When we think of engraving, we might think of the U.S. Mint where money is printed from intricately engraved metal plates, the stuff Humphrey Bogart was also chasing down along with counterfeiters. But I think it’s all digital now. Gone are the master craftsmen who made a little money making big money for Uncle Sam. Then there are engravings we’ve seen in the history books, make that the History Channel now, much of it found it seems on the beautifully designed weapons, flintlocks and the such or even on the hilts of swords or on gilded saddles rode into medieval battles by metal clad knights of yore. Of course engraving is found in wood block art prints as well in the production of books, newspapers and the such, such printing efforts first seen in the 1450s, today again an art fading away in the Digital Age.
Simply put, engraving is the art of cutting lines in metal, wood, or other material either for decoration or for reproduction. It was used for adornment in jewelry as far back as 1000 B.C. That lost art has been rediscovered by Laguna Beach based Tay Herrera, examples of his beautiful and timeless engravings seen here, albeit with a very modern spin, the spin found smoking off 300 series tires rolling on highly custom street and show bikes. Tay has melded metal engraving and motorcycling into a composite artform.
As in many artforms with history behind them, Tay’s talents were part nature, part nurture. Says Tay, “I always knew I was an artist and was drawing people since I was seven.” Growing up in Hacienda Heights, CA, Tay’s father owns and operates a specialty woodshop. “A really talented man, my father also made custom gun cases for people like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone, awesome stuff. My Dad was a master woodcarver but I just helped out with the bandsaw and stuff. I tried woodcarving once when I was eleven and almost cut my finger off. I didn’t dig wood,” laughs Tay.
One day my Father asked me if I wanted to see something cool? “Being a 17-year old punk, I said no. But he told me to come look at something that would throw me for a loop.” So I went with him to meet Angelo Bee, a true master engraver. “At his shop, we found him engraving eight golden ducks with a hammer and a chisel into a Browning shotgun. It was an artform I had never seen before. I was instantly hooked and couldn’t stop watching.”
Tay would go on to engrave guns himself. “Looking back I shouldn’t have jumped in so quickly, because I really chopped them up before I knew what I was doing. I actually had to buy one gun myself because I messed up it up so badly.”
But over the years his skills grew laser sharp, his eye and hand coordination matching his artistic skills. It all culminated about ten years ago when he began engraving motorcycles. “That first bike was part of a restoration project for a friend’s Moto Guzzi. At that point, I got an inkling of what I should be going with this. I did some engraving on a Suzuki I had at the time and went looking for a bike shop to show them what I could do. In Hollywood while showing them my bike engraving, I found they were more interested in what I was doing with guns.”
In 1995 he heard of C.J. Allan, a motorcycle engraver and was very impressed by his work and considers him an influence. The next push toward bike engraving came when he saw a bike show about the new Harley VRod on the Discovery Channel. “As a result, I started coming up with engraving designs for bikes.”
Back in 2003 Tay got interested in custom knife engraving, taking an advanced class GRS in Kansas to learn how to do fine line-engraving combining a pneumatically driven tool and a microscope. He laughs and says, “The first day I couldn’t even draw a straight line. The guy behind me was, like me, a hammer and chisel guy and we were both cussing away, but by the end of the week we were doing gold inlays and killer designs.”
In 2003 he brought an engraved exhaust pipe to a show in New Orleans. “People, including Dave Perewitz, looked at it and said, ‘nice but we’ve seen it before.’” Dave Perewitz distributed gun-style engraved parts in the mid ‘70s. “I realized I had to come up with something the industry had never seen before. I went back to a European form that I had used on some of my gun engraving, a 3-D style, and that brought the response I was looking for. In particular from Jesse James. He jumped on it. He’s a trend setter and saw it right away. Then for two years straight I worked on his parts, particularly his line of air cleaners. He was really cool; he left the designs up to me. I couldn’t even tell you how many pieces I did for him. It was a good thing.”
The next milestone for Tay was facilitated by custom bike builder Trevelen of SuperCo who was building a bike for the “Biker Build-off” TV show.“He came down and showed me what he wanted done and I told him how much and he said okay. I engraved the bike’s air cleaner, rocker boxes, magneto and oil bag.”
The bike won the competition and helped open the door for Tay. “Before that my Web site was getting maybe 10 hits a day. A couple hours after the TV show aired, I had 10,000 hits.”
One illustration of his burgeoning work was the appearance of three custom bikes carrying his artwork at the recent Easyriders Pomona Bike Show. Danny Bogart’s Harley with Tay’s engraving took home the First Place in Stock Custom Class while the two other customs with Tay’s work, including Trevelen’s “El Peligroso” won a First Place while his all copper bike, again with Tay’s handiwork, won Best of Show.
Most of his motorcycle engraving skills serve to enhance billet aluminum of which he says, “It took me a while to develop working in such soft metals because I had been working in the harder metal for the gun engraving.”
While we were speaking with Tay his work table held projects for A-list builders Jesse James, Paul Cox, SuperCo and Choppers Inc. In conjunction with the Indian Larry Legacy people, he had also recently created some art deco design engraving for Brad Pitt, so does find time to take on other jobs.
As far as his future goals, in addition to creating more unique custom bike engraving, he’s also developing a line of jewelry fashioned in gold and silver. He laughs and says, “They’re big, obnoxious rings…I’ve got one called Dental Plan. If you get punched with one, well, you know.
For more information about Tay’s art, his services and contact info, log on to www.tarrera.com.
