8 minute read
Flight of the Falcon
In Memory of Frederick C. "Falcon" Sibary, 1950-2024
In the deified air of icons — legit legends, the ones who help define a generation — there are a few big enough for just one name.
LeBron, Tiger. Oprah and Adele. Picasso. Plato.
In the tight-knit world of Columbus tattoo artists, one name looms larger than life in the late, great Falcon.
Born Frederick C. Sibary in Michigan, Falcon left us for the next best thing on December 12 at the ripe young age of 74. He is survived by three children (Trevor, Angela and Tracey), nine grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
“He definitely changed what people perceived a tattoo artist to be,” says son Trevor Sibary in a phone interview the day following a celebration of Falcon’s life held at the Loft back in December. “Although my dad was part of the old-school tattoo scene here in Columbus, he was known to be different because he was always so nice. He just loved tattooing and he loved meeting people and giving them that big smile of his. He originally got his start tattooing in
Detroit back in 71, and after traveling the world some, he came back to the states and wound up in the South. Some other tattoo artists didn’t like that. They thought he was too nice. They were mad because my dad was becoming more and more popular as tattooing went from the biker, roughneck thing to more mainstream.”
Now 43 and the owner of his own tattoo shop, Soulbound Tattoo (5381 Veterans Parkway), Trevor says as he smiles, “Tattooing is more than skin-deep, it’s ‘Soulbound’.” He recalls how his father gave him his largest tattoo (a dragon) as well as his first tattoo – at the age of four, when Falcon put a tiny dot on his son’s hand in response to the non-stop requests the little boy pestered him with.
Trevor explains how his father always encouraged him. “He didn’t pressure me by telling me to become a tattoo artist; it was more just known as an open opportunity for
me if I wanted it. The only thing he really stressed to me was, ‘Not to be an asshole.’ Becoming a tattoo artist like him, for me, is embodying what every young boy who looks up to their father thinks, ‘That’s who I want to be.’ I never really thought of doing anything else. This is our family legacy, and I never realized that until it became a reality.”
Trevor remembers his father as “a free-spirited hippie who always wanted to help people.” He remembers his dad’s house on 1st Avenue, which always had an open-door policy for friends down on their luck or souls in a pinch who just needed a spot to crash, a fact of life for Falcon, sometimes to the dismay of other family members when they came to visit for the holidays.
Trevor says he has found comfort in the community’s outpouring of love, sympathy and stories of his dad. “I’m just grateful for the time I got to spend with him and to see the positive impact he had,” he says.
Just like his long-time friend Falcon, another local tattooer, Tony Lucas, was a northern transplant recruited to Columbus. The shop at the time was Fast Freddie’s on
Victory Drive. It was the early ‘80s, and they were taking advantage of a not-so-new market for ink thanks to all the Army soldiers stationed in town during the Vietnam and Cold War eras.
“I met Freddie Faus (Fast Freddie) out in California” Lucas, now 80, remembers. “A year later when I was back home in New York, Freddie calls me and says he just opened
a shop in Georgia and I should come down,” Lucas says. “So I get down to Columbus and talk to Freddie and he says, ‘I got a guy working for me that knows nothing. That guy was Falcon. But when I sat down and watched Falcon, I was like, ‘Man, this guy’s actually got the shop under control.’”
Freddie at the time owned one of two tattoo parlors in Columbus, with the other run by the notorious “Sailor” Bill Killingsworth. The two men waged a war of sorts, shooting out the windows of each other’s shops in a fierce rivalry which went on for years. The outlaw vibes of that scene on the outskirts of town are part of local lore. Trevor shared the gruesome violence of an incident where his father was shot five times at work by a fellow tattoo artist. Long dead, the looming shadow cast by Sailor Bill seems to be the stuff of legend, surrounded by whispered rumors of him being a gangster and even a murderer.
After a falling out with Freddie, Lucas once tried to convince Falcon to leave and
open up a shop with him (“The two of us would’ve had Columbus sewn up,” Lucas declares) but Falcon refused.
“Even though we hadn’t worked together in a lot of years, he was still a great friend,” Lucas says. “Falcon was just a great guy. Everybody who met him liked him.”
“Even though we hadn’t worked together in a lot of years, he was still a great friend,” Lucas says. “Falcon was just a great guy. Everybody who met him liked him.”
Local entrepreneur Buddy Nelms doesn’t have any tattoos, but he does have a lot of experience doing business the right way, and for the right reasons, as a partner in The Loft, Mabellas, Salt Cellar, The Mix Market and more, responsible for so much rejuvenation and reinvestment in the downtown area. Buddy has a lot of respect, and a lot to say when it comes to his friend, Falcon.
“Falcon was one of those guys who’s successful at whatever they do,” Nelms says of his friend, who he described as “one in a million.”
“He was always kind and stayed that way every step along the way. He was a real kingpin of the tattoo community and supported so many others. He gave so many of the tattoo artists working today their first shot. And he was a real character, one of those characters that comes into your life that doesn’t fit on anybody else’s track.”
Nelms became friends with Falcon when both were business owners on Broadway, back when Falcon operated out of the old Jack’s Pawnshop. In 2007, as Falcon’s business grew to the point of outgrowing that space, he gave up his lease with plans to move into the larger storefront which would become Brother’s General Store.
However, tattoo shops had been banned from the newly formed Uptown district and, while previously grandfathered in and thus allowed to operate out of Jack’s, Falcon was denied a business permit for the new location.
Falcon’s strength or character and strong moral fabric is what compelled Nelms to speak before the board, which he knew would likely turn down the tattoo shop’s application for a business license, due to the powers-that-be holding an uptight vision for what they felt should exist in Uptown. Nelms recalls going to speak before them on Falcon’s behalf, telling them “I know him, I like him, and, as a fellow merchant, I appreciate him.” Falcon’s tattoo shop wound up moving to its last home at 825 Veterans Parkway.
“We worked beside each other and, as merchants, we solved problems together,” says Nelms. “I came to realize not only could I rely on him but he always showed up. He cared. He stood up for the little guy. He didn’t really give a crap about bureaucracy. What counted to Falcon was your soul.”
** It’s stories like this that make us LocaL. Special thanks to Trevor, Tony and Buddy for giving us the honor of sharing Falcon’s story. - publisher, The LocaL.
