Hi everyone. Having read so many posts regarding new wanna be artists/scratchers/bottom of the tank feeders so on and so forth, I just wanted to have my tuppence on the subject. ( I can hear you all groaning already ). Fundamentaly, What they are doing is wrong. We all agree on that. Un trained, Un hygienic, Un licenced, and Un insured(at very least, public liability insurance). However…. A fine example in my opinion of the exception to every rule, A now freind of mine in the UK started scratching maybe two years after i started my apprentiship. (im still serving it 19 yrs on. i still dont know it all yet!!!!). Yes…He did some awfull mutilations in the early days, but these would seem to be on freinds who were aware of his abilities and were willing to let him practice in return for some free ink!. This same guy who has never been shown how to sterilise never mind inject pigment, is now an award winning artist, recognised the world over and rightly so. I know this is not the only example as other aquaintances of mine have had similar backgrounds. For sure..bad ones exist by the bakers dozen, but not all. We all had to start somewhere. I can recognise the frustration the genuin people must feel when chasing an apprentiship that continues to elude them (a fate i suffered for 3 yrs before being allowed to sweep floors!!!), I also sympathise with people like myself and most of your good selves who did it the “right way”. Being eager is not a bad quality. Being given the opportunity to feed the craving by such as ebay is the first step towards ending a career in the most freely expressive industry in the world. My freinds……… I dont have the answers, if indeed an answer exists. I try to read the overview of the book rather than just the cover. Ah well….Tuppence well spent. Best Regards to all of you. Stay lucky
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Yeah…great story. No one cares. Scratchers make the rest of us look bad man. Period. It doesn’t matter if his first customers KNEW he was going to suck, he still sucked. Every peice of shitty ink out there in the world reflects poorly on all of us as public opinion is already against us.
And while some still come out all right like Outlaw and Izzy, the vast, VAST majority of them are idiots who want the rock-star prestige of being an artist without the work.
Love. Peace. Metallica.
I cant and wont argue with that buddy. Im in the middle of a lifelong scholarship and still learning new tricks every day. I fully agree that the scratchers are simply fuelling the fire of the already blinkered dissaprovers, (think i just invented a word !!!!). Its just nice now and again to actually see the mythicall silver linning which surrounds this particular cloud. If in my first post i gave the impression of support for knowing the art of everything without learning anything, it was unintentional. I still believe though, that others could help greatly in stopping it, As mentioned before….ebay and suppliers who trade to anybody with currency….. Take away the suppliers and you take away the ability.We have a magazine here in the UK who are currently campaining to have ebay legaly stopped from doing this
Frankly, I think a boot to the ass is a better deterrent to scratchers than restricting Ebay’s right to sell shit. You’re only about one step ahead of me–I’m in art school, working towards being enough of an artist to get apprenticed myself. I have a deep respect for the art, and it SERIOUSLY pisses me off when people devalue and disrespect it…and scratchers are the purest form of that disrespect. All they see is the fame and the glory, the easy way to get into chicks’ pants, not the work, the skill, the blood, the sweat, the art.
The fact that some kitchen magicians turn into respected artists like our own Izzy and Outlaw is beside the point–they’re outliers, people who respected the art, and made an honest search for knowledge, fought for it, and won it.
Love. Peace. Metallica.
I admit there have been a very select “few” who’ve been able to pick up a machine and do decent work right off the bat with no prior training. I can think of maybe 2 I’ve heard of in my lifetime. These are rare exceptions to the rule, and I relate them to Savants or Prodigies.
Kari Barba was one of these rare individuals who collided with her talent on accident. Her boyfriend was getting a tattoo done and she began to get on the nerves of the tattooist performing the work because she kept trying to give her input and advice on the tattoo while he was doing it.
Finally he had enough and said something like “If you know so much maybe you think you can do it better?” She called his bluff, sat down with his machine and began working and not doing a bad job at all. His frustration changed to amazement and he helped get her in touch with the right people and the rest is history.
The important part is that this incident only opened her eyes to the possibility of what she may accomplish. She still took the time and dedication to a full apprenticeship before calling herself a tattooist, a step she says was necessary to refine this talent she had. And without that apprenticeship, she’s never have been able to go as far as she has. Now she’s one of the most successful tattooists anywhere, and still one of my most idolized artists in the world.
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