Buddy Mott was a Newport tattoo legend. His daughter captured his legacy in a new book.

BRISTOL – One day a sailor walked into a tattoo shop in Newport and said to the owner, the late Carlton “Buddy" Mott, that he did not want a tattoo but he just wanted to meet the legendary Mott.

After all, he heard about the witty Mott in a Saigon, Vietnam, bar, according to Mott’s daughter and former tattoo apprentice Marilyn Mott-Tolleson.

That’s the impact Buddy Mott, an artist and a friend to many, had on people, added Mott-Tolleson during a recent interview about her book on her father’s business.

"Buddy’s Tattoo Shop: Keeping America Beautiful," published by the local Stillwater River Publishing, features 195 pages with “over 200 colored pictures, 67 stencils, some of our tattoo tips, trade secrets for fellow artists and tattoo collectors, plus some of the unusual and entertaining requests we got on a nightly basis,” Mott-Tolleson wrote in her description.

Mott-Tolleson sat down with a reporter in her Bristol home and thumbed through the pages of her book, retelling her father's story. Mott-Tolleson for 30 years worked with her father, who tattooed people from all walks of life for 59 years, before retiring in 2007.

“Buddy” Mott passed away in 2014 at the age of 90.

Buddy’s daughter Carolyn Mott-Jacques also worked with her father, turning the tattoo shop into a family business and a treasure chest of stories.

Mott-Tolleson said her father served in both the United States Army and then as a Navy reserve, and often surprised people with his tattoos of both branches of the military.

Buddy Mott, a master of one-liners, said he later enlisted in the Navy because he did not like sleeping on the ground with the Army.

It’s these one-liners that helped Buddy Mott endear himself to so many people, Mott-Tolleson said.

The first page of "Buddy’s Tattoo Shop: Keeping America Beautiful" features a conversation with a customer who said, ‘Hi, I’m nervous.’”

Buddy put that customer at ease with a simple line, “Hi, I’m Buddy,” Mott-Tolleson recalled.

This upbeat spirit and Newport’s Naval presence of sailors looking to get tattoos helped Buddy Mott to become an institution, leading him to tattoo an estimated 3,000 people per year.

In Buddy’s own words, according to Mott-Tolleson, he saw more skin than a “public toilet seat.”

Mott-Tolleson said her father always loved to draw. When he served during World War II, he wrote letters for fellow servicemen who could not read or write. Mott-Tolleson would also draw pictures along with these letters, a precursor to his career as a tattoo artist and dear friend to servicemen and women.

“He loved people. He loved to draw. He got to sit down to work,” said Mott-Tolleson, who claimed that was one reason why her father liked his work.

Buddy Mott always joked that barbers had to stand up all day while a tattoo artist got to sit down.

When Rhode Island was the only state around where tattoos were legal, the legend of Buddy Mott grew, keeping the family business busy.

Buddy Mott grew nervous at one point because the demographic of Newport began to change from a sailor port to a more diverse city, filled with affluent people, not known for their love of tattoos.

But “Buddy” Mott said the “long-haired hippies” kept the business afloat.

Buddy Mott’s business acumen also helped him stretch his work to nearly six decades.

He built his own printing press and he began engraving cigarette/cigar lighters, helping him to diversify his business. He was also a sign letterer and a painter.

With the help of his daughter, he even made his own needles.

Buddy Mott maintained a business and a marriage to the late B. Madonna Mott for 61 years.

Mott-Tolleson jokes that her mother, a teacher and a church organist, never walked into her father’s workplace.

This led to a successful marriage as Buddy Mott’s art was not always PG-13 quality.

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In fact, Mott-Tolleson in her description says she would rate her book a “PG-15 and a half” in terms of its pictures and storytelling.

Still, the business led to some great stories for Buddy Mott and his two girls and a camaraderie among local tattoo artists who “always have each other’s back,” Mott-Tolleson said.

Mott-Tolleson plans to promote the book, which can be found on Amazon, at Newport’s Broadway Street Fair on Oct. 14  and she also plans on conducting a book signing at one of Bristol’s former factories.

Buddy Mott was born in Bristol and worked at one of the factories, which produced rubber and other items, before he enlisted in the military and became a tattoo artist.

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Newport tattoo artist Buddy Mott remembered in new book by daughter