An apprenticeship is an exchange. So, don’t walk through the door of a tattoo studio thinking only about what you’re going to get from it. You only get what you give.
What Is an Apprenticeship?
Because in tattooing, like a lot of trades, a traditional apprenticeship is a lot more than simply learning how to tattoo. You’re not just teaching someone how to use a machine. You’re taking somebody into your studio, your church, and teaching them how the whole thing works: how to behave, how to deal with clients, how to work alongside other people, the history of the trade, the culture and the standards.
And, at the beginning at least, there is a fairly obvious imbalance in that relationship. As uncomfortable as it may be, the apprentice is worth less to the mentor than the mentor is worth to the apprentice.
Ideally, over time, that relationship changes. The apprentice becomes competent, useful, trusted and eventually becomes a professional in their own right.
Now, as most of you know, I didn’t do a traditional apprenticeship in tattooing. I was older when I started and I struggled to get anyone to take me seriously.
So you might reasonably ask: how can I talk about apprenticeships when I didn’t actually do one in tattooing?
Well, I did do a proper apprenticeship as a sound engineer. So while I didn’t experience the tattoo apprenticeship system from the inside, I have experienced being the new kid, learning from somebody who knew considerably more than I did, and everything that comes with that position. Albeit in a very different industry.
During my time as an apprentice, I wallpapered my boss’s bathroom, insulated his loft, washed cars and did all manner of dogsbody jobs. And, to be honest, I didn’t have a problem with any of it.
Apprenticeships have always, historically, involved an imbalance of value at the beginning. But, importantly, I never felt like I was being exploited simply because some of the work I was doing wasn’t directly related to sound engineering.
In return for doing some of the DIY jobs my boss didn’t want to do, I received an education. I learnt how to be a grown-up around grown-up musicians, how a professional studio worked and how to be a proper sound engineer. I even got some free guitar lessons.
That made the next stage of my life — becoming a professional engineer and eventually running a studio — considerably easier.
So when I look back at that apprenticeship, I don’t remember the wallpapering and think, “What a rip-off.” I remember thinking it was shit at the time but, looking back, it was the only way a kid like me could have got into that studio.
That’s an important part of understanding what an apprenticeship actually is: the exchange isn’t necessarily equal every day. It doesn’t have to be.
The apprentice might spend a morning cleaning the studio while the mentor spends twenty years’ worth of accumulated knowledge teaching them something that takes five minutes to explain.
Those things aren’t equal in the moment.
The apprenticeship isn’t about the value of each individual task; it’s about the value of the relationship over time.
A mentor, any mentor, doesn’t just give away knowledge. They invest reputation.
If I take on an apprentice and spend years teaching them how to tattoo, how to behave and how to conduct themselves professionally, what they eventually do out in the world is, at least to some degree, a reflection on me.
And that’s a huge responsibility.
Because the student isn’t just learning how to tattoo. They have to be schooled in tattoo culture and history. They need to understand where this thing came from, why certain standards exist and what it means to be part of it.
There’s another risk that’s easy for the apprentice to overlook: at any point, they can leave and take everything you’ve taught them somewhere else. I could have done exactly that.
That’s just part of the deal.
None of the mentor’s investment comes with a guarantee that the apprentice will stay. You’re giving somebody something that took years to acquire, knowing they might eventually take it somewhere else.
So when a mentor asks, “What’s in it for me?” I don’t think that’s an unreasonable question. In fact, I think it’s an essential one.
In my case, I stayed and I ran Studio 2 until such a time that both myself and my boss agreed that it was time. Time for me to move on and start making my way in the world as an engineer who had trained in a well-respected studio.
And that training gave me something I couldn’t have bought very easily: credibility.
Mentioning where I had worked and trained opened doors that would probably have remained closed without that credibility.
But I don’t think that meant I owed my boss the rest of my life. A successful apprenticeship isn’t one where the apprentice stays an apprentice forever. The point is that they eventually stand on their own.
So the question isn’t really, “What do I owe my mentor for teaching me?” It’s more, “What do I believe I owe my mentor for teaching me?” And then doing the right thing, even though you don’t have to.
Does Paying Prove Commitment?
So, would paying for an apprenticeship prove that you’re committed?
I’m not convinced.
Paying for an apprenticeship really only proves one thing: that you can afford to pay for it. And that would have been a barrier to every one of my apprentices over the years.
Maybe because I come from a poor background, I personally feel quite strongly that we should be selecting the apprentice who shows the most love and commitment to the studio and the trade, rather than the person who can simply buy their way in.
