Hi,
I have been tattooed using the modern tattoo guns, however as a person I am looking to get tattooed using more traditional methods, ie like the whale bone and tapping methods used in some places in the French Polynesia.
I am aware of James Samuela in Moora in French Polynesia, however I was wondering if anyone else knew of any respected artists on that side of the globe. My wife and I will be travling in Asia, Australasia and the Pacific later this yera and I was hoping to find some more artists around those areas that I might be able to look into.
Many thanks in advance, any help is grately appreciated.
Martin
Hello and welcome to the forum. Most ink reputation comes from a word of mouth type scenario… While I strongly recommend doing your own research about the artists in the locations you plan to visit, coming to this forum was a very wise decision. I’m sure when I have the time to conduct my own research on the matter I’ll have something for you. Can you be specific as to where exactly you plan to travel? In the mean time take a good look around the forum for ideas.
Head to a con, they are all over the place all the time. I wouldn’t get one there, infact you won’t beable to with tapping they work on very few over the days as it takes so long.
You would be much better and probably work out cheaper mixing it in with a holiday onc you are established who you want to work with.
My general opinion is it is worth paying that extra to get one of the native artists to do it, yes we get jonny ‘white man with dreds’ tapper, who took a few year to pick up the art, but it isn’t gunna be the same. When you head into that area of tattooing it becomes very overwhelming and spiritual indeed, that stuff often changes peoples lives (obviously not if done at a con).
I’d love to go with it if I had the time and the lack of paranoia about infection.
Thanks to both of you for your suggestions.
Scrubmuncher: My reasons for getting this kind of tattoo are indeed very personal and spiritual, and I do not plan to head to a convention to get one done for a number of personal reasons, as well as time. Money is not an issue for this piece of work, I am in no rush to achieve it, it has been an aim of mine for many years and a lot of prior thought has been spent on the subject. My plan has always been a similar idea to what you suggested, to find an established native artist and develop a relationship with them whilst my wife and I are living and working abroad. We are leaving this year, and for a while I have been trying to discover different artists before we leave, however currently without much luck.
Demure: I completely understand the way an ink reputation, especially with this method, travels by word of mouth, and aside from reading books on the top I have been trying to research and discover names from magazines and online, however with not much luck, hence my arrival into tattooing forums, to see if I can gain more information and to finally learn and hopefully meet some artists. In terms of our plans whilst we are away there are a number of countries we will be visiting: New Zealand (We plan to visit and stay with my cousin’s friend who is a native Maori tattoo artist there), Plhilippines, Bali, Thailand, Vietnam, Australia, and few places in the Pacific (we will be crewing around so we’ll see where it takes us). These are countries that we will certainly be visiting, however we have no time frame for a return to the UK (if at all) and we will be working abroad, so we hopefully plan to visit many other countries all over the globe along the way.
I tried a few searches of this forum using the search function, however I was unable to pull up many results, however I continue to plough through the posts 🙂
Thanks again for all of your suggestions and help, I look forward to hearing what other people have to say as well.
Regards,
Martin.
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