tattooist as: physician

Often people will ask me if it’s okay for them to get a tattoo. Pregnant? HIV positive? Diabetic? Now as a professional tattooist, I am aware of some of the problems with each of these scenarios but my answer is invariably, “Ask your doctor.” I am not a physician. I cannot tell you with authority if getting a tattoo is safe for you in your condition. Actually there is inherent risk involved with anyone getting tattoo. You are putting foreign material beneath your skin through a barbaric, invasive, damaging process. How your particular system is going to react to that process is anybody’s guess. Arguably most people heal just fine. But what about the severe diabetic that is having trouble with his toes or eyes? What about the AIDS patient who is suffering from lesions and has trouble with even minor cuts and scratches. I’m not even going to get into the pregnancy thing. I am a tattooist, but please don’t ask me to sign off on the your tattoo. I am not a trained medical professional and I cannot tell you it’s okay. My personal opinion is that if you have to ask, it’s probably not. Why would anyone risk their health, let alone their unborn baby’s, over something as ridiculous as a tattoo.

tattooist as: nerd

Here’s another one people don’t want to hear. Most tattooists are NERDS. I know, I know, the image is one of late night work sessions followed by debauched parties with rock stars and drugs and liquor and loose women (or men), but the reality is that most of those successfully tattooing in these days of demand for “fine art” tattoos, are the same dweebs that used to sit in the back of the class wondering what it would be like to be in the “in” crowd, to be liked by other kids in their class. We were the ones drawing multi-level stick figure battle scenes in the margins of our notebooks. Just like cool jazz musicians who were once the pimply dorks in band class, today’s tattooists were the dweebs that didn’t fit in. I can’t think of one tattooist that was the high school football star, or cheerleader, or class president. We were and always will be nerds. Only now instead of doodling in our notebooks, we doodle on you. Cool huh?

tattooist as: scumbag/rockstar

scumbag: We’ve all heard stories from clients of tattooist that scammed them at one time or another. The classic move is getting someone to pay in full for a large tattoo before the work is completed, then skipping town. These stories are invariably accompanied by other stories of drugs or prison time. Face it, tattooists historically are not thought of as paragons of human virtue. If there is a way for a guy to scam someone out of money, some tattooist somewhere has probably done it. Selling broken equipment, watered down ink, finishing an outline and then feigning surprise that the client wanted it colored in. “Oh you want it shaded in? That’ll be another fifty bucks”. With a few notable exceptions, it is only in the last couple of decades that trained artist have begun to gravitate towards tattooing. The money is better than most graphic artists can expect to make and the lifestyle can be attractive. I mean how many graphic artists in ad departments are stopped on the street or in a bar by admiring clients wanting to thank them for the awesome job they did, let alone pay them extra (tips). Feels pretty good and leads us into the next section, tattooist as rock star.

rock star: I heard one time that Gil Monte, a well known L.A. tattooist, said that everybody wants to be a rock star but rock stars want to be tattooists. I’ve always loved that one. The fact is that even though most people don’t get it, tattooing is every bit as much a performance as getting on a stage and playing for a crowd of people. It’s just as stressful, perhaps more so. You don’t get a second chance with a tattoo. Your client is your boss, your audience, and your critic all in one. Almost any tattoo could be your last one. You don’t have the luxury of having a bad day, a day to just coast through and screw around. You have to be “on” all the time. Tattooist I’ve known, including me, go through serious performance anxiety as well as the exaltation of a job well done. Ask any performer about pre-show anxiety or the high experienced while performing well. It is a total rush and one of the reasons tattooing is so addictive as a profession. The other side of that coin is the inevitable burn out that follows several years of cumulative stress. Most tattooists I know battle with ulcers and anxiety issues related to adrenal fatigue. Some make it through, some disappear, some become hopelessly cynical assholes. Someone should warn these folks of the dangers of the profession. I guess I just did.

