist since 1996, and writing about it on this blog since 2005.  I got alot out of this blog, more then I will talk about.  Regardless, I just wanted to say thanks for reading and staying tuned for so long, I would be nothing without an audience. 

Come find me on my new blog at my new website.  I have alot planned for the new blog, and I hope to see you all there.



It is made for smart phones, tablets, and laptop or home computers.  I really like the new site, and I really like the blog on it.  I really wanted to focus on blogging with the new site and have a little bit of  a standard website.  I let the designers from Nick Ponte Marketing just go for it and give me what they thought was best suited for the tech of today. Nick and his team built a new website for Athena too, so Such Good Dogs is now really what she was always looking for. Really the new websites look amazing, and they are doing what they need to for us.

Mahalo for the last 14 years, come join me on my new blog.

Friday, June 5, 2020

New Website!

We have launched a new website for Sweet Trade Tattoo today which has our new store up!  This has been one of our big goals we set back in 2017.  We took a few years making sure we knew exactly what we wanted out of a website and how we wanted it to work for us.

I won’t bore you with the details, but we wanted a to pack lots of features into our website, and we got them all.  The new site for Sweet Trade Tattoo looks fantastic on all platforms, and I am looking forward to the next few years where we get to work with this site and truly develop what Athena and I set as our goal.
Go check it out and see what you think, we are really excited for this launch and there is alot more to come soon.

Mahalo.


Tuesday, June 2, 2020

Kama‘aina First Economy.

Today we have officially been listed on the Kama’aina First locals supporting locals county of maui business listings.  This is a pretty big deal to me, and it really makes me feel like my family and our small business’s are that much more of a part of maui.


Maui is making the transition (one we were thrown into due to covid-19) to a local economy.  Maui has always had locals supporting locals, and we have always had tourist industry.  The tourist industry over the last 15 years had become 90% of our entire economy, and when covid-19 put an abrupt stop to that we the people have to just as immediately adapt and change how we do business.

Moving forward after covid-19 the Kama’aina First initiative is one of many changes we are making here on Maui to keep the people of Maui working and supporting each other to build a truly independent local economy.

Mahalo to our Mayor for the awesome work!
And everyone, shop locally!



Saturday, May 30, 2020

Epic Dive at Mala Wharf.

Yesterday My buddy Tim the owner of Tiny Bubbles Scuba, took me out on the iconic Mala Wharf dive.  It was EPIC!

Banded coral shrimp. These little dudes are so cool.



A moorish idol and a couple of butterfly fish.

I love watching reef sharks they are so beautiful, graceful actually.

Off shore fisherman hook white-tip reef sharks often.  I have taken hooks out of turtles, but i have no intention of trying to help this guy.  There were four sharks under the docs that we found, and I am sure there were more we just didn’t find.

School of chubs.

Puffer Fish, I see more of them on the north beaches past Kapalua but it was good to spend some time with this gal.

So many green sea turtles.

Frog Fish, love these guys!

And I finally (after 50+ dives since 2012) got PADI certified as an open water recreational diver.   Now I can go anywhere and have my own tanks to go dive anywhere in the world!

I am still inching closer to opening the studio so we can start tattooing and painting again!  I will keep you all posted.
Mahalo.


Thursday, May 28, 2020

Re-Opening After Covid-19.

Maui County has given us permission to open for business starting in June.
Sweet Trade Tattoo is committed to providing a safe and healthy workplace for all our clients.  To ensure we have a safe and healthy workplace, we have developed a Covid-19 Preparedness Plan in response to the pandemic.  Our goal is to mitigate the potential for transmission of Covid-19 in our workplace and community, and that requires full cooperation among our workers and clients.  Only through this cooperative effort can we establish and maintain the safety and health of everyone.
We will be doing a soft opening June 15th, with an official re-opening July 1st, 2020.

We will keep you posted, as we are contacting all of our clients that have pending appointments.  Please be patient with us.  We will get to everyone as quickly as possible.


Mahalo,
We are deeply grateful for you, our clients.
See you soon.

Saturday, May 16, 2020

Olowalu Dive.

Today was the first day the the County of Maui opened up the beaches for us all to go outside and enjoy the day.  It was amazing, everyone was at the beach and I ran into people I have not seen for months.  My friend Tim, owner of Tiny Bubbles Scuba took me out for a dive.  We went to Olowalu and just kinda hung out with some turtles. 

It was so awesome to just be outside, in the ocean again enjoying Maui for what I live here for: the ocean is everything here to me.













We only went down to 30ish feet, it was just fantastic to get out there and enjoy the day. 
Mahalo Tim.


Friday, May 8, 2020

Needed Hike.

We have been in our house for 53 days.  We have been out a few times, a couple to get supplies and a couple for some exercise.  We had to escape for a hike with the dogs, and we are bored out of our minds, but we are ave and neither of us has caught the virus so it’s not all bad.


Stay safe people, this will end eventually.

Thursday, April 30, 2020

Covid-19 Update.

We have been told by the Governor that we are not allowed to open the studio until the end of May.  That might change, as the news is changing every day and none of us really know what the fuck is going on other then this virus can be seriously dangerous and we need to stop the spread by sheltering in place.  Let us all hope that they do not extend this shelter in place for too long.

Stay home, don’t let the stress get to you, and treat your family like the gold they are.  

Athena and Ashoka are pretty happy just chilling together.

Holy fucking dumpster fire 2020.


Tuesday, April 28, 2020

Covid-19 GoFundMe Campaign.

When the news started about Covid-19 I never really thought it was going to get this crazy.  Everything is a complete disaster, and we have no idea what to expect over the nest year.  We have tried everything we ca,

As a last resort we have launched this GoFundMe campaign to at the very least keep us in our lease until this crisis passes.

Check it out, help if you can, share it if you can, hell even a dollar is helpful at this point.

Mahalo


Wednesday, March 18, 2020

Covid-19.

Due to the recent world pandemic, Sweet Trade Tattoo will be closed until at least April 30th per the Mayor’s orders.  We appreciate your patience and support.

Moving forward, we will be following all safety guidelines put forth by the industry and State to promote the safest possible environment to tattoo and be tattooed in.  

We will contact all our clients with future appointments and make arrangements with each of you.  We will do our best to make sure we can, at the very least, continue to treat you like ohana.  

We will keep you informed of any changes.

Mahalo, stay safe.