I appreciate the feedback, and did further research into apprenticeships. This may come across a little rash, but I think it’s a complete bullshit maneuver by tattoo artists to get someone into their shop to basically do shit work for free. If I’m there to learn the business, then I would snap if they told me to go get them lunch or clean out the bathrooms. If I’m not getting paid, I’m not doing the plebe work of some 17 year old that doesn’t know a damn thing about the craft. And I sure as hell ain’t paying someone to be their apprentice. If you are an artist and want to teach your craft, you can do it in a method that doesn’t demean the apprentice. This isn’t the Karate Kid where he had to wax cars and paint fences to master karate moves. Getting lunch or scrubbing toilets isn’t going to teach me a damn thing about how to do proper tattoos or how to run a tattoo business. It will only teach me how to be an arrogant prick who treats everyone below them like shit. I’m trying to become a tattoo artist, not join a military academy. I’m too old, and not in the mood to go through a bullshit hazing period.

I know that sounds rash, and I’m not trying to be a dick. But I’m 41 and have been tattooing for 10 years. Some sites even say in order to become a professional, you MUST go through an apprenticeship. That’s complete horseshit. Sorry, I just don’t buy into that line of bullshit thinking. And I could care less if I’m accepted into the “tattoo artist community”. I’m here for myself and my future clients, not to earn goody points with people I don’t know or care about. I might not win a popularity contest, but I could care less. The tattoo world couldn’t have changed that much. At the end of the day, the ink goes into the skin the exact same way. I would maybe go to a shop for a couple weeks and run some simple flash art under supervision, but spending a year or more as a slave…no thanks.