Another Day, No Dollars

Got a last minute call from the tattoo artist I work with this morning saying they had a tattoo party near my home and needed me ASAP.  I packed up and headed over there.  When I got there, it turned out the home owner throwing the party is a Bandido.  If you’re not familiar with they, they are a bike club/gang that began in the Houston area.  So, there were about fifty Bandidos there.   That didn’t bother me too much, I lived for ten years as a kid in the neighborhood they started out in, and knew quite a few of them growing up, and ran into one guy that I knew from when we were kids, almost forty years ago.  It was funny, he’s older than me, and still a biker, and during his day job is an aircraft mechanic at George W. Bush International airport. 

What was frustrating is that it didn’t take long for most of them to get sloppy drunk and loud, and after 7 hours on my feet, only got to do one tattoo, and after expenses and the cut between Joe (the artist)and me, I only ended up with $22.00.  Not a productive evening, and we were under an outdoor patio, so it was cold.

Oh, well, that’s how it goes sometimes with these things.  And there was some dork there who kept telling me he was an artist, and a tattooist, and blah blah blah.  Kept giving me his expertise, and trying to "tweak" my knowledge as he put it.  Okay, I’m not a braggart, but I’ve been doing art professionally longer than this guy has been alive.  I have an art degree, have taught, and am well versed in multiple mediums.  I am not a "dabbler" by any means.  I do tattoo because I enjoy it, and can often make VERY good income at it.  I know it’s not for everyone,  and that’s okay, it’s just an explanation of how I got into it.  The guy kept on and on, talking about is portfolio and finally fetched it for me to look at.  I just want it on record that I was very polite.  My nine year old neice is more accomplished than he is, and I’m not exagerating or being mean.  Then he looked at mine,  I carry it to show potential clients that I am capable of doing whatever type of work they want.  He took a look and said, "These are all copies, not real artwork". Well, duh. You don’t stick an original oil or water color into a plastic jacket and carry it around, therefore I have copies done, several of which are lithographs that I sell as limited edition prints.  I hate dealing with snobs, especially when they don’t know what the heck they’re talking about.  I’ve spent decades developing my skills, and if you can’t tell, I take it personally when someone questions my integrity, as though I just printed something out and carry it around like a poser.  He just got under my skin, but because we were in a psuedo business setting, I had to smile and explain to him politely why I don’t carry original artwork around.  He just didn’t get it.   There was even a lady there I had done previous work on, a reproduction of Equestrian Fantasy by Salvadore Dali.  It’s a painting of a woman in a gown, sitting astride a horse.  It was such an unusual request for a tattoo, and it took weeks to finish.  But it is as perfect a reproduction as can be done on human skin.  His response, was, "That’s not too bad." 

That’s one of the fun things about tattooing, you get some really interesting requests from people, and I’m one of the few in my area with the ability to do work like that.  I’m not the only one in the world, to be sure, but I am the only one in this area. 

Oh well, there’s one in every crowd.  I just don’t have the patience I used to have when dealing with people like that. And now my cheeks hurt from smiling at this….person.

Anyway, I would rather have been home with the kids at the end of the day. 

Brad is gone to a birthday party and to spend the night at a friends’ house, Brian is home with me, bored to death.  I am going to spend a little time with him before climbing into bed.  Tomorrow is another day, and I’m going to do my best to make it more productive and less aggravating.