WHAT GIVES YOU THE RIGHT

For years now ive sat back and listened to tattoo artist run their mouths about this is wrong and that is wrong in the tattoo business.Im fed up hearing all the crap.First off anyone who has been tattooing for any amount of time at all has at one time tattooed in a kitchen somewhere.It is standard practice to tattoo in the motel room when you are at a tattoo convention.And all the bullshit i hear about apprenticeships makes me want to puke.When i started tattooing there was only 4 tattoo shops in the whole state of missouri and the closest one to where i lived was 50 miles away.What you had to do was stop in one of the shops and prey they would take pity on you and show you a little of what you were doing wrong.Hell i dont think the tattoo artists then even knew what an apprentice was.I think apprenticeships were made up so tattoo artist would not have to take out their own trash.If you cant make your own needle sets you dont have the right to call yourself a tattooest.And if you cant draw freehand flash in front of a customer you dont have the right to call yourself an artist.I know a person that has the APT master tattoo artist award that cant even tattoo.Right in front of me he tried to do a touchup on a mermaid and shaded her face so that it looked like she had Elvis side burns.He asked me to try to fix the fuckup.Then i see so called tattoo artist teaching people to tattoo who cant tune a machine,cant make their own needles,couldnt wrap a set of coils if their lives depended on it.How many tattoo artist do you know who have their CPR card.How many tattoo artist have had any art schooling whatsoever.All you tattoo snobs out there who look down on me and people like me who have tattoo shops in their houses can kiss my ass.Bert Grimm had a shop in his house to the day he died.Do you have the nerve to call him a scratcher.Most of the convention set ups ive seen are far from sanatary.And what makes you think you are better than anyone else.When i hear people put down other peoples tattoo work i want to rip their tounges out.No one is better or worse than anyone else they are just diffrent.Not everyone likes my work and i can respect that, but ive been tattooing for over 30 years so i must be doing something right.The worst thing i say now when i see a tattoo i dont like is who did that.To all you out there who want to learn tattooing dont waste your time with an apprenticeship with some asshole who only wants a slave to do the shit work in the shop.Read all you can.Ask questions from anyone who will talk to you who tattoos.Talk to doctors to find out how to care for the tattoo.Talk to nurses,anyone in the health field ask questions.Im just sick of all these so called tattoo artist filling the young people who want to learn tattooing heads full of useless crap.I dont have apprenticeships i teach classes on each problem areas people have.If you are having trouble with shading why should you take out someones trash for a year to prove you have the right to have some asshole who really doesnt have the right to teach you anyway show you how to shade.And these asshole suppliers who ONLY SELL TO TATTOO ARTISTS IN A LEGAL SHOPS can kiss my ass.Im retired after 35 years tattooing so they have the right to tell me just because i have a shop in my house they wont sell to me,FUCK THEM! I build tattoo machines,very good tattoo machines.And im here to tell you i will sell my machines to who ever has the 500 dollars to buy them.What gives them the right to say who can buy their shit.Do we still have the right to be free in this united states we live in.I agree with Huck Spaulding he will sell to anyone who has the money.If you go to the store to buy a set of butcher knives does the counter person say no we cant sell these to you because you are not a union meat cutter.What the fuck has happened to this country when you are told what you can and cant buy with your own hard earned money.What next you wont tattoo on people unless they are between 18 and 35 with blue eyes.The tattoo business has been overrun with dumbass snobs that really need to shut their mouths and listen more than talk.One last thing.If i want to call a tattoo machine a tattoo GUN i will call it a GUN! After all the years i have tattooing i can call a machine a dog turd if i want and anyone who doesnt like it can kiss my old wrinkled ass! Kid at [email removed]

whatever... I guess the only comment I have, is that when suppliers choose who to sell to, its the free market in action buddy. They have the freedom to sell their goods to whomever they want. If they feel its better business to sell to professionals, then that is their FREEDOM in action. Good luck.

