Last week I had the honour of tattooing Ross who resides North of the boarder and made the voyage down from the Scottish Highlands. Ross spent 4 days at UN1TY where I had the pleasure of getting to know him personally and work with him on his tattoo. We had not previously met our only contact had been via email in which we discussed the schedule for the tattoo and suitable dates for us both, leaving all discussion of the design until our first day together where we got to sit down face to face.

I take pride in the process of my work, using an orange sharpie to reveal rough lines, surveying the contours, bumps and curves of a persons body until I’m happy enough to render these orange smudges with a blue biro. When the design is discovered like this it feels much more like a collaborative effort where both myself and the client are working toward a singular end goal. It requires a greater degree of trust on behalf of the person receiving the tattoo as a design unravels itself in front of them in real time. They see the alterations made where a line is drawn on and then erased, refining everything as we go looking for the “perfect” placement. This is not a quick process, but it’s the only way to yield the desired result, I don’t know how to work any other way.

As we launch ourselves in to this project both of us need to harmonise our energy in order transcend the limits of one person. To see a lone bird fly is incredible but to watch a flock of birds as they dance across the sky is magical. If I try to dominate the design too much the client feels disengaged, the other way around and I feel uninspired, working together is the key. I will always give %100 and Ross giving the level of trust and commitment he did illustrates his willingness to go %100 in, so at the end of the process we’re left with a tattoo that’s had %200 of our energy and effort. What the client brings to the table is just as important as what the tattooer brings maybe not in terms of how the finished piece will look but certainly in the experience gained by both people.

Thank you Ross for your efforts last week, it was an honour and a pleasure tattooing and getting to know you.

H