Me and my buddy Aaron were having another tattoo conversation last night. Dude just doesn’t “get” tattoos, piercings, and body modifications and routinely pokes at me trying to figure them out. Fair’s fair. He’s the only devote jew I know in meatspace, and I poke at his weird ass religion.
But he got me talking about Read’em and Weep tattoos, a shop up the street from here that opened its doors about six years ago, and closed its doors last month. You couldn’t miss the place. It was an old two story house on the main drag of our small town. It had been a law office, an H&R block, and some sort of consulting firm in its time, but when Read’em and Weep bought it, they painted the bottom half in this hideous shade of purple, and the top in piss yellow. On top of this they put down a poorly executed cartoon wolf’s head.
Ugly or not, it did its job–you couldn’t pass that place without noticing it. It just SCREAMED for attention.
Being who I am, I had to stop in and give the place a look. My opinions were mixed. I saw an autoclave and the facilities looked clean, and I never heard anyone complain about their professionalism or about getting sick from their ink. On the other hand, their portfolios were amazingly mediocre, and their ink I saw out and about really screamed mediocrity. Against my advice, my aunt, and two cousins got work done there. My aunt’s is on the lower rung of mediocre, and one of my cousins need to go up to my guy to get her tramp stamp fixed.
So, over all, I wouldn’t recommend the place, but fuck, it wasn’t like Heavens where you’d be better off getting tattooed in Bangkok.
What got me though was the artist I met there, who I understood was the owner, didn’t have a single tattoo. Not one. No piercing either. Guy was wearing khakis and what appeared to be an A&E sweater vest….and he wanted to ink me.
This freaked me right the fuck out.
I just couldn’t trust him. Sure, he was friendly and professional, but he didn’t have any ink. How can you be a tattoo artist and not have ink? Without experiencing it, how could I trust him to understand tattooing, on a deeper level, beyond just a business? No matter what he said he couldn’t have the passion needed to be an artist, to go through the baptism of pain and blood and come out the other side with art to be proud of.
Even had his work been amazing and not middle of the road, I wouldn’t get work done by him because he wasn’t one of us.
Which brings me back around. Aaron wanted to know if I’d ever get tattooed by someone without ink, so I told him about Read’em and Weep. But I find the subject kinda interesting. Am I alone here? Would you trust someone to ink you if they didn’t have any ink themselves?
Love. Peace. Metallica.
its a funny thing that you bring this subject up KH, unless im wearing shorts then i only have 2 tattoo’s on show, an inner fore arm piece with the words “Only I Can Judge Me” and i also have a snake/jap half sleeve….. as an artist i do get comments about not being covered in ink and piercings.
from the waist down is colourful but it only gets seen when i go swimming 😉
An artist with no ink at all, that would take some serious convincing and an amazing portfolio along with meeting people with his or her art. My artist is more or less covered. She knows what it’s like not to be entirely happy with the outcome of a piece and she knows what it’s like to get that perfect piece. She has more of a connection then someone without ink and she is definately personally invested in her tattooing. While someone without a single tattoo, how could they know what it’s like to walk out of a shop totally stoked because that new tattoo came out just perfect, or the slightly dejected feeling of going damn, that piece isn’t what it could be?
Well I will be honest I am in the same boat as KH if an artist did not have a single tattoo I would not trust them to get one done.
I am not saying that they have to be covered head to toe (although to be fair every artist I have ever used has been) but I would expect at least one or two.
I know objectively it should not matter if they have proof of their portfolio and great art skills they should be able to execute the art on my skin as it is a business.
However personally I like to see a tattoo artist with passion and enough to at least to try and get one themselves so we know we share the same passion.
Take Care
Matthew
Years and years ago, there was a tatto artist in Dublin, at the time, he was about the ONLY tattoo artist in Dublin. Very famous, brilliant work, he had none himself that were visible. I always took it that this was because there wasn’t anyone else around to do them! Or at least anyone he trusted. That was my take on it, and it was a long time ago.
from the waist down is colourful but it only gets seen when i go swimming 😉
Man im covered, piercings and tattoos, cant miss me a mile off lol, i have found when going to the pools everyone seems to move away 😮
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