In 1984, traveling in his custom painted leopard coated Cadillac,
Howard Teman arrived in Los Angeles to pursue his art career. He started designing flyers for hometown’s backyard keg parties as early as he could drink and draw. These first designs immediately caught the attention of the Bay Area’s thriving rock music scene, which kick started the young artist’s career.
At a tender age of 23, Howard became the hottest concert tour t-shirt designer under the mega rock and roll merchandising company, Great Southern. During his 3 year stint with the company, Howard designed t-shirts for such major acts as: Cher, Bon Jovi, Iron Maiden, Lynyrd Synyrd, Cypress Hill, including a world tour t-shirt for the group The Scorpion“ which became the Great Southern’s all time top seller.
Aside from the famed artist’s ultra imaginative designs in the art world, Howard is also an accomplished musician. His piano and percussion work can be heard on Gun’s and Roses’ albums “Lies” and “Use Your Illusion II” and has played on many sessions with the rock and roll musician’s A-list.
In the beginning of the 90’s, Howard began work on a series of lithographs reflecting the pop culture of the 20th and 21st centuries. This body of work envelops the full spectrum of characters ranging from Hollywood film legends, horror and sci-fi, comedy, sports, television, political satire, to the most infamous serial killers of our time. Provocative, eye catching, and filled with social content, each litho takes about a year to complete and represents a historical tribute to each respected theme leaving its viewers overwhelmed by the content which often incites a challenging who’s who guessing game.
Howard’s top selling poster “Rock N’ Roll Theatre” has sold over 300,000 copies alone to date. It was these posters, which led Howard to his next craft and medium. His old pal from the old rock n roll days Lou Bone, owner of Art to the Bone, one of Los Angeles original tattoo shops, had just bought a poster rack and knew exactly what posters he wanted to fill them with. When Howard brought by the posters, Lou seeing the potential in Howard offered him a job on the spot as an apprentice tattoo artist. Lou promised Howard he would not have to perform the traditional 1-year of flunky duties normally associated with apprenticeship but would teach Howard the essential mechanics of tattooing would be given the opportunity to start tattooing as soon as he feels up to the task.
Howard was up and running within 2 weeks tattooing any and all brave friends he could find.
Howard quickly built a large client base. On 09/09/09, 5 years from his outset he opened his own up-scale tattoo parlor smack dab in the center of downtown Studio City, T-Man Tattoo. T-Man Tattoo has quickly become on of the top rated Tattoo Shops in Los Angeles and has attracted quite a diverse client base including top A-list celebrities such as, Pete Rose, Terri Hatcher, Rob Schneider, James Gandolfini, and many more. 6 days a week at T-Man Tattoo you can find Howard engaged in either tattooing or dotting away on his latest inspired lithograph.