Why You Should Attend Tattoo Convention - Tattoo artist

The importance of networking, building your career; a lot of people don't think of conventions and stuff like that as a main tool. They can be good or bad, you know. Mainly I use conventions as a tool to spread my art around the world. Actually you know a lot of people can't, you know, that's really the importance of conventions is that you know I'm promoting myself in another area that they don't get the tattooing that I do. I'm very specialized in what I do. I do a very large traditional Japanese style tattooing, and I focus a lot on the traditional values of Japanese art. But with my own twist. But I keep integrity of the art. And I'm able to do it in a relatively quickly manner. A lot of people love to get something you know that large that fast and be done and not have to come back for several sessions. Conventions are a way you know of going all over the world, and I love my job, I love what I do, and for me to be able to you know go to Australia or you know, Europe and just tattoo people that are never, have the opportunity to come to America or come to North Carolina and get tattooed. And it's awesome to be able to bring that to other people. And that's what conventions do; they bring people from all over the world to one area so that community can actually enjoy and actually you know benefit from artists from all over the world. It's all about advancing in this business. We're not going backwards, by no means, you know. We're always trying to advance into another level, you know. We're going to take it to another level, you know. I see kids tattooing two or three years and are like doing you know portraits that are ridiculous, you know. The importance of going to a convention as an artist that's not working the convention is that you can go around to you know Mike Devries or you know, Billy Vegas or Tommy Helm or Lea Vendetta and you can actually watch them work, you know. And this is a hands-on; this is a hands on thing. We learn from watching, you know. We learn from you know, we've done it a long time, and I can, I've done it 21 years and I've actually watched other people and go, "Well, I never thought about doing it like that," you know, which we're all learning. We're all learning to build and we're all learning to better this business.