And yeah, I’m well aware that this might just be my own personal prejudice. Sorry, not sorry.
It may come as a surprise but the mentor doesn’t necessarily needs your money. They need evidence that you’re serious. And I think there’s a big difference between those two things.
But, what if the investment doesn’t have to be money?
My own experience as an unpaid apprentice suggests that commitment can be demonstrated through behaviour: by turning up, doing the shit jobs, learning, reading, practising, being useful, sticking around, taking criticism, being interested in the history and becoming part of the studio.
None of those things cost me money. They cost time, effort and sometimes a bit of pride. And I think that’s the kind of investment any mentor would prefer to see.
Not “Here’s my money, now teach me.” More: “I’m prepared to put something of myself into this before you even know whether I’m going to be worth teaching.”
Why Younger People Might Approach This Differently
And that might be the problem younger people are facing.
Younger people, through no fault of their own, are, in my opinion, far more career-driven at very young ages than previous generations.
And I can appreciate that because, to be honest, being broke, homeless and effectively orphaned at fifteen meant that I was extremely motivated to get out of the situation I found myself in. It wasn’t quite, but it certainly felt like life and death at times.
So I understand motivation. And I don’t think that’s the problem. The question is what that motivation makes you do.
I think there’s something in the younger generations’ psyche that’s got them feeling like they have to move fast and exploit any shortcuts they can. I don’t necessarily think young people are more selfish. But I do think they’ve been trained to think differently about success. They’ve grown up in a culture where speed is constantly presented as a virtue.
Everything is faster. Career advice tells you to optimise yourself, social media shows you people apparently becoming successful overnight, and endless tutorials mean knowledge that once took years to acquire can be accessed in an afternoon.
And when you’re surrounded by all of that, it’s understandable that somebody might look at tattooing and think, “How do I get into this?” Rather than, “How do I become part of this?”
Maybe that’s why some younger people coming into tattooing can appear entitled or arrogant. I’m not convinced that’s what’s actually happening. They’ve simply been taught to think about themselves as a project: get the qualification, build the portfolio and following, get the job, get the money and move on.
And that way of thinking doesn’t fit particularly well with an apprenticeship, which asks you to do almost the opposite: slow down, listen, be useful, learn from somebody else and become part of something before worrying about what you’re going to get out of it.
I think the relationship between individual ambition and collective culture has changed, and not just in tattooing.
Tattooing has changed too. For a lot of us, tattooing wasn’t just a career choice. It was somewhere you could find people who understood you because you didn’t really fit in anywhere else.
So when I look at some of the younger people wanting to become tattooists now, I don’t necessarily see that same search for their people. I see somebody looking at a tattoo artist and thinking, ‘I want to become that’.
Whereas for a lot of us, we looked at the world of tattooing and asked, ‘What does it mean to be a part of that?’
Tattooing was once attractive partly because it was a place for people who didn’t fit comfortably elsewhere. Now it’s an increasingly visible and viable career, so naturally we’re going to attract people who don’t identify with that old outsider culture.
That creates a genuine cultural tension.
Younger wannabe tattooists don’t present as natural outsiders to me. And, just like any subculture, we’re reacting to what we see as ‘normies’ trying to invade our space.
A space we fought for because we didn’t fit in anywhere else.
Perhaps that’s part of the problem. We’re looking at people who didn’t have to fight the same battles we did and wondering why they don’t understand what those battles taught us.
But maybe they don’t have to. Because tattooing isn’t the same place anymore. And maybe that’s something we’re going to have to come to terms with. Eventually.
So, Where Do I Stand on Paid Apprenticeships?
Well, after thinking about all of this, I don’t think the apprenticeship is just an employment arrangement.
It’s cultural transmission.
That’s why I don’t think tattooing apprenticeships can necessarily be compared directly with university or a generic vocational course. You’re not simply transmitting information. You’re transmitting knowledge, standards, history, behaviour, values, identity and culture.
And that’s why the mentor has such a strong interest in who the apprentice becomes.
An apprenticeship is an exchange, not an entitlement. The question isn’t simply what the apprentice is willing to pay. It’s what they’re willing to invest, what the mentor is willing to give, and whether both sides understand the value of what is being exchanged.
So, GinInkTattoo, I do think you’ve identified something real.
I think there are people who walk into tattoo studios thinking entirely about what they’re going to get, without thinking about what they’re bringing with them.
But I’m just not sure the answer is that the apprentice should pay.
Because maybe the person who deserves the apprenticeship is the one who has already demonstrated that they’re willing to invest before anyone has promised them anything in return.