My Dear Friends of Inked I assume because your mom took you get it there was no backlash in trouble no no only from grandma yeah oh she’s like i heard you got something you’re not supposed to have joseph and i’m like what are you talking about this and she’s like yes that i’m like.
And then ever since that first tattoo every every holiday i come back with more and more and more and she’s like joseph when are you gonna stop you gotta stop the tattoos i don’t like it no never no i got a better chance of getting her to.
Eat a pot brownie my name’s joe i’m from new jersey i work for a small little auto body shop doing estimates and pencil can i like tattoos obviously uh i have a daughter.
Um two stepchildren and a wonderful wife i grew up in a small town called linden new jersey good time growing up had a lot of fun had a lot of friends lost a lot of friends a lot of backyard wrestling just a lot of shenanigans really you know going out partying constantly not.
Coming home for weeks worrying my mother to death my parents were into the whole biker scene back then and whatnot and we went to a lot of biker parties so i remember seeing bikers all the time with sleeves and i’m like that’s going to be me that’s going to be me and.
I guess it happened my mother took me for my first tattoo on my 17th birthday it was something off the wall it was um like this little dragon crawling up a rose i actually saw somebody with the same exact tattoo and i’m like nope i’m covering it it’s got to go.
The next tattoo that i started working on after that one it was my leg eventually i ended up with a sleeve of uh i had a dragon with the wind bars and the cherry blossoms and all that but then i just like saw an article one day of um little swastika i don’t know if you know who he is um.
And i just fell in love with the heavy black you know so i started working with a group of guys that really uh i shouldn’t have started the blackout work with they just chewed me up you know chewed my skin up all over the place.
And then i found the guy that i’m working with now and he’s just phenomenal that’s all he does is blackout work like 90 of his work is blackout that guy is in philadelphia yeah that’s his name and i was i was so grateful to like meet him and get in contact with him and.
Actually have the chance to work with him you know me and him are actually pretty close we became pretty good friends like i didn’t i didn’t plan on going as big as i did go if that’s just something that because i never really planned the whole blackout work stuff out it was just i started with my arm.
And moved to my neck and like just kept going definitely takes some like a strong mentality especially when like sometimes i didn’t even want to go back like i’m fighting myself i’m like i don’t want to go work on this area you know like this is going.
To be brutal even even hood he pushes me every time i go he’s like 10 more minutes you got you got 10 more minutes and then 10 more minutes turns into 20 more minutes and 20 more minutes turns into a half an hour half hour turns into 45 minutes i’m like dude i was i was giving up like an hour ago.
And he’s like no no you’re not did i have regrets no should i have waited to find the right person to do it yes and that’s like the biggest thing you could go for when you’re looking for somebody to do something like this because your normal tattoo artist isn’t going to be able to accomplish something.
This big and saturated the way you’re going to want it and have it come out you know without you getting chewed up you know because there’s there’s a certain technique to it it’s not just hey it’s a coloring book and like that’s what a lot of people think like i get comments all the time oh like a second.
Grader could do that i’m like no dude not really what they don’t realize is all the trauma that happens to the skin during all that you know and how easily it could all go wrong well the snake represents like change you know because it says it’s skin and throughout my life i’ve.
Had many problems that i’ve had to deal with and i’ve come through and changed completely from it and came out a better person so i don’t think i’ll ever cover that arm my first face tattoo is my daughter’s name it was that big moment for you to tattoo your.
Friends i mean in some ways it was it was like should i do this you know is it gonna stop me from doing anything in my life um but no at that point i already had all these visible tattoos on my neck on my hands you know i got like i had like.
You pay me i really didn’t think anything of it i just got it done and just went along with it and eventually ended up with a few more this is tibetan wisdom and intuition going through everything i went through in my life and learning from it all you know.
I had a lot of bad issues with substances growing up and you know just always getting in trouble having a you know get myself back on that right path and it’s just a reminder you know well i’ve always noticed people like looking at me but what gets me is uh one time i was walking through the mall i.
Just got my whole head tattooed so my head shaved and everything and you see everything um and a woman actually grabs her daughter and pulls her away from me as i’m walking by now that’s a big thing when you’re going to do something like this.
To yourself you have to realize that not everybody’s going to agree with the way you look and there’s going to be criticism and there’s going to be things that you’re going to have to take whether you could handle it or not so sometimes that happens and i’m like damn like.
What’s wrong with these people but you know it’s just people being people you know judging books by their cover you know it happens to me all the time i just wonder was there a point in your life where you felt like you were no longer just a person with tattoos and you’d become a quote-unquote tattooed person.
Yeah definitely was uh and that’s when i started forgetting about having the tattoos like i don’t even like remember i have face tattoos anymore like people come up to me and ask like what’s this and i think they’re talking about my neck because.
I i forget about these things because i’m i don’t even look like i look past all that you know maybe i don’t forget about them the shock value goes down because you know when you first get a tattoo and you’re like wow like it’s gonna be different for a few days like i’m gonna have to get used to looking like this you know.
Like that doesn’t really happen that much anymore you know it did for a while when i began the blackout like i’m like wow like look how much i’ve changed in such a short amount of time and it took a little catching up to do with my brain but now.
Like i said it’s kind of like i just it’s out of out of my uh out of focus i guess i don’t know if you can start it all over again you’re 17 years old your mom’s driving you to the tattoo shop would you do things the same way i wouldn’t get that flash art off the wall i’ll tell you.
That um but would i necessarily do anything different i i don’t know because like i said i’m happy with the way things are turning out and i like the way everything’s basically fell into place because like i said there was no.
Plan for this i basically just said hoodie here like i gave him like a basic shape that i wanted to create out of the mess that was created and this is what we came up with so far tattoos no.
Because the ones i covered i never really finished they were all works in progress you know like i worked for a few shops out in delaware and uh like they those guys started my rib piece i had this whole underwater scene with a mermaid and it squid in my armpit and like it’s pretty wild but i just kind of grew out of the.
Whole grew out of it you know i grew up just the whole uh the asian thing i grew out of the whole underwater scene thing do you ever think there’ll be a point would you wish there was something there i don’t think so because this is something that i wanted so bad.
That i worked so hard to actually go out and find somebody that was wanting to take the mess on that i had created of it all with the last two people working on me you know so now like and like i look at myself in the mirror.
Every day and i love what i love what i see like i’m comfortable with it all you
Shortly after getting his first tattoo—a piece of flash he picked off the wall—Joe saw someone else walking around with the same exact tattoo. At that moment he knew that something needed to be done and it altered his entire journey. After discovering heavy blackwork tattooing, Joe realized what he truly wanted. We spoke with Joe about his collection, the looks he gets when he’s out in public and the intricacies of well done blackwork.
Welcome to Heavily Inked. In our newest series, we’re going to speak one-on-one with tattoo collectors and artists about what it means to be a heavily inked person. We’ll get deep as we go through the motivations behind their tattoo choices, the way they’ve been treated in society and much more.
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