If an artist has to sacrifice their own chair, because they’re a single artist shop or pay for their seat….then time is money… all of us, I’m sure, have the heart to donate 5 or 6 hours. But to create someone who is as good at our own jobs as we are, if we are the SOLE business owner…time is money, and I don’t know any tattoo artists who are world class and in the business of charity…if you know some, tell them to contact me ASAP!
And by the way, real estate matters…if we’re talking 7K in USD in the northeast of the U.S. ,over more than one year of an apprenticeship where my property taxes for owning 1/5 of an acre well exceed 10K(USD)/year is the artist wrong to ask for a little something for their time?
After watching an apprentice in one shop where I spent a fair bit of time (as a customer) anyone who thinks tattooing is easy and an apprenticeship is easy, think again. They were the shop goffer then they it was sterilisation / disease control, and a lot of observing, then setting up the machines, being corrected etc then after a number of months with careful supervision and permission from the regular customers a little bit of colouring, then fixed up by the tattooist. There was a lot that went on behind the scenes of drawing and stencils etc, but I didn’t see that side. The only thing I don’t like there is no standard, a Dr, Dentist, Electrician etc from state to state and even country to country (only the developed countries) the training is pretty much the same, with a tattooist one shop to the next can be totally different. I know I got into trouble as I gave the apprentice little more than his train fare after an 1hr with little supervision a few weeks latter he was off by himself, hence why the minimal supervision, I was NOT charged a cent for any work the apprentice did and most times I the tattooist was like a conjoined twin.
Show me any tattooist whom has learnt from books and the internet and I will show you a scratcher.
when did i say that they werent allowed to charge an apprentice? lol i think you’re taking what i said way out of context and real estate doesnt have anything to do with it because you would be paying that whether you had a kid in their cleaning up behind you or not? any other industry in the world where you are taken on as an apprentice you are paid minimal wage and it is used as an excperience tool. You pay for trained courses in college and university yes, but that is not what this is. What these people are offering is the opportunity for some desperate kid to come and clean their shop and be allowed to draw and learn something by watching someone else. if you were an electrician or plumbers apprentice you wouldnt pay them.
That;s the only point im getting at. maybe it just different in the UK. I know that if it was me i would rather choose someone special with talent to be my prodigy than sell it to the highest bidder…
Alas your Dr may not be interested in Medicine but got a really good score in English and it pays really well once the course is completed, well at least in Australia. Actually tattooing and Medicine (Western) are very close relatives. Medicine was unregulated with Drs sticking up a sign I’m a Dr if you were lucky they served an apprenticeship and were good at growing herbs. That was only 80yrs ago. I suspect if tattooing continues to grow in popularity as it is at the moment it will become very regulated and not only will you have to serve time in registered shop, there will be courses at school you will have to attend and it will become a formal apprenticeship, then things like minimum wage etc will be enforceable. Until then it will continue to be chaos. This will not stop bad tattooists but it should bring in a minimum standard.
well exactly and that i agree with, but this is what i am saying, a tutored course with a qualification you would expect to pay for but the opportunity to watch someone else and effectively be their dogsbody while they learn the ropes (as an apprenticeship is) i would not. I would either assume i would be expected to work for free for the love of it or to be paid a “shop boy” salary in the meantime. maybe its just a different use of the word from place to place but “apprentice/ship” means to work for another to learn a specialised trade or skill. i wouldnt pay to work for my pub to learn the pub trade lol 😀 to be honest the dont pay me enough as it is! 😉
interesting discussion here, I’m a piercer and have been for over 10 years. I’m also a truck driver that hauls diesel and gas into the oil patch. The town I live in has a population of 4000 people and I can assure you that the ratio of piercing being done here isn’t worth the cost of opening up a shop and paying for everything included in overhead.
So I pierce out of my home and I do it as a courtesy for those who would have to travel 4hrs to the nearest shop.
I refuse to work at the local tattoo studio for a number of reasons but #1 being that the owner is the local cocaine dealer and it infuriates me that drug money is being laundered through a shop in our industry. The other reason is that the local shop doesn’t have a full time tattooist. He only has people travelling to the shop at a week at a time, the last of which my wife got a tattoo done on her hip and although the tattoo was done alright his after-care instruction would have completely messed up his work.
