SKIN DEEP MAGAZINE • 75Kickin’ It With Bowery Stan
When he was 17, Jeffas met another tattoo great and man-
aged to make quite the impression on him too. “I met
Bowery Stan at Inked Out NJ,” he recalls. “I got my first
tattoo from him [the classic piranha and hammer], as
well as my first machine, a Jonesy.”
“It wasn’t until last year though that I really got close
with him,” he elaborates. “When he had his heart attack,
Mario and I flew down to Florida to see him. Once Stan
was flown up to New York, I began visiting him at hos-
pitals and rehab centres on my days off. What began as
potentially saying goodbye to a legend blossomed into a
friendship. Now, I gladly take a break from tattooing to
answer his phone calls,” he says. “Rich Fie was very close
with Tony Polito and told me one day not to take those
calls for granted. I’m not. I’m eating up every second of it.”
Over the past 12 months their friendship has also re-
sulted in numerous tattoos, including a massive back
piece for Jeffas. “I had driven Stan down to the Philly
convention this winter and helped him with stencils and
set-ups for the weekend,” he starts. “It was cool to see
him back to doing what he loves and feeling confident
again after the heart attack. On the car ride home, out of
the blue, he said, ‘I wanna do your back piece’. That was
never even a thought that crossed my mind, but I knew
I wanted a tractor trailer for my dad and a log cabin for
my mom. The next day, he called me and asked when we
could start.”
Then Jeffas was hit with another surprise: the oppor-
tunity to tattoo Stan. “That was something I never in a
million years thought would happen,” he admits. “But I
had him down at Starlight one day and he said he wanted
me to tattoo him. So we picked out a frog from a set of
flash we had been collaborating on. ‘A frog and he’s fish-
ing, what more can you ask for?’ For me, it’s still surreal
that my tattoo is next to Tony Polito’s and Zeke Owen’s.
And it’s on Bowery Stan.”
Asked if the experience was nerve-wracking, he laughs,