Mentors and apprentices make their mark in the 'Ink Master' tattoo contest when they put their clients and each other first.
Which is more manipulative, reality TV or cable news? I've made my choice. I'm binge-watching a decade of "Ink Master." Don't judge.
"Ink Master" is a tattoo competition. A dozen or so tattoo artists are thrown into a Brooklyn loft (or more likely a New Jersey film studio that looks like a Brooklyn loft). The undercard to this competition is a timed challenge to test tattoo technique. I enjoy when the artists are assigned an unusual medium—a pig carcass, a wall, a scrap heap, a steel plate, a staple gun, a half-ton of candy. Next, they get a live client or "canvas" and a deadline assignment to tattoo a specific subject in a specific style. You will not believe how many different ways you can draw a skull. But this is reality TV, and the main event is a ritual hazing. Judges give a critique that sends one of the contestants home.
I've gone this long in my life without adding a tattoo to my permanent record. My hours spent on parlor games have not convinced me to change. For one, everything in my life is tentative. If no tattoo seems to satisfy the judges, I would probably could not live with flaws that stare back at me day after day. Also, "Ink Master" does not give me a fondness for tattoo artists. The competitors certainly are trash-talk masters. There's so much bleeped-out sniping in each episode that I feel tats are less of an old maritime art form and more like "Moby-Dick" without Moby. But mostly, I'm too sqeamish to think ink. Whenever needles appear in close-up, I close my eyes.
But decorum and nausea aside, there are life lessons to be learned from watching others make their mark. I've scratched out a few.
Shades of difference
Welcome to Camp Tramp Stamp. The tattoo parlor is one of the last redoubts of the apprenticeship. A junior artist with a promising portfolio of sketches starts in a tattoo studio cleaning up workstations and manning the front desk, usually without pay. In reality, the tattoo master doesn't dish out heaps of reality-show abuse. They choose novices for their talent. Apprentices get encouragement as well as training.
Gentle needling.Despite the energetic and creative swearing in the tattoo parlor, the guidance apprentices get is gentle. There's a practical reason for this. Someone else is always in the room: the person getting tattooed. The canvas definitely does not want to hear how badly things are going. That sensitive scene is kept for after the call of "Time's up, machines down, no more ink." Only when they're ready do apprentices touch skin, and then the coaching is ideal: graceful and mostly private.
Suffering for your art. The customer is not always right on "Ink Master." They're constantly asking for massive, detailed tableaux across their bodies, as if there were no limits on the artist's time or their own pain threshold. The master must communicate what's possible and deliver on it. If canvases writhe in pain, the problem was not that they wouldn't keep still. The truly talented artist is sensitive to their client's desire for a killer tattoo but not literally a killer tattoo.
Time to heal. You can tell it's late in a season of "Ink Master" when contestants are assigned to draw designs for children's wheelchairs or cranial helmets. Then the adults in the room immediately stop acting childish and treat their young clients the way they should have been dealing with their peers. They finally realize their work changes lives, which should have been their starting point.
Needle drop. "Ink Master" hit its muscular stride during a season called "Master vs. Apprentice." Not every veteran tatoo artist had a wolf scratched on their thigh, but competing against a co-worker gave them all another dog in the fight. Winning mentors show their superiority, but a win for their former student proves the mentor's mastery too.
All of this is worth remembering in our own workplaces. We should show each other the ropes and give honest feedback without being discouraging. Should I ever get a compulsion to have a slogan etched on my body, I have it ready: Each one teach one. This is the what we do in Toastmasters, and I hope it is written close to your heart.
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