working hours

Tattooers have ALWAYS been inundated by people asking for apprenticeships.

Here's what most people asking for an apprenticeship do NOT consider-

- EVERYthing an apprentice does affects the tattooer, his or her reputation, and his or her ability to earn a living. An apprentice needs to be someone the tattooer can trust, whose behavior in and out of the shop is compatible with the tattooer's life, and who can be counted on to be as committed as the tattooer is- MANY wannabe aprentices think that after three or four months, they've "already learned enough".

- That the apprentice must be someone that the tattooer LIKES as a person, since he or she will be there EVERY DAY FOR SEVERAL YEARS.

- That most people asking for an apprenticeship "want to be a tattooer" but don't do anything about "being an artist". The comment about "don't stop drawing" is a good one. A good apprentice will already be an accomplished artist, and will spend part of EVERY DAY drawing. A good tattooer will use other media as well- pen & ink, watercolor, paints, sculpture, pencil, color pencils, etc. An "artist" is not going to need to be told to "draw every day". An "artist" lives to create art, and that will be apparent. Someone who "wants to be a tattooer", but who has never considered the commitment an Artist makes to Art, is not going to likely impress a tattooer who is also an artist.

- Tattooing is a BUSINESS, and interpersonal skills, retail skills, and customer service skills, AS WELL AS the first three points are ESSENTIAL if someone whose income is affected by the way the shop is working is going to take on another person.

- Any tattooer teaching an apprentice is taking time from his/her own life, and should be compensated. It's true that most people don't charge $$ for an apprenticeship, but most people only apprentice people they're friends with, who, and here's where the tattoo shop owner makes his/her money on it- is WILLING TO STAY FOR SEVERAL YEARS AFTER THE APPRENTICESHIP IS OVER. In other words, be committed to the studio, the tattooer, and remaining there after the apprenticeship is over, so the owner's "investment" of time, knowledge and reputation" will be returned by the new tattooer earning money for the studio for several years into the future.

I have yet to hear any wannabe apprentice except one, suggest that he/she fit all these criteria, and that one will be starting an apprenticeship with me in a YEAR OR TWO, once she's finished her Bachelor's Degree in Studio Art. Tatooing for a living is a lifetime thing, and teaching someone is giving them the ability to earn a GOOD living doing gratifying work. That's gonna be something that the teacher will consider valuable, and the student MUST treat as something worth committing MANY YEARS to, particularly years working for the tattooer who teacher him/her.

I hope this is informative.

Tom

Don't need to say any thing realy.
TS and Side said it all.... Keep doing your art and looking for a shop that fits with you..And aways look at it as a never ending road that you are going to walk down.Never stop learning .

Donnchad

Aron, did you read that carefully? TWO YEARS Rain spent developing a relationship with the person who was going to teach her to tattoo. She's spent another two years, apprenticing to this person, and now, although she is licensed now as a "Tattooer", she's got four years invested, and still thinks of herself as an apprentice.

I agree with her wholeheartedly that the tattooing medium is NOT easy, but instead VERY complex and difficult to learn to do properly. What IS easy is learning how to tattoo at a marginal level, learning how to do mediocre tattoos IS easy and can be learned in several months. "Figuring it out from there" is NOT something that most people will ever be able to do, which is why there's so damned many shitty tattooers out there. Learning to tattoo "properly" takes YEARS- it took me TEN YEARS before I began to think of myself as a competent tattooer.

Good luck, but NO one is going to GIVE you an apprenticeship- you have to earn it through perseverance and dedication.

Still waiting to hear from you and Jeremy as to what you all think about this stuff.

Peace

T

>>"The problem is just that- i could go hang out at a tattoo shop for a couple of years, get major ink pieces, make friends and such and never get an apprenticeship @ all."<<

Aron, are you suggesting that you don't want to get tattooed? That you don't want to get tattooed heavily? That you want, instead, to be in the business withOUT getting the tattoos that we ALL have? That you want to be "part of the tattooing world" WITHOUT PARTICIPATING???? (Oh, there's a few exceptions, but those tattooers, no matter how good their skills, are viewed with CONTEMPT by the professional tattooing community) Are you suggesting that you "want to be a tattooer" but that you aren't willing to spend every waking moment in a tattoo studio like many of "us" do? Aron, when you THINK and ACT like a TATTOOER, people begin to see you like a tattooer. When you act like an outsider, looking to cash in on Our Thing, people SEE you as an outsider, looking to cash in.