I agree with this post COMPLETELY!! You said it VERY well!! Apprenticeship? I have said this in another reply, but i'll say it again: In no other field would this kind of slave to the "master" be tolerated! Even in the corporate world an intern that is unpaid is not allowed to do crucial work unless they are compensated..... What do you call sanitizing an area, or cleaning tubes? I call it slave labor and I would NEVER allow anyone to do this kind of work for me unless they were on the payroll. Here is an example that I personally experienced: A shop in Holyoke 3 years ago offered me a spot as an apprentice.... He wanted $2500 from me to come in ONE day a week for six months. He was going to teach me needle making for the first month or so!! I laughed all the way home! I make that much in a weekend doing parties and MY needles cost a quarter!

Tattoo parties eh? puke. Im sure you do agree with the above poster.

Actually I own a shop in CT. I have been keeping it civil and just expressing my opinions. You want to get personal, do it to my face.... puke.

I just read this post and i find this really sad that people have such distain for the tradition of tattooing. The real reason behind apprenticeships was to get rid of those looking to whore our industry out and strip mine it so to speak. I can understand the whole tattooing out of the house hipocracy, it seems some top shelf artists can open a private studio in there house and there credibilty allows them to escape judgement. The problem with working from the house is that it blurs the lines between professionals and the scabs that butcher people, and those who work like this have no regard to the mess that is left for us professionals.For example, captain house party does just that a tattoo party and one or two of those people get a staph infection well guess who gets the shit end of the stick, we the professionals who chose to work in a shop take it on the nose. Cause the media will report that somebody got a staph infection from a tattoo and leave out that it was done at a party in less than sterile conditions. Just one more black eye for the industry that is trying to get away from the preconcieved notions that plague our industry.As far as the whole artist ability shit well certain things seperate a good tattoo from a bad one for example the tattoo should be clean looking a blown out line happens from time to time the whole damn tattoo shouln't be blown out and scarred. Look i went to art school and i saw it there and i see it in tattooing people who have no techinical ability hiding behind the art thing. The real deal is the masters in both fields were and are very techinically trained. The best tattoo artists the ones who are doing there style can do any style well because they have the foundation, the techincal side that comes from learning and respecting the industry. Just because you can get a tat gun and tat at some parties and make more money than you should doesn't make it right. It also doesn't make you bad people just misguided.

thats cool you own a shop, your also talking about doing tattoo parties... You can do whatever you want, and I can offer my opinion. If we were talking face to face I would say the same thing, but were not having this conversation at the pub, we're having in on my forum...

thanks for the thought out answer whatever. Its hard to muster the energy sometimes. The thing is, if an artist is good, they will land an apprenticeship and wont have to fuck (as many) peoples skins up learning. And if an tattooer is good, they dont need to go into peoples houses which is generally unsanitary and illegal, their clients travel to them in the controlled legal environment... whatever, it takes all kinds and there are customers for everyone... people should spend less time bitching online and more time working on their art...

You want to talk Staph infection, I can take you on a tour of shops that have given them and are still in business! How about the tattoo masters (I won't name them, I am sure you know of them) that have died of hepititis in the past few years.... a particularly famous one from New Haven died a horrible death last year after TWO liver transplants.... He tattooed until he physically couldn't anymore. I wonder how many peoples lives he shortened. There are plenty of stones to throw all around. I think the original posting argued that point.

Sure, there are hacks in shops too. It is irresponsible to tell people to just go and do it. It fucks up the publics skin unnecessarily. That is not the advice I want visitors to walk away from. Just because someone wants to tattoo doesnt mean they should... If aspiring tattooers want to do work of the quality represented on this website, they should seek advice from those artists, not the ones on this open anonymous forum.

This makes my brain hurt. I admire and applaud companies that only sell to legit shops. I'd rather they piss off a few people (like the original poster) than send out supplies to thousands more who are unprofessional hacks fucking up people and giving out infections across the land. People have died, people do die, and people will continue to die and get sick because of negligence, because of tattoo parties out of garages and living rooms, because of people who have too much of an ego to see what a hack they are. "I'm cleaner than most shops, I'll tattoo out of your house for cheaper and better." What the fuck ever. Get over yourself and stop hacking people up.

