Backyard

I was looking for our next project, as Nicci and I love spending what little free time swinging spanners in our garage building café racers and we are almost done with our second a 1983 BMW r100rs, so I was looking on gumtree and olx and I came across an add for a café racer where the guy says “professionally build, not a backyard garage builder”. And he’s right I am a backyard garage builder, but I do know when a nut is loose and when it’s tight, and seeing as I ride what I build, you would be right in assuming as I’m on the damn thing I check everything twice, hell more than that. To him I have this to say, you may have a workshop, but buddy it doesn’t make you any good at what you do, let alone legitimize the design eye you just don’t have.

This is what I am getting at, there is a lot of talk about where you work from, let me explain. I opened new premises many years ago, after having worked from my a dedicated tattoo studio at my home, a tattoo artist, I won’t mention names, comes in and says “I love the place and so glad you opened a shop, as I would never get tattooed from your home” I promptly threw her out and asked her never to set foot in my shop again, I can’t tolerate stupid people. I have worked in shops around the world, and let me tell you that not one ran as sterile and efficient as mine, so from a cross contamination and sterility point of view, how does where the room is actually situated affect the ability to maintain it. Store type studios, think that cause they have frontage that makes them legitimate and therefore better than a backyard garage tattoo artist, let me make it quite clear I don’t approve of little fucks buying Chinese knock off equipment and without any training hacking up people in their homes, but just cause that very same little fuck opens his doors on a busy street doesn’t mean he’s all of a sudden knowledgeable. Where you work from certainly has no impact on your work, Guy Aitchison works from a private studio at his home, a great mate of mine owns and operates Traveling Ink, where he runs he’s studio from a Airstream Camper, and let me make it absolutely clear he’s is a super tight operation and well set up, better than a lot of shops I have seen. So please don’t be an ass, the quality of the work is the only real criteria here, and where, and for those looking to punch a hole in this please take note I said WHERE, and not “under any circumstances,” a tattoo is done will make not one iota of difference to the quality of the piece.

I am reminded by a TV series I love MASH, and I had the good fortune to watch a documentary made about the real MASH unit doctors and nurses, and for those that don’t know MASH stands for Mobile Army Surgical Hospital, these people saved lives in tents, the stats showed that by building these unit in the Korean war thousands of young men survived, as opposed to World War 2 where they weren’t in existence and young men just died in the field because they couldn’t get to proper medical attention, the point being that a proper surgical environment was created in tents, and that unregimented thinking saved lives, and you didn’t need to be in a hospital to get the best medical attention.

 So in closing the chip on your shoulder and your lack of knowledge makes you feel inadequate enough to knock others, perhaps it’s time for a little self-examination, self promotion through the degradation of others only highlights your shortcomings, and no one likes a whiney little bitch.