About twelve months ago in an office far, far away (well, somewhere near Chester), forces beyond the comprehension of all but the most brilliant scientific minds burst forth in a dazzling spectacle of bright colours. Neurons fired, synapses crackled, and maniacal snatches of laughter escaped into the night sky, until eventually the power was shut off and the visceral noises abated. We tentatively approached the smouldering creation that lay before us and clung with all our might to the hope that what we had spawned was indeed that holiest of grails…something useful to tattooists.
The beast that arose from our late-night laboratory tinkering was bestowed the title of Tattoo Master, its development nurtured with love, care, and endless cups of Twinings, and so with its first birthday already hoisted upon us, it’s hard not to be a little teary-eyed at the occasion. They grow up so quick…
With this in mind, I would like to extend my humblest and heartfelt gratitude to everybody who has built this magazine upon the foundations of their generous contribution of time, and very special thanks go out to the guest editors. Tattoo Master is an organism that could not survive or prosper without the continued support of this wonderful community and I am eternally grateful for all of your input.
I’m privileged to observe and document the perpetually altering world shaped by the incredibly gifted tattooists that inhabit it, and the lightening pace of progress in tattooing appears to have plotted a similar course to that of technology, whereby outstanding leaps to previously unimaginable heights occur with increased rapidity as more people clamber on board. It may appear a tad conceited of me to bring up such a subject in this issue (seeing as its on-sale date was also Tattoo Jam’s ARTIST friDAY), but I see the bountiful sharing of information and genuine enthusiasm for forwarding the art and correlate it to this accelerated evolution, and, as a lay anthropologist of sorts, I think it has great significance.
CERN (European Organisation for Nuclear Research) is a wonderful case in point. As home to the Large Hadron Collider and the epicentre of research into the very building blocks of our universe, it is a colossal undertaking and only made possible by the expertise of scientists from every continent, all combining their knowledge to progress our understanding of how all we know came to be.
*A bold statement this may be, but I’m going to run with it anyway because drawing a comparison between scientists and tattooists seems fun*
This meeting of minds can be compared to the manner in which many tattooists come together, whether it is in a formal setting such as a seminar or merely conversing over a post-show beverage, and go on to impart their wisdom with ready abandon to their peers. The benefit this is having on the artwork is self-evident and long may this ideology of liberating information continue.
Bon appétit,
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