We're a printing company and this is a sideline. We have a three-station tattoo studio in a dedicated room in our print shop, which is the whole top floor of a converted apartment building in North Seattle. We've been training people for years, one-on-one, but we're too busy printing these days. Still, there are far too many potentially brilliant artists who desperately want to get into tattooing, or at least give it a shot, so we're committed to giving them their chance. Just browse any tattoo forum and pay particular attention to the simple, basic, direct questions that are asked by polite and curious people who want nothing more than to learn about tattooing. Read the mostly snotty, corrosive, arrogant, counter-productive, elitist replies they usually receive, and you'll see why there's a need for institutions to provide what people want -- a supportive, productive, affordable means of trying out in the world of tattoo. That's what we provide.
Our course is designed NOT to teach people how to tattoo in 90 minutes (that can't be done), but rather to give them a GLIMPSE of what tattooing is all about, so they may THEN DECIDE if it's something they want to pursue further.
We solicit talented, compassionate, intelligent, highly presentable people who love to teach. It DOESN'T MATTER if you've never held a tattoo machine. We'll teach you everything you need to deliver our course. The course is designed for the absolute newbie, and will lead them through every single step of basic, beginning tattoo, including machine set up and a 30 minute window during which they can tattoo with real machines and real ink to their heart's content. The course takes care of itself with minimal input from the instructor. You don't have to know anything beyond what we'll teach you.
Since we'll have a good amount of time invested in your training, we want to know beforehand if you're the "type" to be successful. First and highest on our list of requirements is that you be a RELIABLE HUMAN BEING. If you're not, we can't use you. At all. Ever. For anything. Business thrives on reliability. Business dies of unreliability. Period. If you're not ultra-reliable, we'll know it before we finish training you, and we'll cancel your participation. If you "wonder" if you're reliable ENOUGH for us, you're not. Please save us and you some time and do not apply.
If you clear this hurdle we'll evaluate you for "presentability". Think of this almost as an acting position. Your looks, voice, delivery and personality are what will make you (and us) successful. Students remember and reccommend nice teachers, attractive teachers, compassionate and helpful teachers, teachers with clear voices and logical trains of thought. All the rest are forgotten. The happier a student is with your service, the more likely they are to tell their friends. That means more money in your pocket, and in ours. It also is crucial to our reputation, and we won't sacrifice that for anything. In light of all we've said in this paragraph, we maintain complete control over who we'll teach and who we won't. Your looks and demeanor are important here, just as they are in any "acting" job or position.
You are NOT our "employee". You're a contractor who rents our facility, equipment and course media. You'll supply us a picture to be posted publicly (we'll take it if you don't have one you like), and a two paragraph bio telling why prospective students should choose YOU as their instructor. You'll organize their lesson schedule, deliver the course itself, and clean up after the class, which involves folding up a set of disposable placemats (takes about one minute). In the past we've made instructors responsible for collecting our $29 course fee from each student. We may change that.
Someone will always be on hand in case of computer problems, unanswered questions, machine malfunctions, etc. You'll never work alone. You will be responsible for selecting your students -- and for culling probable problem cases. We tolerate ZERO alcohol or drug use by any student or instructor. Problems are unceremoniously REMOVED from the premises. We expect you to screen your students so as to avoid the insane.
This is a quiet, pleasant environment; great music wafts gently during the course. You'll decide on a lesson-time which is acceptable to all three students and you; you'll show up a bit early to lay out the machines and supplies. You'll administer the Powerpoint course with a remote presenter by clicking NEXT through the two hundred or so slides (the last 30 slides advance automatically), answering any basic questions that are not clear to some students; and you'll watch and assist as each student goes through the steps of setting up and tuning their machines. This takes about one hour.
Near the conclusion of the presentation the students are invited to tattoo their own grapefruits. We may occasionally use other fake skin materials -- in fact we're working on a type of fake skin that surpasses anything on the market today, and which we'll patent and use exclusively in the future. In the meantime, we use the common alternatives available today in the tattooing world. Each instructor is responsible for bringing their own set of three fresh grapefruits for the students to use. We used to keep large quantities frozen, but fresh rhinds are much nicer to work with. Three grapefruits for each class is your ONLY expense (except our facility rental which is currently $11/student). Your "take" for each class of three is $54 (less grapefruit costs). If you can do better as a barista at the local coffee shop, please go for it with our blessings.
At the conclusion of the session you'll disassemble the machines, drop the needles in a sharps container, discard the placemats, collect your money and be on your way. The entire session from setup to cleanup COULD take up to two hours. Usually it requires more like 1:40.
We always advertise for students. You're welcome to solicit your own.
If you're interested please reply to the email you've received and attach a picture or two, preferable from the waist up, but a standard actor's "headshot" will suffice. IF we're interested in speaking with you, we'll contact you and set up a time. If you haven't heard from us in 24 hours, you won't hear from us. Please do NOT email a second time.
We advertise in many areas and mediums for instructors. We've learned from years of painful experience that Craigslist respondents fail to show for their appointments about 99.5% of the time. Is this indicative of a certain mindset that tends to frequent Craigslist? Yes, it is. We seek to find those few exceptions who understand what it takes to succeed. Unreliability and flakiness NEVER succeeds. In anything. Ever.
You can browse "services" like Craigslist in any city, any day of the week and find no shortage of ads by "kitchen scratcher" tattoo "artists" who are eager to practice on your flesh. These are people who never obtained ANY formal training, but probably inherited some old tattoo machine from their big brother when they went off to college, started fiddling around with it, tattooed a couple of unsuspecting sisters of ex-friends, and then thought they were qualified to go into business. --Trouble is they suck, and they can't GET any business, and so you'll see their ads all day long in the likes of Craigslist, begging to "Tattoo for a car stereo" (there's a sociological prize near Seattle who placed that exact ad, but who routinely tries to have OUR ads deleted and sends us foul, threatening emails), or "Will tattoo for anything", or, "will tattoo for housecleaning", etc. etc. ad nauseam. We expect to sooner or later see them offering to "tattoo for food". We've already seen ads saying "will tattoo for sex". Trust us -- you don't want to be one of these bottom feeders. Learn the bedrock basics, establish good habits through TRAINING and don't ever think you can go out and start marking folks without an intensive, formal training regimen. How do you get that training when so many "real" (working) tattoo artists treat you like rotting hamburger and refuse to even consider you for an apprenticeship? You PAY for TRAINING, and you keep paying for training until you reach a point where the shops will begin to at least consider you.
Remember that almost all working tattoo artists and shops don't WANT you to succeed. They don't WANT you to learn or enter into "their world", because they don't like competition. We call bullshit on this arrogant, selfish, elitist attitude. We're sick of it. May the BEST ARTIST win. Period. We're committed to helping you break through that barrier.
Thank you.
