There is a change going on in the Tattoo industry and unfortunately it’s not for the better.

Since i live in Denmark I’ve used that as my example. Denmark has a rich tradition in tattooing, especially in Copenhagen which was a shipping city.
Jon Nordstrom published an amazing book that uncovered much about tattoo culture in Denmark.

About 10 years ago there were approximately 120-150 “professional” tattooers and 20 of them were
good complete tattoo artist

Today there’s maybe 25-30 good tattoo artists but up to 1000 “professional” tattoo artists working in Denmark and the average quality of the work has dropped.

The rise in tattoo artists is caused by a number of things,  shows like Miami Ink and our own danish version (Tattoo-salonen), that glamourise the artist’s life, as being a fast paced celebrity existence with loads of easy money and expensive things, when in fact it’s more of a craft like carpentry, where amount of money you can make is in direct correlation to your skill-level and how hard you are willing to work.

The rise in artists has also fed the people who were looking for cheap tattoos because they were either cheap or couldn’t afford quality work. There are no official training programs for tattoo artists in Denmark but there is a long standing tradition of a 3 year apprenticeship with a skilled artist.

Even though the skilled artists have experienced a drop in business because of the rise in bad/less experienced artists, they say there is a rise in cover-up tattoos.
At some point, the customer realises that tattoos aren’t a purchase that should be cheap, so when they have paid for the bad one, they have to reinvest to get it covered by a good and more expensive tattoo.

I talked to two well-renowned skilled tattoo artists, who asked to remain anonymous as they didn’t want to appear to court publicity.
We spoke on a variety of subjects and here’s the conclusions.

When people get tattoos they should ‘love themselves more’ and ‘be more choosy’ with tattoos selections. They felt that some people make it race to see who has the most and biggest tattoos. They both wanted customers to appreciate craftsmanship and get one nice tattoo instead of two bad ones.

When you go to a artist in training the training isn’t only in tattooing, it also involves issues such as hygiene and tattoo after care, those who have no training might have good intentions but don’t have the routine or knowledge needed to keep a sterile environment and advise on proper care are taking huge health risks on behalf of their clients.

One artist I spoke with had tattooed for 15 years professionally and says that he still doesn’t feel that he’s good enough to take in an apprentice! The other artist has worked professionally for 9 years and he said that from the beginning he has said that he wouldn’t even consider taking an apprentice until he had tattooed for 10 years. It is a great example of the integrity and craftsmanship that exists in the industry.

(BANDIT wrote about legendary artist Troy Denning which you can read here)

To ensure that I wasn’t just talking to people who were angry about losing some business, I asked them what they thought about the competing tattoo shop right around the corner – they were surprisingly respectful
and positive about the competition, they even referred a customer to them while I was there even though they don’t actually know each other.

It is essentially the customers fault that the shitty tattoo-shops exist because they pay their salaries and rent. Even tattoo supply companies don’t sell to just anyone, you have to at least be someone they can look up
as a legitimate business and with a display of your work online.

Experienced tattoo artists do it because they love the craftsmanship that it takes to do a really good tattoo and are able to execute any style of tattoo fairly well-excellent. If your tattooer doesn’t at least have a couple of weeks wait to get an appointment, he or she is most likely a newbie or a bad tattooer.

The plea that these tattooers present is that you do some research before you get tattooed by a hack, be patient and get your tattoos done right because it’s not that fun to cover bad tattoos, not for you, not for the artist!

In this industry, the customer never knows best!
It’s like any other craft, it takes a lot of training to be good.

Casper