You're in the same danger of getting AIDS or hepatitis from me as you would be from a surgeon cutting you with a scalpel. But the bottom line is that a lot of the safety precautions are up to the tattoo artist, he notes. The big problem right now is that all these motorcycle magazines are advertising beginners kits, so anyone can go out and get one. It doesn't matter how good an artist they are, they need someone to teach them the techniques of tattooing. He points to the superior standards in places like Australia, where tattoo artists have to apprentice at a tattoo studio and then be approved by a standards board before they can start their own business.
Money is often the big attraction.
For a lot of people, that is a lot of incentive to start up a business, says Bradford, who started tattooing out of his home with some second-hand equipment and no experience. I was paid a visit by some of the people involved in tattooing at that time, and they were friendly about it. Well, Do it properly was the message that I got and they made it quite clear they didn't want to come back. Now he is doing it properly and hopes that his Tagish Road business will stay busy. The studio is open from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., Wednesday to Friday.