The bridge
between
The East
and
The West
Exclusive Interview With Tattoo Experience
Tattoo Experience is a private
organisation co-founded by Mike,
which aims to introduce the beauty
and significance of traditional
Japanese tattooing, Irezumi.
How does Irezumi reflect a certain
lifestyle? In Japanese society, they would
often go for goldfish and coin as a symbol of
luck for money. In some way it is connected
to lifestyle. Often the tattooist would want
to get to know you first so they can suggest
what would fit your personality. An example
would be a MMA fighter customer, a big
tough guy. You would want to give him
something more gentle, because he’s scary
enough as it is, does he need to look more
tough? But of course it really depends
receiver. Sometimes people want scary
thing, sometimes they simply want
beautiful things.
An important thing to bear in mind is the
artist’s style. In the West, you can mix any
styles together. But here in Japan, the idea
is you’re going for the artist’s style and their
creation. That is how traditional Japanese
tattoo artist think of themselves. They look
at traditional art and make their own style.
Has any of your clients ever regret
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A Scope In Their World
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getting a tattoo? This involves some
psychology aspect in terms of dealing with
the customers in tattooing. My work is
to increase a certain type of customer. Such
as extreme risk takers, they are the easiest
to get but they make very fast decision and
are more likely to regret. They are difficult
to communicate with as well. So why I do
Tattoo Experiences, is to avoid this. Because
I want my customers to think, “That is the
art I want” or “That is the style I want”. That
they take the time to make a good decision.
What does Tattoo Experience do? When I
came to Japan, I had sold my business in
Canada and had come to get a tattoo. The
tattoo artist and I became friends. We
started to talk and I realized that most of
his customers speaks English. And he
couldn’t tattoo full time and communicate
because when you talk about tattoos to the
customer, it gets difficult. Sometimes
they’re nervous and you have to calm them
down. Sometimes you have to explain that
it is an artistic medium, some things that
you can do, some things you cannot.
For me, I find good customers coming from
all over the world America, China, Britain,
Spain, France. You name it. It’s been good
because we give access to something that is
high quality but difficult to understand and
find.
What specific rules does Japanese tattoo
have? There are different rules within
different families. Japanese tattoo has a
very feudal structure. The master would
take on an apprentice and you would be
obligated to look after your master because
he taught you. So the artistic rule and style
varies through different “families”. But one
of the big rule is: don’t mix season. You
won’t have a spring flower and an autumn
leaf together. A good example would be a
Buddhism image, Fudō-myōō. You would
not put that below the waist because it
would be considered disrespectful.
Japanese tattoo artist believes very strongly
that their certain way of doing things as
being the Japanese ways. When Americans
copy the Japanese style, they make the
background blue. Some customers ask for
this but the Japanese artist choose not to do
because it is not their style, it’s the
Americans.
What got you interested in Irezumi? The
West and China is in this big bubble
economy. There are many qualified people
yet very little work. Doing this allows me to
make a good living and I am not dependent
on any corporation and I did not need to go
into debt. It’s strange because I was in
Technology before, I built internet
startups but now that world is not so