In front of my old shop in Alexandria Louisiana
Tattooschool.com started around the early 90′s as the Starlight School of Tattooing as a way to find apprentices for my shop and other shop owners around the US that were looking for good hands. Although I explored the idea of having seminars and classes I never could bring myself to actually dilute this industry that way. It was in my humble opinion way to hard to find that many people who actually cared about others. And if there’s one thing you need in this industry it’s empathy. My goal was simply to treat everyone that came in the shop as someone’s baby boy or baby girl. Because at the end of the day that’s what they were and that’s how they needed to be treated.
It was difficult back then to find tattooist and/or piercist that were sober or clean and didn’t have a boat load of emotional or personal problems or for matter didn’t have a stack of warrants chasing them. So tattooschool .com gave me a way to weed out undesirables and to concentrate on helping with the best options for both the shop owners and the apprentices. But more importantly my goal was to try to keep this industry as healthy as possible.
Was it deceitful? Probably so. But I wanted the very best people I could find. I found a few good people, so in my mind and more importantly in my heart, this effort was worth it. It is my hope that one of those people will be a contributing author on this site.
So this leads us to a new direction and a new beginning and I truly hope you will stay with us as we explore and discover more of the magic of tattooing.
J.West