Stoney Knows How: Life as a Sideshow Tattoo Artist
by Alan Govenar
About
3rd Edition: Schiffer Publishing, January 2023
Details: 208 pages, Hardcover, Full-Color, ISBN: 0764364006
Format: 8.7 x 1 x 11.1 in.
2nd Edition: Schiffer Publishing, November 2003
Details: 158 pages, Hardcover, Full-Color, ISBN: 0-7643-1832-2
Format: 8.5 x 0.5 x 11 in.
1st Edition: University Press of Kentucky, Feb. 1981
Details: Hardcover, ASIN: 0813114020
In this updated edition, the extraordinary life of Stoney St. Clair—circus performer turned tattoo artist—comes to life in photos, tattoo flash, and his own words, edited by writer and filmmaker Alan Govenar. Born Leonard St. Clair in 1912 in West Virginia, Stoney discovered his passion for drawing at Johns Hopkins, where he was being treated for rheumatoid arthritis. Not deterred by his disability, he joined the circus at 15 as a sword swallower and then learned tattooing from other circus performers. From traveling with the circus to setting up tattoo shops in Tampa and Columbus, Stoney met, tattooed, and worked with some of the greatest.
From Journal of American Folklore (1983)
I am glad I skipped the Acknowledgments in first reading "Stoney Knows How," for it is there we learn that the man who tells us his story – Stoney St. Clair – has already died. He so clearly lives in the pages of this short book that reports of his death seem, like Twain’s, somehow a sad exaggeration. Stoney (Leonard L. St. Clair) was a tattoo artist of the “Old School,” as he says. The sign above Stoney’s Columbus, Ohio shop proclaimed: “Stoney Knows How: Tattooing by the Teacher of the Art.” Folklorist Alan B. Govenar transcribed and edited Stoney’s oral autobiography, and it is clear from the narrative that Stoney was indeed a “Teacher of the Art."
Much of the value of this book is in the obvious expressions of personal and cultural values….it is a very good book, very readable, one that can easily serve as a source for scholars whether their interest is in folk art, American folk values, folk expressions, or life histories and personal narratives.
Susan K. Stahl, Indiana University, Bloomington
From The New York Times (November 11, 1981)
“Stoney Knows How” is an extended interview with Mr. St. Clair, an ebullient little man with the gift of gab of a circus tout (spoken in the accents of Appalachia) and a fund of bizarre stories about tattooing and unrelated matters. One of these is the tale of the widow of a Florida snake farmer who had been squeezed to death by this python. The woman apparently made a fortune touring the South with the guilty snake. “After all,” says Stoney, “how often do you get a chance to see a snake that’s squeezed a man to death?”
Not often, nor does one often have the opportunity to meet a man like Stoney. The film makers treat him with respect, fondness and appreciation and he responds in kind.
Vincent Canby
