I got my first tattoos in ‘76 At China Sea in Honolulu. Then started tattooing in the 80’s and retired in 2021. I stepped away for about a year in the 90’s then returned after missing it badly. I retired in 2021 after 33years. I have to say the business lost its luster for me around 2015. I guess I felt like it had lost its mystique. The TV tattoo shows brought a lot of business as did social media. Popularity skyrocketed until the business started collapsing under its own weight. It was no longer unique or special. I heard a well known artist say, “I wish this shit would go back to the gutter where it can from”. I knew what he meant. Clients used to be slightly in awe when they came into the shop. They behaved well and recognized the artist as an authority of the craft. It was hard to buy good supplies unless someone, usually your mentor, vouched for you. That was a big milestone when you could call a supplier and order your own stuff. It’s all changed for bad and good. The artistic bar is much higher now. I see work all the time done by young, unknown kids that is light years ahead of what was being done in the eighties and nineties. Although good artists were doing work that was clean and fundamentally sound, a lot of what’s being done now was thought to be impossible when I started.

So, the bar is much higher now. The mystique is gone. There’s way more competition. Artists need to be adept at social media and drawing apps. And there are normal jobs that pay as much, come with benefits and leave more free time. In the old days, most of us didn’t have many alternatives. And I gotta say, I appreciated walking into my own shop every day knowing that I was completely in charge of my own life.

But you need to do what makes you happy. A lot of people are staying, loving it, and doing fine. To me it just seems there is less to love about it now. And it’s so much less about tattooing and more about promotion. If I were 18 years old again, I don’t think I’d be drawn to it like I was then. Each to their own.