We want YOU (if you're awesome)

So we're down to just three artists here now. We'd like to get more staff, but honestly- good help is nigh-impossible to find.

What's most amusing is that, no matter how detailed our 'looking for artist' ads are, we keep getting inundated with scratchers, hacks, wanna-be's, and art students who think tattoo is an easy-money solution.

ALL of the above are specifically mentioned as what we DON'T WANT, yet repeatedly these are the types who respond to our ads, as though miraculously we'll just forget our standards entirely.

For the record, this is our actual ad- and yes, it's technically still active.

===============================================


We are looking for a quality artist, with good energy and enthusiasm. 


Our goal here is to craft a tight-knit crew, a small family with the common goal of furthering the development of fantastic tattoo art.


Our --preference- is for an artist who is established, but it isn't a prerequisite. Our concern is more for the art than our bottom line.


As well, we feel it important to point out that, to us, how long you've been tattooing isn't as important as the quality of your work. 
Your portfolio is more important than the time spent developing it. 
That said, we aren't looking to train someone- if you don't know anything about tattooing, then we have no place for you here.


What we want:


-Excellent drawing skills.
-The drive to continue developing those skills.
-Enthusiasm about TATTOO- the culture, the history, and the current state of the business. 
When asked, "Who are your favorite tattoo artists?" a blank stare will not serve. Nor will the inability to back up why any named artists are your favorite.
-Strength of character, and strong convictions.
-The flexibility to lead AND follow, as the situation requires.
-Excellent customer service and the ability to sell yourself. 
Tattoo artists are their own commodity, and so we need artists who can do more than just create pretty pictures- marketing of yourself and the studio are critical qualities.
-A superlative grasp on aseptic procedure, cross-contamination prevention, and blood-bourne pathogen control.
-Preference will also be given to women- we want to maintain the level of Sister representation on our crew.


What we DON'T want:


-People who see tattoo as just a way to make easy money.
-People who don't know or care about our history and culture. If you don't know who Stoney St. Clair is, you're not going to fit in here.
-Casual arrogance- people who think that just because they're in a tattoo studio, that somehow that makes them better than anyone else.
-Homophobia, racism, or any other form of bigotry. We are queer-friendly and intolerant of intolerance.


Do be advised that the interview process will be brutally honest. Do NOT apply if you don't have thick skin. 
We won't be needlessly cruel, but if we don't feel your art is up to our standards (Meaning if you're not as good or better than us) 
we're not going to hire you. Our goal is to develop a crew of talented and creative individuals who will inspire us as much as we (hopefully) inspire them. 


Please submit at least 5 examples of your work, in web-ready format, to pennyblacktattoo (at) gmail.com 
We would like to see examples of custom, reproduction, colour, b&g, and script tattooing. 
If your material looks promising, we will contact you to arrange a casual interview somewhere downtown. 


WE DO NOT require apprentices OR SHOP MANAGERS/COUNTERSTAFF. Not yet.


PennyBlack Tattoo & Art is an award-winning studio that crowns Vancouver's historic Gastown district. 
Located at 321 Cambie street (between Hastings and Cordova), we offer only the best to our clients- art, design, comfort, and atmosphere. 


Look us up: 
Facebook (search PennyBlack Tattoo & Art)
Blog ( www.pennyblacktattoo.com )


See you soon!
-The PennyBlack family of artists.

Summah..!

Been too long without an update.
It's summertime, and things are hectic and chaotic and crazy. From the heat? Possibly...

No more LA Ink. Gosh. Whatever will the post-Kat-Von-D tattoo industry landscape look like? Less face-stars I guess...

We have a new coffee place about to open next door to us. Their coffee is amongst the best in all of Vancouver.

Just what I'm sure you all want to hear- your local tattoo studio will be stuffed full of artists so jittery and over-caffeinated that our work will look like Michael J. Fox did it. Fan.......tastic.

That's all for now. Will try to actually have something interesting to talk about next post.

Absolutely almost no absolutes

Not a week goes by that we don't hear, either via walk-in or phone call, the following statement (or a variant)

"Hey, yeah, so I've gone to X studio(s) and they told me they won't do Z. Will you guys do it?"

