look guys ya gotta tighten up! most folks watching this show don't realize what your doing wrong. but you do and so do your peers. Darren holding the needle without gloves on, checking the needle with the loop last night,
Ami drawing on a open wound with a sharpie and a drawing pen and he may of threw it away who knows? yoji cleaning and breaking down without gloves on, Ami touching his new miami ink tattoo right after it was done and not washing up( matter o fact i haven't seen one of ya wash you're hands even once), the dude with the portraits leaving the shop with his new ink unwrapped ect ect. and if your biting on art like the Paul Jefferies dragon Garver says he designed at least throw out a bone don't take credit for something ya didn't do. we all bite, but ya don't do it on national tv and not give credit where credits due! you guys are suppose to be pros start acting like pros. wrap your cords and machines man. you know at a convention you'd get run out of there for pulling half of what you already showed the world you guys are suppose to be representing our industry so shape up or ship out!
now that I'm done venting. yoji congrats and chris the portrait was really good, kudos bro,
To drzio: thank you, than kyou, THANK YOU! ...for bringing up the cleanliness and sterility issue. Enough cannot be said about this. But I'll say it again - as a tattoo recipient, I wanna know that a shop is cleaner than clean. Eating food and drinking in the work area, not wearing gloves, touching new tats w/o gloves, not wrapping new tats doesn't inspire much confidence as far as their cleanliness goes. This is and should always be a number one consideration when going to a tattoo place - how clean are they? We're talking tattoos here, needles, and blood, and blood-borne pathogens.It's not just about the art-work. You get a tat and you're getting exposed to bacteria and viruses once that needle breaks skin. Anything other than total dedication to cleanliness calls into question their so-called professionalism and make their methods suspect.
All excellent points! I wholeheartedly agree with you, and this flagrant cross contamination is something I've been trying to get across as well from my very first post on this message board.
WTF ok i aint hating on these shows but im watching inked right now ( its a tattoo show that debuted on A&E at the same time as miami ink) and the same stuff is happing on this show biohazards slinging around the shop like Frisbees's, man i know everyone sees what im seeing ? this cat BIG-E set up his machine with no gloves on!!!! and charged $218.00 for a badly done name and still no ones washed there hands!!!!!
you cats aint making anyone look good, WTF this is our industry's chance to show out and you so called pros are really making us look bad !
tighten up bros
oh and i was gonna post this on A&E's discussion forum but they took down that part of there site hmmmmmmm what gives?
Thank you Drzio! I went to post at A&E and couldn't find the site. The name that E did was SO BAD!! I would have been livid that it was so bad and even more mad that it was soooo ungodly expensive!
I have only seen Miami Ink and found it to be pretty silly. I agree that there is little focus on the art and too much focus on the relationships between the artists. This program sensationalizes tattooing, I think, and makes it seem that tattoo shops are staffed by egoists who, although might be able to do good work, just seem to pick up the needle and go. Seems kind of haphazard. I also have never seen people like Yoji treated that way. Lastly, this and the other show seem to be geared to the AOL crowd; mom's who need something else to yak about and young girls who want to AIM about the cute guys with the tats. It just doesn't seem real. But then, Miami and Las Vegas are kind of unreal already. Dave
Dave, I'm sorry but I have to disagree with you. There is nothing "silly" about the show in my opinion. Each piece that is featured on the show is discussed in length by the artist and the customer. Explaining the meaning behind it and how it affects both people. They definately don't "just pick up the needle and go", consultations are shown with customers, sketches, and stencils. That is the process of getting a tattoo, they are being very real about it. Editing makes the process seem quicker than it actually is. And they don't treat Yoji badly, when you are an apprentice at a tattoo shop you have to work for that apprenticeship, they aren't free. I think they treat him fairly, I know some guys that have gone through apprenticeships that were much rougher than Yoji's. It is the price you pay to learn the trade, it doesn't come for free. Lastly, I'm sure that having four attractive guys in the shop won't hurt ratings as a large part of the audience is women/girls, but I doubt any of these guys are trying to be the tattooing equivelent of N'Sync, they are truly GOOD artists and should be recognized as that. I also don't know what you consider a "real" city, but I have been to Miami, and it seemed real to me.
You people who are knit-picking about some minor incidents need to relax. This show is not representing other tattoo artist, it is a reality show about some guys who opened a shop on SOUTH BEACH (not Boca - big difference!!).
I've been in the shop with these guys on numerous occasions and I know that they wash their hands religiously. If their hand washing is edited out because it doesn't make for exciting video, then blame shouldn't be placed on the talent. Send a letter to the editor and director who have creative control over what is ultimately put on your TV set.
I totally disagree with the need to treat Yoji badly, regardless of the fact that he's an apprentice.