Undoubtedly! "Legit" shops leave a paper trail with their fuck-ups, so in that sense you are right. Do you know what constitutes a "legit" shop in the state of CT? The same thing as in most states.... The ability to pay a doctor (or nurse in some instances) a fee to keep their name on a permit. I have visited boards of health all over CT trying to find areas that weren't overrun with tattoo shops to open up. Every place I went let me go through the files to find a doctor in the area and locations, it must be public record, and it is amazing the amount of complaints cited in some files. So, be as smug as you want, the difference between a scratcher and a tattooer is about $200.

I grew up in CT and know a dozen or two tattooers there. Your right, the health regulations are very lax. There are plenty of shitty artists working in studios, no doubt. But if you think the difference between a scratcher and a professional tattooer is $200 then you have no idea what a professional tattooer is.

Don't confuse the words "professional" with "competent". Getting back to the original post, he gave every indication he thinks he is competent. Whether he is or not is not the issue. I jumped on his bandwagon right away because at least most of what he posted is correct with the exception of suppliers not selling to him. Who gives a shit? Buy from the hundreds of suppliers that will. What you think of me is irrelevant. I am a man, therefor I don't let others tell me how to make a living.

I dont confuse the two. There are plenty of incompetent tattooers who pay the dough to the health people to tattoo legally. That doesnt make scratchers anymore competent. Most of what he posted is the same BS we hear over and over that I dont agree with, and whether he is competent or not makers all the difference in the world. Someone's work product does dictate how much weight their advice is worth. Especially if they are giving it to my visitors. I am also a man, and listening to others sometimes make me a better one. But I for one dont care how you make a living. I do care what types of advice people get from this forum, and until I see the wonderful work from the original poster, I will advise any reader to see through the BS.

shame on the mess..I don't usually post to these forums, but I will now. I have been in the trade 46 years, started in 1964 and I learned being a gofer in a shop and hell it didn't kill me. Paul Rogers tattooed out of a carnie tent back in the day, so did Roy Boy work out of a tent in Daytona in 1977, but that doesn't make it right, point is times change, more education about clean work areas become known. I lived with Paul Rogers in jax fla and he did work on me in his kitchen, I didn't die from it, but I got work from a very well known person in his shop and got necrotizing faciitise. Almost died, 3 operations in one week and a 2 month hospital stay and lost my right leg from the knee down, from a clean shop. There is two sides to this problem: should there be scratchers,NO. should suppliers sell just to anyone,NO. That is side 1,now side 2. Why are there scratchers?= most shop owners can be assholes and have the I am a tattoo God and you must kiss my feet mind set.The guy or gal seeking help gets pissed and now there is a scratcher in the making. Today suppliers are in it for the money and a lot of them on the internet selling have never tattooed anyone. Huck Spaulding is a dirt bag in my opinion and his equipment and color is over priced crap. That is why Paul Rogers walked and his name was the only thing he had to do with Spaulding and Rogers. Staph is everywhere and so is strep, all one can do is take every measure one can not to transfer any bacteria to a client, a kitchen is not taking every measure to be clean. Tattooing is very diverse,many styles, but there are actually damn few who know how to really build Irons,I laugh at the $500.00 pieces of shit being sold today, some of the chinese shit is just as good as the iron that sells for sick money just because of a name attached to it, they buy the hype not a good iron. We here aren't going to change squat, the damage is done and getting worse, the only way it will stop is cut off the supplies.

Let me clear some things up then ill leave you all alone.I own 4 shops in Mn.and i myself never have trouble buying supplies from anyone for my shops are all lic.I just get tired of hearing people comming in and saying they cant buy supplies because they dont have a lic.And to answer your comment on seeing my great work sure i could send a photo of my work but what does that prove i could send you a pic of anyones work and say its mine ive seen that crap alot when someone shows me a portfolio with good work and i hire them just to find out they used someone elses photos in their book.I gave up tattooing because of a terminal illness that wont allow me to do my work anymore.i just want people to stop and think before they talk smak on what they really dont know anything about.the end of the story is we will never get rid of the scratchers never have never will.i knew i was going to piss alot of people off but that is the way you get people to think.think bad of me if you want but in the end you know i have some good points that got people to think.sorry if i gave you the wrong impression of what i am.Im just an old school has been that gets pissed off at the way things have become in the tattoo world.

