The Myth of Experience

"So, how long have you been doing this?"

It's a question I get asked a lot. Clients get nervous. They've seen good tattoos and bad, and they can't help but be aware that they're going to wear their art for life. They want to know they're in good hands.

Thing is, they're asking the wrong question.

There are some incredible artists who have been tattooing just a few years. And some old timers who just can't cut it. Likewise there are old timers who have grown and matured and improved with age and young artists who approach this art like nasty little kids tagging restrooms and bus shelters.

Tattooing demands a certain dedication. Today, we have such a wealth of information and new ideas to draw on, our only limits are our own talent, drive and hard work.

But there's always the flip side. Most art forms are ruthless about weeding out the lazy: lazy dancers don't win auditions, lazy musicians don't even show up. Lazy painters don't sell work and lazy writers don't finish books. (Monster egos are still a problem, but at least they have to be backed by actual work. That, as they say, is a topic for another post...)

Tattooing, because of its culture of secrecy, has long been a haven for lazy artists.

Once upon a time if you could make the machines work and solder needles, you were a tattooist. Do a halfway decent job of tracing stencils and you made a living. Done.

For some, it was enough. They didn't, or couldn't, grow past that. Tracing off the flash was good enough for them. Now, their art form is changing around them and they're being left behind.

That laziness is different in the young ones. Or maybe it just looks that way from where I'm standing. I see new artists - the ones who aren't willing to do the hard yards required - treating this art as a path to a quick buck, or a way to be 'cool' or something. They put more energy into 'looking' and 'acting' like tattoo artists than they do into their actual art. When it comes to learning more than the bare minimum, they can't be bothered.

(NB: There is also something called the Dunning-Kruger effect, where the useless and untalented think they're awesome. Mix that in with some Narcissistic Personality Disorder so that any suggestion they're less than awesome is met with hostility, and you may have a fair portrait of some of these guys. But I digress...)

Reason I mention the young and lazy is, they tend to lie. After all, as long as you're putting your effort into dressing and acting like a tattoo artist (instead of, you know, actually working on your ART), why not tell folks you've been doing it long enough to make them feel better?

Do not feel better. I said it before and I'll say it again, how long we've been doing this DOES NOT MATTER.

Advances in ink technology, machines, needle groupings have all made it possible to do work today that we could only dream of years ago. In the last four or five years, I've had to rethink EVERYTHING. I've had to throw years and years of experience out the window. To tear down my ego and destroy my own misplaced pride and start all over again at the beginning. To rethink EVERYTHING, from my hand movements to color theory to how I put on the goddamned stencil.

It would have been easy to retreat behind a wall of pride and refuse to change. Hell, it would have been easy to do more illustration work, or comics, or sell more novels, just turn my back on the whole thing. But the thing is, for me, this is the most incredibly exciting time in the history of this art to be tattooing. It's amazing!

So yeah, I've been tattooing for ages- a decade in Christchurch alone. But I'm also constantly rethinking and relearning my trade to lift my game. My work has jumped by leaps and bounds, and I'm still humble, still working to do better, to make every tattoo better than the last.

And that's got nothing to do with how long I've been tattooing. Or not much, anyway.

So, if we're nervous about that tattoo, if we want to know that we're in the right hands, that we're going to get ink that we'll wear with pride, what question should we ask?

Can I see some of your work?

Check out that portfolio. LOOK at the work on offer. Don't look at the photos hoping to see your design- look to see how your design will turn out. Whether the artist has been tattooing for two years or twenty, make sure you're looking at the sort of tattoos that would make you proud.

Next post I'll get into what to look for in a good tattoo. For now, check the artist's portfolio and ask yourself, is something like this what I want on me?