Customizing the Body (PDF file) - Print My Tattoo

96 The Tattooist
that there is a choice and makes an intelligent decision based
on what is available. But if somebody opens up a shop, puts up
traditional flash and does not give the public a choice, doesn't
do custom work-is incapable of doing custom work-he is not
giving people a choice and he is perpetuating the image of
tattooing your mother or Aunt Margaret have. (That is) that all
tattooists are real scummy people, all tattoo shops are located
on the waterfront, patronized by pimps and prostitutes-a real
bucket of blood that is about one inch ahead of the law.
The established tattooists had few concrete ideas about how to
engage in more collective responses to the problem of low occupational
status. Occasionally, they suggested forming a national
professional organization that would set standards for tattoo practice,
certify qualified tattooists, exert pressure on supply companies
to limit the availability of equipment, and engage in public
relations. Given the fragmentation, individualism, greed, and
conflict that tend to characterize the tattoo world, no one was particularly
optimistic about the possibilities of forming a viable organization
of this sort.
There has been talk over the past years of the tattooists all
forming a union or getting together in some national
organization. But there is so much backbiting, back stabbing,
huge ego conflicts, that you can never get the entire tattoo
community together. I don't know why they waste their time
trying. A union certainly wouldn't work. I heard one proposal
for a union in which they said everybody should charge the
same prices across the country. But that's crazy. Why should
some hack doing pitiful work charge the same amount as an
art school graduate doing the finest work in the country? It
wouldn't work. You can't get the tattoo community together.
There are too many factions, This group hates that group. The
groups are usually Sided with some supplier and, of course,
they don't get along. So there will always be this attitude of,
"Well, I'm the best, That guy across the river is just a jerk. He
can't do anything right. I taught him, I'm the best, he's
nothing." Blah, blah, blah, blah.