Stoners fly ‘high like a kite’ with a new marijuana tattoo collection book

High as a Kite: A Guide to Marijuana is not, as its many co-authors have pointed out, “a guide to growing marijuana”, but “a collaborative effort by creatives to showcase the beauty of cannabis through tattoos”.

Put another way, High as a Kite, a collection of cannabis-related tattoo art gathered from around the country, is an extremely dope-must-have new illustrated book made from the passion – and imagination – of one Houston-based Artist’s originated tattoo artist named Danny G.

Courtesy Danny G.

For most of his early life, Danny, who was born in Colombia and raised in Texas, could not draw and had never picked up a brush, but he was so obsessed with the looks and ideas behind tattoos that he turned it around – constructs the process.

After putting significant pressure on his mother from the rest of the family when he convinced her to buy him a tattoo kit at age 14, Danny discovered an extensive and supportive community hidden in the tattoo industry.

This community stretched from New York to Los Angeles, with locations like Chicago, Denver, and Ohio in between – and Danny explored them all as a traveling tattoo artist doing freelance work.

When asked about his favorite spots, he finds himself torn between Baltimore and Detroit. Baltimore – because customers from more than three different states flock to the small coastal town like moths.

Detroit – not sure, but he is aware of the fact that the still recovering city has a certain charm that pulls him under its spell over the years. When we called him about this article, he was actually there.

As he traveled from state to state, Danny got a closer look at all of the works of art made by tattoo artists across America. At a time when there was no social media and art could not be promoted online, this was an insightful experience.

Other creative industries whose visual works of art cannot or cannot be exhibited in museums – such as film, television, and even video games – usually publish these visual works of art in the form of large, encyclopedic art books that are sold online and in bookstores.

Courtesy Danny G.

In the tattoo world, which is a loosely connected chain of small, largely independent businesses rather than a tightly knit and carefully organized industry, it has been difficult to gather the resources necessary to produce such books.

The best approach to this was a grassroots approach, and that’s exactly what Danny ended up doing: by asking artists, whether starting out at work or long retired, to contribute some of their favorite weed-related pieces.

Since every tattoo artist has their own unique sense of style, Danny figured he could piece the images together into a cohesive whole by giving the book a single theme to make it easier for readers / viewers to digest.

Nor could he have chosen a more appropriate topic. Tattoo artists love weed just like their closest neighborhood stoner friend, not to mention the fact that both art and flowers have long been indispensable parts of American counterculture.

Every time I interview an artist for this particular magazine, I just have to ask them if they smoke while they work, whether smoking affects their creative process, and how it affects everything they do and do.

Courtesy Danny G.

Danny gives me a sobering, simple answer, “I’d rather be high than not.” It also helps him get into that zen-like state in which tattoo artists can effortlessly make the finest hand movements without breaking a sweat.

But that doesn’t mean that you can get “high as a kite” for every job. Danny recalls being the first to light up like there’s no tomorrow after his arrest in San Antonio for weed possession.

That would have been fine had he not arranged to have a picture of MC Escher level complexity tattooed on someone’s neck shortly after they finished their last joint. Danny’s advice: Don’t smoke too much – at least not until you’ve finished drawing your lines.

Not only does High as a Kite offer tattoo artists the opportunity to exhibit their work to large numbers of people, but the book also enables its readers to enjoy that work without having to put it on their body first.

As for Danny himself, he’s doing his best to help the tattoo world stay connected – a goal he says is already much, much easier to achieve thanks to social media platforms like Instagram.

Courtesy Danny G.

Another thing worth mentioning is that 10 percent of all proceeds from the sale of High as a Kite will be donated to the Last Prisoner Project, a nonprofit that provides legal advice and lobbying for people jailed for cannabis. related offenses.

For Danny, whose previous collaborations and projects have donated money to food banks and homeless shelters, this thing feels especially personal. While he escaped the same ordeal only on parole, others have been put behind bars for years.

“It’s only fair,” says Danny. “If you make money with weed, you should do your part.” A man who keeps his word, the pre-orders for High as a Kite went on April 20th. live and quickly collected more than 900 inquiries.

When fresh prints of the book arrived from overseas, Danny kept his eyes on the second volume. He already knows the subject: psychedelics. He says he did ayahuasca when he was “little” so he’s looking forward to it.