Jordan Wolfe
I was born and raised in a modest Hawaiian household in Makaha, Hawaii. My parents have given me everything I’ve needed to succeed in life, but most of all they have always encouraged me to pursue my passions. As a child, I saw the many talents of my Father. He’s a water man, musician, chef, mechanic, plumber, electrician, counselor, and the list goes on and on. From him, I’ve learned that a man can never have enough talents, that he can always better himself. I watched my mother create things with her hands as being a seamstress was one of her talents. She would sew beautiful gowns for hula halau that would grace the stage of The Merrie Monarch Festival. As a kid, I would watch these women dance Hula on television with a sense of pride knowing that my mom made their dresses. From her, I learned the importance of the work that happens behind the scenes and the pride you can instill in yourself from accomplishing your work, without the need of recognition.
Art has always been an outlet for me, and as a teenager, I knew I wanted to tattoo. After messing around in college, in 2008 I started my apprenticeship under Frantz Tinomana Hofffmann of Aito Tattoo. There, I was introduced to the craft of tattooing, and the discipline required to call yourself a tattooer. Early on, I also met Anthropologist Tricia Allen, whose publications on Hawaiian and Polynesian tattoo can be found in almost any tattoo shop around the world. I also met the likes of Dave and Peggy Sucher of the former Tattoo Hawaii. Their contributions to both the tattoo community as well as the National Tattoo Association are a legacy I can only hope to achieve. They were gracious to me, and offered me many lessons from tuning a tattoo machine to running a business.
Today, I own and work at Hiwa Tattoo, a private tattoo studio located on Oahu, Hawaii. Like my mother, I enjoy an extreme sense of pride in my work. Whenever I complete a tattoo, I know it no longer belongs to me, I give everything to every piece that I do, knowing that it will travel off into the world and I may never see it again. Like my father, I continue to sharpen my skills both in and outside of tattooing. From painting, to woodworking, to fatherhood, they all seem to lend themselves to tattooing. My goal with my art is to blur the lines between simplicity and complexity, to acknowledge our ancestors with ancient markings, but most of all… to tell a story.