When did you know you wanted to be a tattoo artist ? I didn ’ t know I wanted to become a tattoo artist until I came across Paul Booth ’ s work and discovered fine art tattoos . As a painter I was never exposed to any facet of the tattoo industry that appealed to me before that and assumed it was mostly filled with styles I had no interest in .
Are you completely self-taught or did you ever apprentice ? I had a very loose and informal apprenticeship at a street shop that ’ s no longer open , but consider myself mostly self-taught .
Have you ever tattooed yourself ? Of course ! I sacrificed large portions of my thighs to learn some fundamentals so other people didn ’ t have to walk around with my mistakes forever !
What was the first tattoo you ever did ? The first tattoo I ever did was the logo for the band Whitechapel on my leg . It ’ s a typical scratchy and barely legible death metal logo , so I thought I ’ d go for something a little more forgiving with lots of room for error !
Can you describe your creative process from the drawing board to end result , from a client ’ s imagination , with your own unique perception ? I try to take the foundational meaning the client is trying to convey or represent , and guide them into a composition that will compliment their ideas and also make a great tattoo . Aesthetics is the number one priority for me in the tattoo process because with all meaning aside , it ’ s a visual accessory and they need to look good and compliment the area of the body they are being placed on . I personally love it when clients just give me a general idea or a subject and let me take it from there . Trust is crucial to my creative process .
Do you ever find yourself in a creative block and if so how do you break through it ? Yes ! All of the time . Personally , I ’ ve found that exploring other pursuits altogether help me the most with breaking a block . I like to study things not related to art at all . It almost acts as a breath of fresh mind-air and when I spend some time not completely engulfed in progressing at art . It ’ s always valuable to learn new things and it gives you time to develop new ideas and have a renewed excitement for the craft in general .
Being so heavily saturated mentally with the same goal can make the creative process monotonous for me .
How did you hook up with Club Tattoo ? Xavier Price at the Tempe location has been a good friend of mine for the past couple of years . When I heard there was an opening at the shop he worked at I thought it would be a fun opportunity !
You favor black and grey , as well as realism and surrealism art . Who are your favorite artists that inspire you ? There are a lot of really talented artists that I look up to ! But some that have impacted my career the most are Carlos Torres , Josh Duffy , Jason Butcher , Victor Portugal , and Bob Tyrell .
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