I own a tattoo shop. And we also have an apprentice. Yet we do NOT treat him bad at all! Sure, my apprentice does the dirty work as well as other things (cleans shop, sets up/breaks down, prepares stencils, interacts with customers, etc.) while at the same time learning how to tattoo. But we do NOT tell him how to live his life outside of the shop! And we certainly don't tell him what kind of tattoos he's allowed to get. That's none of our business. Nor do we demean him in any way. For the guys at Miami Ink to treat Yoji like a second-class citizen with no personal freedom is simply a way of stroking their own egos and putting themselves on pedestals. As if they were "tattoo gods" or something.
By the way, my apprentice gets paid hourly as well. I sure hope Yoji gets paid, too. After all, he's doing actual work for the shop. If Yoji is NOT getting paid, then by all means he has the right to bolt out of there after learning how to tattoo, and go work for some other shop with his newly acquired knowledge.
An apprenticeship is a mutually-beneficial arrangement between apprentice and mentor. Although the apprentice is gaining knowledge through this arrangement, the mentor is also benefitting by 1). having someone do the work that the mentor really doesn't want to do, and 2). training a skilled tattoo artist who will make money for the shop in the future.
By the way, many (if not most) of today's tattoo artists didn't go through an apprenticeship. And most "apprenticeships" aren't formal (ie. setup a formal itinerary, track the apprentices' hours in accomplishing each goal, etc.).
A tattoo apprenticeship is nowhere as formal as a carpenter's apprenticeship, for instance.
I'm curious to know what kind of "apprenticeship" the artists at Miami Ink completed.
nick pick hmmmmmmmmm video man its not so much the stuff that they are not showing like hand washing that gets me, i realize hand washing doesn't make for good tv, but the stuff they are showing like Darren holding a needle with his ungloved hands and Ami drawing on blood with two different pens, Yoji breaking down and setting up ungloved ect ect the list go's on and on these things get me and if your in this industry it should make you mad also. and Y oji hmmmm i agree with homeboy here there dogging him to stroke there egos. he's not a second class citizen he's a man. treat him like one
oh,,,,,, to video man and his ugly girlfriend's comment below.
fucqyou arsehole! you dont know sheit! so shhhhhhhhhhhhhhut up!
This message has been edited. Last edited by: drzio,
drzio: shhhhhh, don't say anything else. You annoy both me and my girlfriend when you type. So zip it.
hawaiihomeboy: you have no idea what you're talking about. You are just another jealous, Miami Ink 'wanna be famous' tattoo artist. I'd like to come by and take a look at your shop to check for cleanliness...but I don't plan on making it up to Alabama anytime soon.
Oh jeez. It's a show. You don't know what is and isn't being shown (concerning the washing of hands and such). It might have been the personal preference of anyone not wanting to wrap their tattoo after getting it.
"Personal preference" has no place in a tattoo shop when it comes to preventing the spread of bloodborne pathogens. The tattoo MUST be wrapped in order to prevent the spread of diseases, period, regardless of whether the customer wants it wrapped or not.
It's understandable that the typical customer would not know much about bloodborne pathogens and cross contamination. That's why you all should be comforted to know that there are some of us tattoo artists who do know and worry about this kind of stuff, so that you don't have to.
For people like v1deoman to get all hateful is simply ignorant on his part. Hopefully, next time he gets tattooed (if he even is tattooed in the first place), the artist decides to forego the whole sterilization process, and hits him with dirty needles and reused ink. After all, preventing cross contamination isn't all that important, right?
I'm not a tattoo artist, just respect the heck out of them.
Hopefully the producers of this show will decide that sterilization and cross contamination should be addressed. This would be the perfect time to show what artists vs. scratchers do, ie. sterilization, wearing of gloves, clean up. They don't have to do a "how-to" seminar, but just showing it in an incidental way would be nice.
On a bunch of these "reality tv" shows, many takes, "do-overs" are done. My cousin was on TS and was really surprised about how things were edited because it would be in order, then things between the two days would be mixed up.
That being said, the things we see; holding needles without gloves, drawing on blood with pens, breaking down and setting up, we hope have been done before or after the actual scene and may have been done in a more sterile environment. If not and they aren't being sterile then they should be called to the carpet.
From the looks of the types of gloves they use, I'd say they are pretty thoughtful of cleanliness and sterilization. They are using the higher grade biohazard gloves - I work for an industrial distributor and we sell tons of these kinds of gloves and they are designed for this kind of use.
I definitely understand and appreciate the concern about cleanliness of a shop because there is a LOT of creepy-crawly, dangerous stuff that can be picked up from biohazardous body fluids. I'd want my artist to be concerned and fanatic about keeping it clean.
Yes, I do have a tattoo and yes, my artist was a clean freak - thank goodness.
