247 Ink Magazine (December/January) 2016 Issue#12 | Page 233

So you’ve been doing Polynesian for how long? Probably for like 6 years. So that’s how long you have been tattooing altogether? No, I have been tattooing for like 12. It started off in the garage, went to prison, tattooed in prison and then um came out and I was doing script and then more script and then more script and then did prison style collages, “Cholo” art and I had a collection of, just that, and um some guy says hey, can you do this. This Filipino tribal. I’m like, nah, I don’t like that stuff. And another guy asked me, he was from Hawaii, hey can you do tribal. And I was like, yeah. So I started doing this Harley Davidson tribal. Well in Cali we call it Harley Davidson tribal. Back then the bikers…So I drew something up, and he goes, naahhhh. So I was wondering, what does he really want? And then a buddy of mine says, hey, this guy wants to see you who owns this tattoo shop. Come to find out, this dude didn’t even want to see me. It was kind of like, he wanted to check my work. But I was like, we don’t even do the same style. And it was just one tattoo. So he goes, bring in a portfolio. So I brought him a portfolio of all of the prison art style that I was doing. And he goes, OK. I’m not looking for nobody, so this is not a promise, but I want to try you out. So I said OK, cool. I went in and he said OK, can you do this. I said, I’ll try. And he said, let me give you a few tattoos to do. So I did them. And that started my love that I 231