In this case:
"X" = the number of different studios the person has gone to or contacted, usually between 2 and 12
and
"Z" = hand tattoos, face tattoos, script tattoos, 'offensive' tattoos, etc.

Rarely, if ever, will we refuse these tattoos that so many other studios or artists flat-out will not do.

This hard-line refusal is confusing to us for the most part.
Our job is not to be the final arbiter of an individuals life decisions.
We facilitate your experience, that's all.

Want a hand tattoo? Get one. Our only rule here is that we won't do this as a starter tattoo- we will insist the person prove to themselves that they're ready to brand themselves an outsider to societal norms. This is also true of face and neck tattoos. Nothing visible until you're already tattooed.

However, there are countless studios (usually the 'cool kid' studios) that won't do these tattoos at all- at least not until you're part of their elitist cliques. Then its game on- sleeve up that neck, Jimmy Hipster!

Another example we've heard of is studios refusing to tattoo the word 'fuck' on someone.
Errr... Why not?

This notion of placing ones own moral or ethical standards as higher than the clients is totally confusing to us.

Now, don't get me wrong here, it's not as if we're exploitative bastards, looking to capitalize on ignorance. You come in asking for say, your name on your forehead backwards so you can read it in a mirror, we'll do it- but only after you get an hour long lecture on every possible facet of how that tattoo will bite you in the ass repeatedly.

Same with getting your girlfriend/wife/boyfriend/husbands name... We'll do it, but only after you hear a repetitious tirade about how each and every time couples do this, it kills the relationship. (My personal record is less than 24 hours after a name tattoo, the couple had broken up.)

To sum up- you want to get something, we'll do it. You'll get an education, whether you wanted it or not, but in the end its your decision.

We'll even toss in how much the inevitable cover-up will cost you too.

S.F.T.S.

A couple of days ago, a last-minute walk-in client came in, he wanted a tattoo of the letters 'SFTS'.

At first he seemed somewhat embarrassed about it, in a self-deprecating sort of way. I think he's used to people not getting -at all- what SFTS means.

Sheepishly, he told us that it stands for "Search For The Stoke". When we pressed him for more details, he warmed up to it and revealed to us that its his (and his close circle of friends) personal philosophy.

Search for the stoke.

The stoke.
What the fuck is the stoke?

Only you can answer that question.

The stoke can be anything.
A surreal mushroom trip, a deeply meaningful tattoo, a superb spread of Sushi, gaggingly cute videos of kittens on YouTube, a mindblowing (haw) blowjob... Anything.

The STOKE.

The more we talked about this concept, the warmer I got to it all- Fuck yes. Search for the stoke.

It's not about -finding- the stoke.... It's all about the search for it.

It's worth thinking about at length- perhaps we could all use a little more stoke-searching in our lives.

One can't help but pick up a little wisdom along the way too. An incidental perk associated with the search for the stoke.

Go forth, good ladies and sirs...

Search.

Let's be level-headed here...

There is a tendency amongst those in the tattoo industry who've convinced themselves that what they do is more important than it really is. Sometimes this is a conscious philosophy, often its not- more of a pervasive attitude thats been allowed to seep into their behavior.
These 'artists' think they're doing something life-altering, that what they do has some form of world-defining weight.

This line of thought and action leads to a smug arrogance, and elitism. It's epidemic. All of you who've walked into a studio full of artists who behave this way have felt that condescension, that sense of "what makes you think you're good enough to get a tattoo from us?"

You can practically hear their internal monologue- "Move aside mere drop of water, let the Ocean pass."

What is most amusing about this is that the vast majority of these people are all doing the same thing. ALL of them, it's the same old-same old.... "old-school-with-a-twist", yet somehow they're convinced that what they're doing is somehow new, unique, and NOT just completely self-congratulatory onanism.

They're all scamming their drawings from each other as voraciously as possible, but standing on a soap-box about how much better they are than studios (like PennyBlack) that exist for the people, as well as the art... As though giving clients exactly what they want is a bad thing, but cloning each other is the be-all/end-all of existence.