I think there are two types of apprenticeships. Those that take advantage of people eager to learn by making them do stupid tasks like washing cars and charging them thousands of dollars, and those that encourage you to watch and ask questions, and actually teach you things. Thankfully, I'm currently in an apprenticeship like the latter, and on top of it, I'm not having to pay anything. I think aspiring tattoo artists should be grateful that someone is willing to share their knowledge, I know I am. And as far as cleaning, drawing, sanitizing, and all the other tasks that some people think aren't relevant, news flash, it's all part of tattooing (aside from the car washing obviously.) Sure, you might be able to get along just fine teaching yourself on fruits and rubber and whatever else, but from what I understand nothing prepares you for working on real skin better than time spent watching and learning. And personally I'd rather be prepared in the best way possible. I do agree about the gun vs machine part though. I've heard them interchanged for years, and I'm not really sure why there's such a strong opinion concerning the names.

You just said it. You are cleaning, drawing and sanitizing for no salary. Now I understand that the schooling you are after is your payment. The point I am making, or trying to, is that that type work is crucial.... it is of the utmost importance for the business and public health. If you were to wash his car and take out the trash in exchange for learning this (not practicing it during shop hours), I would have no issue. It is unrelated payment. The fact that you contribute directly to the profit of the shop actually makes you not getting paid a salary illegal. In no other line of work is that tolerated. I have not so much an issue with bending the rules, I do it daily, but of the arrogance in which it is flaunted by the Prima Donnas that think it is their right to have a free lacky and in the same sentence condemn those that choose a different path, not necessarily a worse one, to the same end.

.... no offense, I said "lacky" generically.....

"The fact that you contribute directly to the profit of the shop actually makes you not getting paid a salary illegal. In no other line of work is that tolerated." Here's the thing- You know where else you put in lots of hard work and effort, to learn and develop a trade, and not only do you not get paid for it, but often times YOU are footing the bill? College. Apprenticeships in college are often times, similarly unpaid, however you develop "credits." Tattooing is a skill, a trade, a career, and suggesting it's unfair for someone to teach you skill, a skill that can earn you a six figure salary nonetheless, and not pay YOU for it, is ridiculous. How bout you walk into a trade school or college, tell them not only do you want them to teach you for free, but you'd also like them to pay YOU for being there. There is no difference. THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE. This has been argued on this forum far too many times, and I seriously can't comprehend why people don't get this. Suggesting people should be paid for apprenticeships when they're learning a skill that could potentially financially fuel them for the rest of their lives is unrealistic.

Your argument doesn't hold water, as I suspect you are by the attitude. No internship from college or otherwise allows you to directly earn profit for a company without being paid. I can earn a degree from a school that I pay for as that is the product that business sells. There is also a certification that allows one to teach and earn money this way. Additionally, I can earn a degree in Brain Surgery, get my diploma, and before I can cut into a paying head, I will be in a "paid" internship. I don't want to argue the law as it is obvious that neither one of us cares! I just hate hypocrisy and double standards and especially people that rationalize them. I also don't care if its tattooing, plumbing, or any other trade that uses the journeymen system, its all a way to make a living. It's illegal in MA for a non-plumber to do any plumbing, even unclog a pipe. Everybody does though, and Home Depot doesn't ask for a plumbers permit to buy a pipewrench!

i don`t have an apprentice and never really have , probly never will BUT i would never ask them to wash my car / cut the grass at my house etc ... the first time they bitched about scrubbing tubes / toilets , makin needles or takin out trash .... i would hand them a shovel , send them out back to dig a big hole for a pig roast on saturday , when they come in and say " i`m done " i would go out back and throw a pack of ramen noodles in the hole and tell em to fill it ! now that`s work mother f$%ker ...............

