We are excited to announce our new and upcoming project “Sailor Vern: a biography”. Sailor Vern Ingemarson was a tattooer for 30+ years, beginning in Norfolk, VA. As a sailor in WWII, Vern was exposed to tattooing for the first time and this peaked his interest. A disciple of Cap Coleman, he started his career working alongside Coleman and Paul Rogers in Norfolk. When his career demanded it, Vern moved back to San Francisco in search of steady income and during this time worked side by side with Duke Kaufman and several other bay area tattooers. Vern was always a man of many trades and talents. Self-educated, he taught himself a variety of craft skills over the years. He was an avid painter, photographer, woodworker, and jewelry maker and delved into various other trades, as well. His family remembers him as an “oracle of knowledge” and he continued to be an avid learner of all subject areas. Over the course of Vern’s long tattoo career, he painted a large amount of flash spanning from the 1940’s through the 1980’s. This book will contain hundreds of never before seen sheets of flash, acetates and line drawings from Vern, Paul Rogers, Coleman, Percy Waters, and many more.
Throughout this project, we have had the pleasure of meeting and getting to know Vern’s family. They have been a huge factor in helping us understand who Vern was. We spent almost a year researching Vern’s life and compiling content for the book. We also have been working with Aaron Legore of Calamity Jane’s Tattoo. Jane acquired Vern’s large collection of flash, acetates, and line drawings in the 1980s and later left it to LeGore when she passed in 2012. We can’t wait to share Vern’s story with you and to bring to light the life of an extremely interesting man.
The Sailor Vern book will be coming soon in Spring of 2015
Stay tuned for more details and follow us on instagram @yellowbeakpress
