Pins and Needles and American Summer

I am now in my second week of my tattoo appreticeship and it is going very well. Jessica, my apprentice-er (Master sounds a bit too evil for me) is a complete sweetheart and we are very much alike. Which is what Jordan said to start out with, and he's right. She is so generous and I can't stress enough how great it is to have her as my teacher. She is a good artist in general, believes in art and the artistic lifestyle, and is very much in demand inher field. Word spreads within the artistic format of the tattoo. The people you tattoo are basically walking billboards of your art FOREVER, and the question people most often ask about tattoos is "Where did you get your work done?" (Except if you're me, and then they ask "when are you going to get that finished?")
The shop is in an industrial/business area of lovely hot strip-mall-choked Vacaville, a town I never had much experience with except stopping on the way back from Tahoe every summer with Aimee and Zina to buy cheap Converse at the outlet store. And laughing because Vacaville means "Cowtown". Anyhoo, it's really hot there, and I feel like I am actually experiencing an American summer. Last year was Texas, this year, the Central Valley. I have only lived in places with exorbitant rents and lots of fog. Therefore, EVERYWHERE I travel shows me dirt cheap housing and sunburns galore.

My schedule consists of me taking MUNI to the Ferry building, getting on a bus across the Bay Bridge to Emeryville, thengetting on the Capitol Express train to Davis, where Jessica or Jordan picks me up. I stay at one of their houses, and then go the next morning to work with Jess, where I watch blood beading on the many skins of many peole and Jessica herself consistently turning out totally amazing work, one after another after another. I think she tattoos roughly five people a day, with no hestation. She's there till 9 most nights. You have to have, obviously, incredible self-reliance on your artistic talent to do this kind of permanent, expensive, and pretty backbreaking work. I am daunted by the seriousness of it and room for error which involves terrible things like scarring and "blowing out" (when ink spreads out into the capilaries and basically looks like a bruise thatnevergoesaway) and just plain messing up a like and making someone's killer dragon look like a horse. I know though, that you JUST HAVE TO DO THE BEST YOU CAN, and I have confidence in my capacity to learn new mediums and I KNOW I CAN DO THIS. I know I can be really good.

The shop is quite American biker-core, like most tattoo shops are, with a bunch of guys that may scare the hell out of most people, but I find to be very sweet and dedicated to their art. I can also safely say that I have heard more Slayer and Pantera in the last two weeks than I have heard in my entire life. Jessica says she barely notices it. What with the very loud whine of the tattoo gun, after the first day I was almost completely deaf. I will suppose that I will get used to that too.

So it's a bit of a chore to get there, but I will be seeing more of Jordan, and hopefully my Sacremento kids, and who knows about the future and me needing to be there more. It's gonna be tight, as I am taking one day generally out of my work week to be there. The way I see it, though, is that this is worth all kinds of sacrifices as it is what I want to do MOST. I am excited, and itching to get my hands in the needles and the ink.
Leave a comment and I'll put you on the incredibly long list of people I already have to tattoo when I get good ;) I should be writing this stuff down!
Hahahahaha.