Cuz thats what I do. I've been tattooing since 1995.I started drawing tattoo designs back when I was in the Marines. People used to come up to me and ask me to draw them designs. Then later they would come back and show me the finished product. Thats when I started to consider the possibility of me getting some tattoos also. I did a couple of designs and took it to a tattoo shop. I was drunk and I got into an argument with the receptionist over the details of my design and how they couldn't guarantee that the tattoo would look as good on paper.
Now its 1994 and I'm in Atlanta finding my way working everyday and looking for outlets for my art skills. A few people start telling me that I should start doing tattoos since my artwork is really good. I never took those comments seriously because I didnt have any idea on how someone goes about learning how to do tattoos, where do you start and who do you ask?
Finally, one day in the middle of 1995, I was riding around with a friend of mine running errands when suddenly he stops in the front of a tattoo shop in the West End area of Atlanta. He turns to me and says: "Look, there's a tattoo shop there, you should go in and find out if you can work here" I thought to myself: "this dude is crazy, how u get a job somewhere by just walking in and asking" I was 23 years old. I didn't know anything.
I walk in there and introduce myself. I meet the owner and show her my work. I always carried paper and drawings that I was working on. So she looks thru my artwork and she asks me if I wanna learn. I immediately say yes. She tells me the rules about what is expected in terms of costs once you are ready to start doing tattoos. In the meantime I have to learn by watching and listening. I dont know anything about tattoos. I come in a couple of days a week and sit and watch for hours at a time. I still have a regular job so I cant be at the tattoo shop all day.
Well, one day I walk in there and the berating starts! The owner starts yelling at me and talking about how I didnt show up at the shop the day before and how if I say I'm gonna come over then I need to be there cuz she's depending on me.... and on and on. what?!
Needless to say, I walked out of there and decided that no one was gonna yell at me and treat me that way.
A few weeks later I pick up a business card for a tattoo shop in Decatur. So I called and asked if I could stop by and check out the artwork. I'm given directions and I head out to Decatur.
I walk up to this place and its in a house. A House. Someone's house. I knock on the front door and out the side of the house a man walks up and asks me what I want. I tell him I'm looking for the tattoo shop. He tells me to follow him around the side of the house. I do.
We walk down some steps into the basement and there's a whole tattoo shop in there! Very surprising. But a tattoo shop nonetheless. This was the official start to my tattooing career.
more coming soon..