I think you're reading what we've all been saying incorrectly- TATTOOERS OFFER APPRENTICESHIPS TO THEIR FRIENDS and FAMILY WHO HAVE MET THESE CRITERIA. Tattooers teach those they LIKE, not "strangers who are committed", because there's a LOT of strangers out there who'd LOVE to be a tattooer, but who we just DON'T LIKE as PEOPLE.

The idea of hanging around and helping out at a studio, is about finding people who LIKE YOU, and who YOU LIKE, not about "investing in something that might or might not happen".

How do you get to be a roadie for a small band? You KNOW the guys in the band. How do you get to be a crew member on a lucrative fishing boat? You KNOW someone on the crew. The same is true for tattooing.

Tattooing in ANY studio is a "Family Affair" where people have things in common- and any shop where the tattooers are essentially strangers, is a studio that's filled with drama, bullshit, and not a fun place to work. If you look at San Francisco, MANY of the tattooers there have ONE thing in common above all others- they worked for Ed Hardy at Tattoo City at some point in the last 25 years (oh yeah, and they LOVE tattooing, they're artists as well, and they're covered from head to toe with ink). You'll find that those tattooers move on to open their own studios, work together, share their lives with one another, but they all either started or got into the "SF scene" through Tattoo City. In Oakland, it's Temple Tattoo, but you'd be surprised at how many people working there have their roots in Tattoo City as well.

So what? VERY FEW people I know actually PLANNED to become tattooers, unless they were already part of a tattooing family, whose parent or family friend was a professional tattooer.

I certainly never planned to become a tattooer, and I WAS a tattooer for over ten years before I ever planned on owning my own studio. Hell, I was a guy sitting around biker parties at 4AM in the SF Bay Area in the early-mid 80s, drawing portraits of people and their Harley Davidsons (back when owning a HD meant you built it yourself, so the bike reflected who you were as much as anything else in life). I'd sit there all night (when I wasnt alone with some cutie, discussing the finer points of, well, not tattooing, that's for sure), drawing and drawing and chatting with friends. EVERY time someone saw that I was a competent illustrator, every time someone saw that the motorcycles and people I was drawing looked like the motorcycles and people I was drawing, I'd hear over and over again "Brother, you should be tattooing, you're fucking awesome" which really meant "Hey, I'd get free tattoo work if you were a tattooer, because you're my friend, right?" I'd come back with "yeah, yeah, you're gonna let me practice on YOUR body, right?" Well, one day, someone looked at me and said "Yeah, I will. I've been tattooing for about twenty-five years. If you wanna learn, I'll teach you."

Well, that never turned into a real apprenticeship, but it WAS a start, and it's how I finally got my "inside track" to becoming a tattooer. I already had both arms sleeved, and was 23 years old, and I LOOKED like the average tattooer, although about 20 years to young. I'm 44 now, and I've thought of myself as a "professional tattooer" for about 15 years now, even though I've been tattooing for over 20.

My artwork is what got me my first tattooing instruction. That and where I was- in a heavy-duty biker scene, in a time when there were only two basic kinds of tattoo studios- those who catered to sailors/Marines/etc. and those who catered to bikers.

I think the response you get is about "expectations", or at least "perceived expectations". It's primarily because there's SOOO MANY idjuts walking into the studio EXPECTING someone to GIVE them a "break", that we end up saying "fuck you!" and showing them the door. Most often, it's people who ARE hanging around for several years, who DO get lots of pricey tattoo work, who ARE investing their time and effort into promoting and helping out at a specific shop who DO get the apprenticeships.

But let's take a look at what you wrote again-

>>"The problem is just that- i could go hang out at a tattoo shop for a couple of years, get major ink pieces, make friends and such and never get an apprenticeship @ all."<<

NOTHING in life is certain, except that it will end, usually in a very painful manner. Until then, it's all about choices and risk. No risk, no return. Take no chances, and you'll remain "safe", but without any great payoff in life. THAT is certain. Letting the possibility that you won't get one keep you from "doing what's necessary for the best chance" is like saying "I LOVE Indy racing, but I'm not going to invest in a race car, learn to drive competetively, or get to know racing, because I might never get to race at Indy."

TATTOOING IS A FAMILY AFFAIR, and even if one becomes Family, one STILL has to invest the time and energy- do all the trash-taking, tube cleaning, autoclaving, customer-service stuff to get their apprenticeship. Besides, who the hell wants to spend years around people you don't love or at least like very much???

Good luck.

T