My Dear Friends of Inked Like getting tattooed now like sometimes i dread it like sometimes i hate it sometimes i’m like i don’t want to go but you get up and go because i’m not finished yet i got to get it finished.
I’m uh joe also known as tattoojoe i’m from bridgeport connecticut um been tattooing since the early 90s i grew up in connecticut as part of the hardcore skateboarder scene in the 90s i went to a trade school called platt tech in milford connecticut i’ve always been involved in some form of art.
I love tattooing i love tattoos i’m just attracted to the art and the way that it looks on the body the permanency of it i didn’t grow up knowing my real father so i met my real dad when i was 15. i flew out to montana and met my dad and he was like well what do you want to do and i was like i want to get a tattoo.
He was like all right cool so he took me to this guy’s house named newton scootin with one eye and he tattooed me i didn’t know he only had one eye until after the tattoo when he popped out his glass eye and i was like great uh the first one was the angel of death it’s an old greg irons tattoo.
And the second one was uh indian sitting on a horse i thought it was cool like anthony kiedis or something you know from 15 to 17 i already had my first body suit done i just wanted my whole body tattooed right away and you know you hang out with a bunch of bikers and.
Stuff like that i was working in a tattoo shop in connecticut just as cleaning and just being their slave for free tattoos like hanging out in the tattoo shop was the coolest thing in the world to me even though they were very um i don’t want to use the word abusive but.
Tattooing back then was an abusive scene you know like you didn’t you had to learn to make needles you had to learn to make machines you had to trace all day but on top of that you had a like i was doing the dudes dishes at his house or walking his dog and cleaning up dog [__] or like rake his leaves shovel snow.
Whatever had to be done i just did it was worth it how would those guys know but it was a learning experience yes i started messing around in connecticut with the guys that i was working with but i ended up moving to uh seattle washington and i ended up meeting up with some people there that tattooed and learned.
How to make needles learn how to make tattoo machines and in the meantime i was just doing body piercing to survive and sort of like a half-assed apprenticeship i guess you could say and then i finally found someone who really took me in it was part of an era that doesn’t exist anymore so i’m very.
Fortunate to have experienced it things change in your life i never cared so i never noticed i didn’t didn’t bother me like i still don’t notice it i don’t notice people stare at me i don’t notice the looks i don’t i don’t notice it at all i’m like immune how many letters.
Do you have three got about some two some three some four why do you cover things i feel that i grew out of them or i’m ready for the next level of change like when i was 15 i didn’t think like oh i should tattoo my face like a skeleton.
And my arm’s like a skeleton i wish i did but i did you know i think the doing the skull face really that was the next level for me that’s where i wanted to be and then also like going and doing my skeleton arms and all the black work i’m like i’m finally coming together and getting.
Some symmetry and liking the way that everything’s working out when i tattooed my face and tattooing shops wouldn’t hire me because i had my face tattooed which i thought was extremely strange i wasn’t allowed in the national tattoo conventions.
Because i had my face tattooed so we would stand out there and protest i feel that they shouldn’t have discriminated against people having tattoos at a tattoo convention never made sense to me you know of all people right especially national who was.
Trying to be the big supplier back then like i had a written letter from them to be able to purchase stuff and buy stuff i had a special license that you had to get but back then you got to remember it was a taboo to get a tattoo below your elbow nothing below the knee or nothing above.
The collarbone that was like a big no-no was it just faces just the face it’s the face they didn’t want to promote it or think it was okay for people to get their face tattooed which is understandable because look at it nowadays right how do.
You feel about that like the just proliferation to fix tattoos i think it’s awesome i think if it’s what you want to do and it’s what makes you happy then then do it if that’s what you want but obviously you have to know that it could reflect you not being able to get your dream job or.
It could cause problems with like a lot of problems come with face tattoos like if you have to go to court like say you got married and then you’re getting a divorce and going through child custody like that sort of stuff you know i was part of the movement of legalization for.
Tattooing here in new york city we were still very underground um you walked into the shop and it said tattoo machine repair sign so if you heard machines that’s what we were doing or like we’re a coffee shop but really a tattoo shop in the back kind of thing it was underground then i love that scene.
That’s i’m so lucky to have experienced that i wasn’t even allowed to hang out in the tattoo shop on mcdougall john would be there and he’d be like here’s a pager go wait at the park and we’ll page you when somebody wants to get tattooed or pierced and i was like.
Okay cool and so i would just hang out in the park wait from the page go over there hang out tattoo people started writing the mayor and complaining and wanting to legalize tattooing spider web started sitting on city hall tattooing people with a rose thorn.
Just and he got arrested for that a few times just to show that we wanted tattooing legalized so in 97 they did legalize it the first tattoo convention was what 98 the roseland i was there at that time i was working for studio enigma.
A guy named carlos and we did the big convention there i was in the village voice that said tattoos are back new york city it was a picture of me tattooing a guy’s whole back it went nuts st mark’s place blew up tattoo shops popped up everywhere and it was like tattoo shops inside a little sunglass hut.
Or like in the back room of somebody’s convenience store or in a clothing store or it was weird it was weird it was like people were getting into the tattoo industry just to make money not because they were artists or like back then if you had a tattoo shop you were a tattoo artist.
You weren’t like a big company or a different company coming in that didn’t tattoo or know anything about tattooing and setting up shop it didn’t work that way like i understand people want to make money but i became a tattoo artist because i wanted to do tattoos.
Like money just was part of it i guess like i didn’t get into tattooing think i’d make a million dollars or anything like that i just wanted to hang out with my hardcore friends and skate make a little pocket money here or there so if you started over you’re 15 would you still get that.
Yeah of course yes oh yeah would you follow the journey the way i would have saved my money and researched out better artists and um paid for my tattoos and went to more reputable people instead of.
Being young and broke and desperate to get tattooed but a lot of hardcore kids were like that we didn’t care we you know some guy out of his house we wanted to get tattooed he did tattoos it looked cool we’re like cool let’s do it i wish i chose better artists to tattoo me like.
I was hanging out with these guys but they wouldn’t tattoo me because i didn’t have any money but in my mind back then i always thought like well if you tattoo me it’s going to be great advertisement for you everybody’s going to get to see your work like if you tattoo my forearms or my neck or parts of.
no i hope not god you
Within seconds of opening his mouth Joe Smith obliterates every single preconceived notion ignorant people have about the heavily inked. Smith is a soft-spoken and kind gentleman with a body suit 3-4 layers deep. In his life, Smith has been barred from entering tattoo conventions due to his facial ink and he also played an instrumental part in getting tattooing legalized in New York City. Get to know the introspective Smith as he walks us through his life’s journey.
Joe Smith: https://www.instagram.com/tat2joe777/
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