Art, always

How Shawn Wolfman creates, creates and creates some more

By Brad Gischia

Shawn Wolfman bends close to the wall, dabbing color onto brick. Each spot of color up close will just be a blur but when viewed from a distance, from a passing car on Washington Street perhaps, you’ll see the whole picture, the mural on the side of the Blackrocks Brewing Facility in Marquette. Wolfman began drawing when he was small. It wasn’t until the late ’90s and early 2000s that he considered making it a full-time gig. He moved to Ohio in 2002 and began to apprentice at New Breed Tattoo in Dayton. New Breed is owned by Bryan Brenner and St. MarQ, two wellknown tattoo artists.

“They hired me and sent me into the gang to work with all the people there,” he said.

While at the shop Wolfman shadowed the artists there.

“I was lucky enough to have a friend who worked there already,” he said. “I worked with him for a while.”

Apprentice tattoo artists don’t have the chance to start slinging ink right away. They start slow, learning the craft and perfecting their technique and artistry before permanently altering someone’s appearance.

“I cleaned up and sterilized tools. During that time I’d get assignments. Draw this. Try that style,” Wolfman said.

After he became proficient, his employer allowed him to start tattooing people.

“You start out really basic. I don’t think I got paid for a tattoo for almost 8 months,” Wolfman said. “Once you start working on people. you have to let them know you’re in your first 50 or so tattoos and you don’t charge them, but you encourage tips. It stays that way until you get a bunch under your belt and feel confident.

“It was very formative. I learned a lot of different things,” he said.

Wolfman worked in the tattoo industry for many years after that.

“I worked with a big crew down there and was able to learn a lot of different styles,” he said. “It was a great opportunity to be influenced by different types of artists. Everyone had their own thing going.”

He moved back to Marquette and opened up The Inkwell Tattoo shop on Third Street in Marquette. It was fortuitous.

“We were neighbors and I’d walk by the shop all the time,” said Andy Langlois, co-owner of Blackrocks Brewery in Marquette. “I saw his work in the shop and thought, wouldn’t it be cool to have something like that in the pub.”

So Langlois commissioned Wolfman to do just that.

“His style is unique, and we thought it would look really cool,” Langlois said.

The first commission led to two more.

“I ended up doing three for them,” Wolfman said. “One on the back door, and then two on the brewing facility on Washington Street.”

On the back of the building there is a dragon, long and spindly and full of color with thick outlines and the name of the brewery inside of the body. There was later an ordinance issue with having the name in the mural and that had to be fixed. Fortunately the artist was easy to get a hold of.

“They really took care of me,”

Wolfman said.

After his work on the back of the building the owners offered him the front as well.

“It was a great opportunity to have a lot of eyes on my work,” said Wolfman. “I based the art off of a smaller piece that I’d done for the pub. It was a T-Rex skull that incorporated that, actually geographical blackrocks location into the design. I made it a lot bigger.”

For the team at Blackrocks, having an opportunity to be involved with public art was one they just couldn’t pass up.

“I like being able to display art,” Langlois said. “You can go to his studio and look at small pieces, but having the big stuff (murals) in your face, and that’s great.”

Wolfman draws his inspiration from a lot of things, but none so much as the things he loved as a child – specifically movies.

“You know they keep rebooting and recycling all of these franchises that I liked as a kid,” he said. “Someone who gets the original, has a passion for it and sees my artwork… man that’s great. It stirs up memories that they have and they’re passionate about it.”

The relationship to tattooing and the art Wolfman is working on now is very symbiotic.

“It’s similar to how I draw anyway. Sort of a comic book style with bold lines and bright, colorful fills and fades.”

But he doesn’t necessarily stay in one medium.

“I did tattoo nonstop for so long that now I like to bounce around between mediums,” he said.

Most of his non-tattoo work is centered around markerboard and watercolors. It’s where he’s most comfortable.

“I try to dabble in everything though,” he said.

Wolfman and his wife closed up shop and moved to Munising at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, and that time was great for him artistically.

“We were quarantining,” he said, “and I was kind of climbing the walls. All of that time I was able to draw something every day.”

All of that art and all of that time tattooing as a daily routine helped Wolfman figure out how to keep forward progress on projects.

“Momentum and inspiration can be tricky,” he said. “I feel like it’s become ingrained in our culture that no one really has an attention span. It’s kind of the reason I haven’t succumbed to the smartphone.”

Wolfman has a cell phone but it’s of the old flip variety.

“I have a laptop to run all of my social media stuff, Instagram and Facebook, but I can close it,” he said.

We Were Quarantining

Then the music gets turned up and Wolfman says he can stay more focused and maintain that focus. Another way Wolfman keeps from getting burned out is to have several projects going at once.

“Maybe I’m not feeling this one and I can jump into something else in a different medium,” he said. “It’s similar to when that spark, whatever inspires me whether it’s a character or a person that I want to work on, it hits me and I just have to do it.”

When that inspiration hits, it’s often best to get on it as soon as possible.

“I need to do that piece. It represents something to me or makes me feel a certain way. I want to capture that feeling, and when it’s successful, I know that people will relate to it as well,” he said.

Wolfman spends a lot of time sketching out ideas, when he’s not working on larger pieces.

“Sketching is important. I spend a lot of time drawing, even if it’s something that doesn’t ever leave my sketchbook” he said. “I doodle for hours. It’s therapeutic.”

After the doodle is complete, he transfers it to a clean sheet, usually using graphite onto watercolor paper, because he can trace it out. Then he will spend up to 12 hours on a 5” by 7” painting.

“It’s hard to gauge how much time I spend on any one thing, because I usually have three or four going all the time,” he said. “The time definitely adds up when you’re doing a bunch of them.”

Wolfman recently did a series of 11 paintings of the Munsters from the television series.

“That was a lot of fun,” he said.

He is also working on several new projects, some prints of horror icons Leatherface and Jason, and is in talks with the ByGeorge Brewery in Munising to do another mural.

“I hooked up with Shawn just through him coming into the brewery for the occasional beer,” said George Shultz, owner of ByGeorge. “I knew about his success as a tattoo artist and really dug the work he did on the side of Blackrocks production building, so I asked if he’d be willing to do some art for us.”

The area that will play host to the mural is made of corrugated metal, making the application of the mural a little on the tricky side.

“That will be a challenge we’ll have to figure out, but it will be a lot of fun,” Wolfman said.

Wolfman has already created beer graphics for ByGeorge and sells stickers in the brewery.

Wolfman’s art can be viewed on his Facebook page or on Instagram at shawnwolfmanart. He’ll also have a table at BayCon in Escanaba on April 22 at Bay College, and that’s something he’s excited to be involved with.

“I look forward to the energy and the crowd. I want to do more stuff like that,” he said. “People are excited. You end up having really great conversations and really spin off on stories with the people at the show. People’s excitement is visible and that’s energizing.”

Shultz knows the importance of that energy.

“The whole premise behind ByGeorge Brewing, whether it’s the craft beer, the artwork, or the name in general, is about individual expression with no boundaries,” he said. “Along with that expression comes the joy of sharing your creation with others. Shawn exemplifies this and it’s a pleasure having him do artwork for us.”

At the end of it all, Wolfman just wants people to keep doing what they love.

“I feel like it’s easy to get discouraged,” he said. “You almost have to keep telling yourself that whatever you’re doing, you do it for you and make it because you’re passionate and you feel it. If you do it for those reasons, you’re going to resonate with someone else.”

Brad Gischia is a writer and artist native to Upper Michigan. He has published two children’s books and done illustrations for both comic books and novels.