I have a business license, and all american autoclave, an ultrasonic, and UV light systems for keeping my tools/water sterile and BBP training that I update once a year. My suppliers are from Canada only as our laws are better then the states when it comes to the quality of approving jewellery and other related items. Ink and tattoo equipment incl.
Moving on however I’m about to embark in the endeavour of tattooing and I’ve order an online apprenticeship video set which gives over 13hrs of instruction. I’m sure to alot of you who worked hard to get where you are in your shops probably laugh at the idea but people learn things through reading for years.
I’m not a pro and wouldn’t consider myself one for along time and my practising is done on fruit, bananas and oranges to be exact. I have some friends that will allow me to work on them but I have enough common sense to know I’m not ready to put the needle to the flesh.
Am I a scratcher? possibly although I intend to eventually head over to the school where the videos come from and perfect and change any bad techniques I may develop. Maybe I’m abit more into the industry and my location presents a difficult situation but I’ll put on my flame suit and would like to hear the yay’s and nay’s of the pro’s.
I’m not here to learn the basics from you guys, I have pro’s in the industry that are willing to help in that area but I’d still like to be apart of the community and enjoy the good times.
@
hey friends Im new here …i started professional tattooing in 1992. I worked in several shops in Seattle, including Mind’s Eye Tattoo, Lucky Devil Tattoo and Chrome Ohm Studio, before moving to USA in 2001. I worked there at Traditional Tattoo until 2003, and then spent three years tattooing the Marines at Unique Ink in Jacksonville, NC. In 2006, me and my family finally moved back to Seattle.
@
thats right in some towns u must be registered for tattooing…..you are right…
Myself I started in the joint. And at the time every shop artist had a stick up there ass to offer anything. So I learned on my own for two years after one the prison time I also did. Now I still learn from my lil circle plus I finally got good shop help and friends I watch and learn from. Been a long road and I finally got the license witch is a joke easy ass test here in colorado. But every one has a path I guess
With all do respect here in colorado all you have to have is a blood born an path cert. And that’s only in some counties. I’ve got one and it only cost 20 bucks a year. Kinda like a osha test for contruction. Or my sales tax license etc. That is red tape in my opinion. Some of my best work on my own body was done in a cell with a rotary homemade gun in a cell from a state prison. I my opinion its about art and your passion to give a awsome tat. No one starts on top. And shitting on people crawling nefore they walk is wack. Hey I got mine but sending it to anyone to prove status is bs. I know some scratchers with it all that and shops welling junk equipment etc. Just saying it means nothing. Your work speaks like any artist forum.
I’ve had tattoos by an apprentice, tattooers, and a tattoo artist.
I’ll take the artist anytime.
If your work is good, that’s fine. There will always be a market for those willing to settle for an “okay” tattoo. Untill I stumbled unto this forum, I may have been one of your customers.
Now I want work done in a clean, sterile, professional shop by artists that served their time as apprentices.
I was a plumber. Not a “handyman”, a licensed plumber! I served four years as an apprentice plumber. If I need four years to be qualified to fix a fucking toilet, how can a person be qualified to OPERATE on your body without at least that much professional
training?
Do you have all the necessessary equipment to sterilize your tools and provide a clean environment for tattooing?
I got everything I need as I stated clean is first priority and payed my do’s with professionals. But just cuz a person apprectice don’t mean he or she learned a fuckn thing or the shop was worth a shit. Anyway I’m off this topic not here to offend. Do it right always and never stop learning grow and be humble about it.
@yodaddynukka 126507 wrote:
sorry to post here but this is the only way. i cannot start a thread on safari because i am not able to populate the “subject” section of a thread when i want to start a new thread. i can do it fine on my phone (samsung gs3) but not on my desktop (apple with safari). any ideas?
If you are asking how the heck to fill in the subject: try using the mouse to “highlight” the whole subject field and then start typing. I had to do that to one of the fields when I was trying to join the forum, it was the only way it would let me, otherwise it was like it didn’t even recognize that there was a keyboard.
You must be logged in to create new topics.