Wow, Love this. Can't believe that I run across this post this very evening. Let me explain. Today at the shop this lovely young lady comes into Hope to show me a tattoo that she'd like to have "Touched Up". She got the tattoo out of some dudes house, on the recommendation of a friend. Well what can I say the tattoo was pretty damn bad. Shit line work, scratchy, poorly laid out, and just all around Shitty. All I could think is Wow, this is a shit tattoo, on this poor young woman. Now granted she made the decision to get tattooed by this hack outta his house, But I can't help but think that whoever this shit was, Tattooing out of his home, hacking people up, This gal wouldn't have to live with this piece of crap. Now I will admit that not every tattooist working out of his home is some shit, hack, tattooist. There are a handful doing the right thing, and turning out great work. But to assume that tattoo apprenticeships are all bull shit, or that it comes down to some sort of modern day slave ownership is plain old asinine! The apprenticeship, when done right by the right folks is indispensable. If you've done your leg work, and taken the time to get to know the right people than you'll go that much further, and faster. By the way this hack tattooist, was from CT. Hope it wasn't you man... JOE

" apprenticeship, when done right by the right folks is indispensable ". case closed ..........

"apprenticeship, when done right by the right folks is indispensable" Thats the only response i've gotten that makes sense! I'm not against education, there is no substitute for 1 on 1 learning. That was never an issue in the thread and from the very first poster that was never the point. This type of forum requires taking things on face value otherwise its just a big bitchfest. All some of you want to do is read your own narrative into it. I never said I tattooed out of my house! I also never said I was against "the right type of apprenticeship". A good 50% of my work is covering tattoos from area shops. I just covered a piece that looked like it was 20 years old but was just done 6 months ago. My advice to most of these people is, "Go back to them, if you are uncomfortable with them touching it up, get your money back". I would..... but I am a lot more careful who I let tattoo me.

You may not have said you tattoo out of your house but your myspace clearly says you tattoo out of everyone elses.

?? I haven't tattooed out of a house in years.

Welp you're lying in one of two ways. Either you're falsely posting under someone else's email, [email removed], or you clearly offer "Tattoo Parties" out of other peoples homes. " Get some friends together and give me a call at 413-246-6254. For about $40 per hour per tattoo I come to your house and bring the shop with me."

Oh snap! You just got called out, bro! Through my entire apprenticeship I thought the pay off was learning the fucking trade. You really think you should some how be monetarily compensated for someone taking the time to school you on how to make an awesome living? Go be a plumber. A master in that trade will give you minimum wage and, who knows, maybe in 5 or 6 years you too could be a master. I think its a gross misleading if people see the same supplies in your kitchen that they see in my shop. Im glad suppliers use discretion. Having a shop set up in your home(Aitchison and Wortman) and tattooing in someones kitchen(Johnny) are two completely different environments. We (professional tattooists) fix or cover tattoos from kitchen scratchers on a regular at our shop. I find myself explaining over and over that "you didnt get hooked up or get a great deal if you're paying twice for the same tattoo". Smarten up before you start writing checks...

Ive done thousands of touchups and coverups on customers that got their tattoos from a shop.You cant count the number of times ive heard"oh he was just off his game that day" a shop i worked in new mexico had a tattoo artist they hired that turned out to have used someone ese's portfolio and i spent the first 4 months of my time there fixing his messed up tattoos.Even the shop owner had a certificate on the wall from app that said he was a "master tattoo artist" and he couldnt draw flies covered in shit.the point to this is no matter if you get it in a kitchen or a shop a bad tattoo is still a bad tattoo.And if a true tattoo artist that is good in his trade quits his job in a shop and decides to do a tattoo in a motel room why cant he buy supplies to do this from the supplier he bought from while he was in the shop.He is still the same good tattoo artist who bought from the company in the past he just by chance doesnt work in the shop anymore.now he has to buy from a sub par supplier.He has the right to work and pay his bills and to feed his family dont he.im glad in a way that im not going to live long enough to see what the tattoo business is going to be in the next 10 years.I miss the old days when the tattoo business was like a close nit family.we would cut each others throats in a heart beat but when things got tuff we all pulled togeather and helped each other out .not like today.if i walked into a shop and said i was on the road and broke down and needed to do some work to make some money to get back on the road they would throw you out of the shop now days.