Breaking Ice

It’s 2:30 on Sunday afternoon and I’ve just pulled up to a wood and brick building, address 121 Portland St. The sign reads Oceanic Art, a tattoo parlour owned and operated by Scott Forbes, a surfer from the east coast of Canada. I walk in and Scott is finishing his lunch, Chinese food. He asks me to hold off on the photographs. I oblige and we catch up.

Scott’s focussed, and he’s not much for small talk. His moments are obviously precious to him and he hates having time to waste. But he loves to talk about those things that truly interest him. Being a true renaissance man, Scott has an appreciation for everything from fine Egyptian art to old skate deck art and pop art. He keeps his hands in all sorts of artistic avenues. Tattooing, wood carving, airbrushing, surfing, and shaping. Scott started shaping surfboards in 1999. Soon he made it a career starting his own line, Otherworld Surfboards. “The work I was trying to get into was to help support my lifestyle and let me surf everyday. So I figured out a way to make money and hang out at the beach.”

Scott shaped regularly until December of 2005 when Clark Foam shut it’s doors. He then decided to try his hand at tattooing which he had started practicing only a few weeks earlier. A friend he had met through his wife Julie’s work decided to let Scott try and tattoo himself.

“We started an informal apprenticeship. We’d sit and chat, we’d have a couple laughs and I’d tattoo myself. I’d make a mistake and Danny would laugh.” Within two months Scott had begun taking on his own clientèle at Kara’s hair studio. In July 2007 he opened the doors to Oceanic Art.

Since that time he and his wife Julie have had a little girl, Malia. Even with his own shop, a new baby girl, and shaping the occasional board Scott still finds time to surf. “I get up around six, and check the surf. If it’s good I’ll have a session. Two hours in the water. I’ll get out, watch the baby, then my wife surfs.”

Forbes is looking to expand his business, maybe even hire a tattoo artist or two to help with the growing load. A possible tattoo clothing line for those people who have no bare skin left to donate may also be in the mix. In the meantime he’ll spend his free time surfing and finding more outlets to tame his voracious creative appetite.

It was time for me to go. Looking over, I realize there’s no point catching eyes with Scott before making my exit. That focussed stare is locked in on his newest creation. His next artistic endeavor. I say adios and let myself out the front door.

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