into this thing called tattooing” and they supported me. I was in the streets
and they knew if they didn’t support me art wise and I didn’t get any money
I would be back in the streets and everybody would be in danger so everybody supported me to keep me out of the streets.
It’s interesting that the people who were involved in your life at that
time, family friends and people from the neighborhood all supported
you and worked to keep you on a positive path.
Oh yes. It was my whole town; the whole entire town supported me. My life
was kind of documented. My whole life I’ve always been in newspapers
and stuff. It was just the next step. Then I started really getting serious and
saved up some money to go to school Everyone supported me.
At what point did it hit you that you could make a career out of your
artwork as well as doing tattoos?
I started my first business at age 10. I haven’t stopped working since, no
breaks, no vacations…I took a vacation once…twice. That was it. I’ve been
working ever since.
They say that no one believes in your dream as much as you do, so
you should be the one who works the hardest for it.
Everyone believed in me man; I couldn’t say I didn’t have that. I had support, everybody believed in it. They supported me hard the whole entire way.
I’ve heard a lot of artists don’t get that kind of blessing. I guess I’m pretty
blessed man.
There seems to be a transition where tattoo artists are starting to get
back into doing art. Have you noticed this transition?
I do my best to separate City of Ink from the tattoo industry so I don’t really
follow the tattoo industry at all. Our goal is to create the culture and let everybody else copy it. I never really pay attention to what everybody else is
doing because if I did that I’d be influenced by them. So what I did is try to
separate myself from the tattoo industry completely and focus on the City of
Ink Movement. So it never left us, we’ve always been artists. I can’t say that
I’ve noticed it coming back because every artist I know personally have always been artists. They always did their art. If they’re tattoo artists or painters they’ve always incorporated their style in the work.
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