People do, however, treat you as some sort of celebrity, and I guess in a way you are. Every person who walks out the door with your work is irretrievably marked and will remember you… forever. I’m often stopped while in public by people who I have tattooed and I have to say it is a bit of an ego boost. No wonder so many tattooists are such assholes. Everybody tells you how wonderful you are. How could they not? If they decided you sucked, then they would have to examine if their tattoos might also suck, and then where would they be? One of my mentors always said that tattooists have a psychological advantage because people want to believe that their tattoos are good. Otherwise they would have to deal with permanent scars that they don’t like. So most tattooists hear all the time how awesome they are whether it is true or not. The problem arises when the artist starts to believe what everyone is telling them, even though most of those people wouldn’t know a good tattoo if it jumped up and bit them on the ass. A guy or girl who starts tattooing at a young age and hears this praise for several years has a slim chance of being objective about their own abilities. Suddenly all that attitude in shops these days makes sense.

tattooist as: technician

It’s not brain surgery, but there is a lot involved in doing a quality tattoo. Years of training and practice are required to do a really competent job. Of course anyone can make permanent marks that are technically tattoos, but if you learn to look closely you can see vast differences in line quality, pigment density and shading quality among different tattoos. There are two sides of your brain, each with different skills. Most people lean one way or the other. To simplify obscenely there are artists and there are technicians. Every tattooist also leans one way or the other. I’ve known GOOD tattooists that couldn’t draw their way out of a paper bag. I’ve also known GOOD tattooists that couldn’t put in a consistent outline or area of smooth solid color. The only GREAT tattooists I’ve ever met, somehow can do both. In other words they can somehow exist in their left and right brains at the same time. Great artists can get away with second rate craft because their artwork is , well, great. Great artwork can cover a multitude of sins. On the other hand, great craft can also stand on it’s own. Look at a well done tattoo; solid linework, solid, smooth color and shading. It stands on it’s own, regardless of the quality of the art. If you don’t believe me just look around at the amount of “old school” tattooing that is so popular right now. Most of the artwork could be performed by a first grader but if it is done well it is a good tattoo. Once in a while a tattooist shows up on the scene that can really perform the art and craft of tattooing at an exceptional level. They are the ones that history will remember.

Personally, I lean towards the technical side. I learned to be a craftsman from one of the best. I’ve always been able to recognize good art when I see it. My problem is creating it. I’ve spent my entire career coming to terms with my limitations, and  they are many. The vast majority of stress in my career has been from me trying to pretend to be the fine artist that I am not, trying to fulfill the wishes of clients that haven’t the faintest idea about practical, commercial art and illustrating. My solution is to steal the best art I can possibly find and adapt it to tattooing. That is my strength and what has helped me do well in a business where increasingly being a good artist is essential. Well, maybe not essential. There will always be room for a good craftsmen. There are still plenty of people that just want a well executed tattoo of their own choosing.

Tattooist as therapist:

Okay this is gonna be touchy. I was a bartender for several years and still fill in occasionally for a friend. A lot of people talk about the bartender as therapist. Well I can tell you, it’s true to an extent, but not nearly the extent that tattooists have to deal with. Tattooing is, for lack of a better word, a very intimate experience. It’s hands on, in your space, and at a time where everyone, your tattooist included, is under an unusual amount of stress. For some reason, since normal barriers of personal space have been crossed, people seem to feel comfortable, even obligated to share WAY too much information about themselves, their lives, loves and issues. I feel for them, I really do, but over the years I’ve had to build a defensive shield against this sort of emotional vampirism. I’m getting paid to produce a clean, well crafted image that will last indefinitely on someone’s body and my job is stressful enough without the added rigors of coming up with feel good solutions to my client’s problems. There are professionals for that very purpose. They’re called therapists, and they’re trained to handle that kind of shit. They probably have entire classes on how to remain emotionally detached. I had to learn these skills the hard way, trial by fire, and I’m still not very good at it. So give me a break. I’ve got enough problems of my own to fill a book (or blog). Take your problems to a professional and leave them on his couch.