O-Kay, my full name is: Cornel Adrian Lengyel-Leahu 3rd
and is pronounced kor-Nel Ah-dree-an Len-g'yell Leh-ah-Who. Most say Lay-Hu, even I.

I prefer to be called Tiger, and my mother has never called me by any other name. I was named after a toy tiger I received when I was born-1956

The family name is Hungarian-Romanian from Matamura, Romania. Lengyel is a reference to the family originally being Polish and living in Hungary; probably northern Cossack. Our family motto: Utroque Clarescere Pulchrum means "Both sides clarify beautifully"

I was born in Chicago and went to military schools from 4th grade on. Instead of high school, I received a secondary education at Pangbourne Nautical College near Reading, England. During that time, my family moved to St.Croix in the Virgin Islands, and upon finishing at Pangbourne I moved to the West Indies.

I went to work for my father manufacturing automobiles as the shop's welder and as a designer. The cars were called Surfers and they made an impact on the local economy and a splash in Motor Trend Magazine. The business failed due to a catastrophic fire of suspicious origin in 1976.

After that, I started selling Scrimshaw I made from whale teeth, bones and ivory I had collected. A visit from the Feds convinced me to give it up and instead I took up tattooing.

Tattooing became a passion for me. I had shops in Frederiksted, St.Croix, Charlotte Amalie, St.Thomas, and outside Fajardo, Puerto Rico. I still do occasional work today. I was especially well known among the sailors for my tattoos of ships and yachts. I am also known for very colorful designs. I started experimenting with the idea of using tattoo designs as a source for garment art, specifically T-shirts, sweatshirts and the like.

I discovered that a Popeye tattoo on the arm didn't look the same as a Popeye on a long sleeve shirt. I geared my designs to those that are intrinsically tattoo in nature and looked to Japanese yakusa tattoo for inspiration.

I moved to the United States to be close to my suppliers and customers in 1986... I have been homesick for the Caribbean islands ever since.

After several years of scratching local tattoos, working the odd job as a silk-screener and never having enough resources to get the enterprise really going, I went to sea as a merchant mariner on the Great Lakes to finally get the cash I needed and start my tattoo shirt business.

I have been a sailor most of my life, I started when I was 12 years old on an old John Alden Cutter: the Wind Song. I would crew for the owner (Fred Rowley, CCA) in races on Lake Michigan. Later my family bought her and I sailed her to just about every bay from the Virgins down to Dominica; then I lost her on her mooring to Hurricane Eloise. I also sailed on the Training Ship Royalist overseas while I was a British naval cadet.

It was a rude awakening going from a Royal Naval Officer, to a Virgin Island yachtsman to an O.S.Wiper on the last coal fired triple expansion great laker: the SS S.T.Crapo...really! I sailed on a bunch of ships on the Great Lakes between 1990-96. Everything from cargo ships to tug boats in any position from wiper/coal passer to wheelsman. No injuries except to my ego; they used to have me paint the ice on deck if there was no work to give me. I hated to see all that chemical being washed into the lakes; totally stupid. This was excused as "steamboat mentality". The work ethic was/is 8hrs work for 8hrs pay, real good pay, for a 24hr/day job. The experience on American ships was so bad that it completely obliterated any desire I have to ever go to sea again in the US Merchant Marine.

Then in mid 2001, I got an order for 700 shirts from a local school. I called Fargo for my usual monthly supplies of ink and transfer paper for the printer. Fargo then told me there were no more supplies. Not only that, but that the company in Japan that manufactured them went out of business five years earlier...! I was (and still am) devastated. How could Fargo do that to me without giving me notice years earlier? I searched everywhere for whatever supplies I could find. I never did find enough to stay in business and went belly up with a great big debt.

By now the economy was slipping and I could not find a graphics job locally. A fencing team mate came to me and said that his commercial extermination business was having problems. He assumed it was caused by employees who didn't do a thorough enough job. He asked me to sign on and see if I could see what was wrong. So, I was an exterminator for a year and a bit, working late nights in Chicago restaurants. The filthiest job I ever did! Worse than "black gang" coal passing on the Great Lakers.

Working nights, I had to stop going to fencing practice, and eventually had to stop running the circuit altogether due to lack of training, funds and time. I hung up my armour and weapons and went to work looking for work.                                             ---------------->

I went back to sea in 2014 and finally got my 100Ton Master license in 2017. I am now at this stage of my life concentrating on using that skill and when I retire will return to being a full-time artist

Then I found out that I had been passed over for some graphic job opportunities by less qualified "artists". Westwood College added insult to injury by informing me that, "graphics jobs only went to the graduating class" and the promise of "doing everything they could to help me find work" amounted to nothing more than offering me to sit at a computer and look for jobs...grrrr. Then incredulously, they increased the cost to attend there by 150% beginning my fourth term. I left Westwood College mid-term as an honor student with a 4.0 GPA on the director's list with an additional $20,000 in debt and a sceptical point of view of yankee education.