There were a lot of reasons why I decided to become a tattoo artist: fame, fortune and the lure of handling marginally-clothed women in the wee hours of the morning. Guaranteed employment was right up there too, but the real reason was simple. I was hopelessly unemployed, mired in lawsuits, and flat broke, so I was desperate to try anything.
While standing in line at Trader Joe’s, I scoured the headlines of Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping and Redbook desperate for ideas about which way to turn:
“Become a Neuro-surgeon Online in 3 Weeks!”
“Learn How to Operate Heavy Equipment in Your Own Backyard!”
“Discover the Exciting Field of Cremation!”
Everyone had a quick fix. Then I saw it:
“Forty percent of U.S. adults have at least one tattoo”
Poof! A light bulb went off. “What’s the one thing everybody has that they’re willing to deface?” I asked myself. “Why, their skin, stupid!”
The article went on to brag that 36% of Americans between 18 and 29 have at least one tattoo. Seventy percent of them have more than one—20% have more than five. That translates to over 45 million inked people and 3 billion dollars a year! It went on to say that tattoo parlors have one of the lowest rates of unemployment in the country. With more than 20,000 of them, there’s a gold mine out there.
I had a lot going for me for the transition into the skin art trade. As a child, I could Etch-a-Sketch with the best of them. With the help of Grammarly, I’m a pretty good speller and I liked the idea that people were literally putting themselves in my hands—even if it was only for an hour. Nevertheless, I knew I had a lot to learn.
When I broke into the business, there were several ways to get started. The first was to rent space in a strip mall and just start tattooing—sort of on the job training. The second was to find an experienced tattoo artist willing to take you under their wing for 10 years; sort of like an extended internship in college. The third and most appealing way was to enroll in an accelerated tattoo program at a licensed school. Since I didn’t have any experience and was already 70-years-old, I elected to enroll in The Royal Academy of Ink in downtown Los Angeles.
I chose the Academy because it was approved by the Alliance of Professional Tattooists. More importantly, just like attending Harvard and Yale, I could get my tuition paid by the G.I. Bill.
Located in the heart of downtown Los Angeles, the Academy promised more clients than any other institute of higher inking; 
largely because it was 5 minutes from skid row and the Union Rescue Mission. On the third Thursday of every month, the Academy would bus-in homeless men and women, where they’d let us practice on them in return for a $5 coupon to one of a dozen local soup kitchens.
The curriculum was grueling. Each week was devoted to inking a specific part of the body: week one went over tattooing the torso—front and back. Week two went over tattooing arms and legs. Week three covered the head, neck, and face followed up by a week of instruction on the intricacies of inking men’s and women’s genitalia.
When it was slow, we were expected to practice on ourselves and the other students, in preparation for the California State Tattoo Examination. By the time I graduated, I tattooed every square inch of my legs, feet, and crotch with a wandering grape vine that imprisoned the entire screaming cast of “Game of Thrones.”
We were also encouraged to choose study partners. I hooked up with “Sledge” because he was recently paroled from Folsom Prison and knew his way around the type of seedy clientele I’d ultimately be working on. He taught me how to “read” a customer—what they wanted versus what they said—and how to defend myself by pressing on the sides of their eyeballs until they popped out.
Mr. Borden was our lead instructor and went over basic anatomy: bones, muscles, tendons, and arteries, paying particular attention to the areas of the body that bled profusely when you nicked them with a needle. It came in handy the first time I tattooed a python slithering around the neck of a 90-year-old librarian who was high on Aricept. Man, that sucker could bleed! After covering it in styptic powder and applying a tourniquet, it eventually stopped long enough for the paramedics to transport him to the USC County General Emergency Room. I heard that he’ll be back in three weeks so I can finish inking in the serpent’s tongue.
Before we were allowed to ink real customers, we were required to spend 20 hours tattooing Disney characters onto various kinds of fruit, beginning with watermelons, gradually working our way down to grapes and blackberry seeds. While the tough hide of a casaba melon doesn’t nearly resemble the ankle of a 19-year-old cheerleader, you’d be surprised how much a kiwi mirrors the face of an unemployed actor who hasn’t shaved in three days.
We were encouraged to sketch during our off-times, coming up with colorful, imaginative characters our future clients might want. Surprisingly, not everyone knows what they want when they stumble into a shop for their first tattoo. They just know, “I want a big-ass tattoo covering my breasts.” So, good tattoo artists need to be prepared to show them their portfolio.
I borrowed some of Sledge’s photographs of his cellmates to get started. While there aren’t that many people who immediately opt for total-body tattoos or “RACIST PIG” in large block letters across their foreheads, I was able to use some of his more creative images of barbed wire, spiders crawling on their noses and Pinocchio peeking out of a frat brother’s underwear. “INSERT QUARTER HERE” right above their butt-crack is also a good seller.
I learned how much more there is to being a successful tattoo artist besides just being able to carve an image into someone’s backside. Skin is a living, breathing organism that expands, contracts, and changes over time. For instance, several years ago, I was paid to ink the entire Last Supper onto the chest of a 21-year-old female bodybuilder. After years of getting puffed-up on steroids and baking in the mid-day sun, my glorious work of art resembled a faded advertisement on the outside of a mid-town bus. I had to use all the psychology training I learned at the Academy to explain to her, “Well, you still have your health!”
People will often stagger into your parlor drunk and fuming after getting passed over for a promotion. You need to know how to “talk them down,” veering them away from having a third eye tattooed into the middle of their forehead; something they might regret next week when they go to their annual sales conference.
Fortunately, 70% of tattoos people request are in areas covered by business attire. That means you’ll be off the hook when they come to their senses and realize that incorporating their nipples into the image of an extra-large pepperoni pizza wasn’t such a good idea after all. They’ll probably have at least a couple of years before they have to explain to their new Radcliffe-educated fiancé and her parents, why they elected to permanently disfigure 20% of their body with a popular fast food item.
Another problem new tattoo artists face is the inevitable error. Permanently inking “NO REGERTS” instead of “NO REGRETS.” Hey, it happens. Instead of losing sleep or alienating your client, the best thing to do is offer them ½ off on their next appointment, along with correcting it with a fashionable, “NO REG██TS.”
Ironically, most tattoo repairs aren’t the fault of the artist at all. It’s not your fault she dumped her roommate for the president of the Hells Angels. The problem is, it’s not always easy to convert “Allesandra Belladonna Antoinette” in 3-inch block letters into “Pigsty,” so I usually just rely on the ol’ standby: ink a giant, writhing snake on either end.
After completing my hours at The Royal Academy of Ink, I blew away the examiners at my state board exam by tattooing all 9 panes of Michelangelo’s Book of Genesis onto my model’s back, and W.C. Fields slack-lining between his nipples.
Just before he got sent back to Folsom, Sledge helped me land my first job at “Tats the Way it Is” where I started logging my apprenticeship hours. The veteran artists gave me hell, swapping out my permanent ink with watercolors, doubling my needle depth, and unscrewing the wheels from my work stool. I became their “shop bitch,” but, nevertheless we had some great laughs.
It’s just part of the deal becoming a professional tattoo artist!