So whats the point to all this? Simply this- We draw on people. That's it.

We don't save lives, we don't make a lasting global difference.

We draw pictures. On skin.

I am proud to be anti Art-Elite.

I know my place in the world, and I will never think that just because I'm allowed to place my art on other peoples skin that makes all others inferior to me.

Anti. Art. Elite.

A small selection of my art.

Not the greatest photo, but it does illustrate how extreme this re-work was. The original artist didn't use any black whatsoever, and as a result there was zero contrast- so the heal softened the flowers into oblivion. These are a little more robust.

Pro-krass-tinn-ay-shunn

We've been entirely slack in updating this here blog, but I promise thats going to change. New photos, new bio's for each artist, new information on whats new and current here at the studio.
THIS will be our portal for information, not Facebook. Sheesh.

Reworked sugar-skull.

Bon Jovi logo.

Another re-worked sugar skull.

Dead bird, original art by Brandon Bond.

Tiny lil' ladybug

Owlzuzu, the 8-winged owl.

Fedders.

Tiny Wisdom, yo.

Grotesque

 

...In the old-school sense of the word. This is the beginning of a large-scale project, we will be covering the entire arm with grotesques taken from Notre Dame cathedral.

Custom art inspired by Balinese mythology. It's a mask of Barong, king of the spirits.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barong_(mythology)

A tattoo-centric social hub for you-

It's called MySkindustry. Seems to be a feature-rich replacement for the old InkedNation website. Sorta like early MySpace/Facebook, but entirely focused on the tattoo and piercing industry/community.

http://www.myskindustry.com/

Tattoo conventions and professionalism.

So this year, PennyBlack will be representing at the Lethbridge Windy City Tattoo Weekend.
Last year was a ton of fun, and that was just before the studio actually came into being, so this year should be even better with our full crew.

We are also trying to sort out the logistics of getting a booth at the Capital City Tattoo Convention in Victoria.

What we will -not- be doing is supporting the West Coast Tattoo Culture Show. The reasons for this are multi-fold:

-The pricing for booths is, in my opinion, fairly exorbitant. I understand that these events are anything but cheap to put on, but making the artists pay as much as this convention is asking strikes me as unfair. As with so many other aspects of life in Vancouver, these booth rental fees are more a reflection of what people will pay, not what its worth.

-The convention promoters decided to offer half-price booth rental to any studio from the USA, and free booths to anyone from overseas. This strikes us as completely unfair. We're sure the promoters intention was to be more inviting to studios from far and wide. However, its also a fairly blunt statement- "You locals aren't good enough, you don't have enough draw, so you can pay full price." In short, there's nothing fair and equal about such a multi-tiered pricing structure.

-Professionalism. More importantly, the complete and utter lack thereof. Consider the massive banner that loads upon visitation of the West Coast Tattoo Culture Show. Second image down, the 'douchebag alert'. Now, folks, we don't know what has happened between the promoters of this convention and the West Coast Piercing and Ink Den, nor do we particularly care. As it stands, we don't actually even know anyone from either camp.

What we -do- care about is the shockingly unprofessional behavior of the promoters. A banner such as this makes all of the team assembling this look like children. It's infantile, unnecessary, and serves only to reinforce negative stereotypes that we as tattoo industry professionals are trying to overcome. Well, some of us are, at least.
Thus- to the un-informed observer, this is what 'tattoo culture' is- petty name calling.

So. Yes. This is why we at PennyBlack won't be representing at this convention, opting instead to travel out of town to where I know we will have fun and where we know we'll be avoiding the playground politics so willfully engaged in locally.

-Keith

It's a rainy day in Vancouver- but then again, when is it not?
Progress is being made on this blog, but as with everything besides actual tattooing, it's taking some time. Biographies will be placed sooner than later, and photos are still being resized for suitable uploading.

We're still a little confused regarding how busy we've been. Typically, slow season for tattooing lasts from mid-November to late February, but we've been almost as busy in January as we were through the summer. Must be our sunny disposition, hmm?

-K.

Keith