Can you describe what goes on in your head when you are tattooing someone ?
Do you think of the drawing, the drawing on the person, on a muscle, or just
abstract lines ?

When I tattoo ? It depends on what I doing. If I’m tattooing lines, outlines, I think about
my lines. It’s one of the hardest parts to do. I think about the person not moving,
I think about how I’m going to start my line, in what direction I’m goings to draw it,
it’s the technical side… But when I’m doing filling up, obviously I think about how it’s
going to look in the end, but sometimes I think about something else, sometimes
it’s so natural that I’m really somewhere else.

You ink an indelible mark on people’s bodies. Do you feel like you are sharing
an intense moment with them ? Or just that they are going through something intense ?

Personally I do my job, I do a service. If I start to think about the fact that I am marking
them for life, I’d quit this job. Because it’s too much responsibility if you think about it.
I try to do my best, but let’s say that I don’t tell myself that I’m doing some ritual or
something incredible for someone. I try to make things go smoothly between us, to make
sure that we get along well and that the person feels comfortable. If I start to think that
I am marking people for life and that they are going through an exceptional moment,
I start to freak out.
A tattoo is something that ages, it never holds out the same as it was on the first day.
A tattoo that is 10, 20 years old, changes so much, I mean when you have to think about
so many things when you are doing it, that you don’t really want to think about that
on top of it all, about your tattoo when it’ll be 30 years old, what it’ll look like and how
you’ll have changed as well at the same time.
I mean, tattoos that I did, what, 10 years ago, well I’ve changes so much since then, that
sometime I say to myself “what were you thinking ?” If you begin to think about all
that is included… It is already such a difficult profession that you just try not to think too
much. So you really concentrate on the technical aspect ? Definitely ! Then, for the
drawing, what comes before, it has actually a more artistic approach, even if I don’t like
using the word art because to me I’m not an artist, but rather a craftsman. Because
there are many technical factors to take into consideration. You can’t just do whatever
when you’re tattooing. I mean, a line has to have a certain depth if you want it to stick,
and if it’s too deep well the line spreads out, if it’s not deep enough it might disappear. It’s
the same for color. You can’t lay in color in a totally chaotic way ; it has to be technically
well done, well laid into the skin, so that in 10, 15 years it still sticks. With tattoos, maybe
you intend to make art, but you have to take into consideration all these technical
aspects, that really is more like building a piece of furniture, so that it stands, so that the
doors open, and that everything is well balanced, that everything works. For me there
is artistic cabinet making, but basically, a cabinetmaker is a craftsman. Tattooing is the
same.

Are you consciously aware of the “internal engraver” aspect of what you do ?

Tattooing is my passion, it’s my life. It’s something that is quite difficult to understand for
some people : it is a lifestyle, I carry it with me… When I go abroad, I go and see my
friends in their tattoo studios, I spend my life… I don’t spend my life only doing it, but I’m
really into it. Obviously it takes up a lot of energy, I don’t count my time, when I have
10 minutes and I go get a sandwich, I take out a tattoo book, I look at the pictures, I do it
naturally, so I live it. I don’t know consciously ? What does it mean ? Ethically ? What does
it mean ? It really depends on who is getting a tattoo. I only do Japanese, pour esthetical
reasons, the patterns age well, it’s timeless. So the clients that I have here are people
who are looking for that specifically. Now, in the studios on the street, clients who come to
get tattooed, have pretty much no idea that they are going to die with what they are
getting, otherwise there’d be a lot of tattoos that would never be done !
(laughs)
So it’s true, the timeless side is really important to me. If a guy shows up asking me for a
star on the neck, first I’ll tell him “don’t get a star, everyone has stars” and “don’t do it
on your neck ‘cause you’re going to regret it really soon” you know  ? It’s obviously hard
to imagine what we’ll look like when we’ll be fifty years old, but you can still be careful
and think about some things. In my way of approaching tattooing, fundamentally, the
indelible side interests me. Finally it’s a luxury, no one needs a tattoo, but once you have
one, no one can take it away. It’s not like a car, the tax office can take it from you,
I mean, tattoos leave their mark. Well, I don’t think that it changes your personality…
Personally, when I walk around, if there weren’t people looking at me, I’d feel completely
normal. But, let’s say it can bestow on you something special, it’s precisely because
it’s indelible that you have one done… You enter into a special world. At first, when you
get your first arm done, you’re all excited, you want to show it off, but the more tattoos
you get… I have clients that have had their whole body done…Well it’s over, they don’t
go to the swimming pool, they expose themselves the least possible. After a while,
I don’t know if it people’s opinion that bears upon them, or if it’s because they really
decided to do it for themselves, but they don’t let people take a look.
Most people that you see in the street have super ugly tattoos, and it’s true. I know people
who have magnificent tattoos and they don’t show them. There really are two different worlds. There’s one with like gothic lettering on your forearm, like my mother’s name
in Italian kind of thing, and then there’s the world of serious collectors, if one can speak of
tattoo collectors. And it’s precisely the timeless side of Japanese tattoo, the indelible side
that makes it so special. Often clients, like the client who was here earlier, who has a
tribal tattoo on his arm and wants to have it hidden, because we started to do his entire
back. Often you enter into the world of tattoo with a thing um… There are lots of people
who do a little something, that brings them into this world and they start to buy tattoo
magazines, to find stuff out, and people want to have the first covered and go on to
something serious. So I’d say there is a divide… But you’ll get lots of people who will be
perfectly happy with a tribal tattoo, a gothic lettering, stars and everything that is
fashionable for one or two years !

What are, to you, the interesting aspects of tattoos ? (identity, pain, eternity, culture…)

Well, everything that you’ve just mentioned.
(laughs)
Well, first of all, it hurts, it isn’t innocent. It can even really hurt depending on where you
do it. It’s an experience, well, it isn’t easy to get a tattoo, especially when you have
a big one done and that you have to come in twice a month. You have a couple hours
under the needles, and then there are a couple hours where you have a pretty wound,
that heals up in about a week, ten days. It isn’t a nice process, and sometimes people
give up before it’s finished.
Then you have the financial aspect, it’s quite an investment. People always say tattoos
are expensive, or they’re not. Too me, a car is expensive, because after 10 years it’s
busted and you can scrap it. A tattoo on the other hand, and like I said earlier, one can’t
take it away, it makes you special, it’s priceless.
There is also an aspect, well today you can have it removed by laser, but the fact that you
can’t take it off, makes you ask yourself a number of questions, am I going to live with
this pattern the rest of my life or not. It’s obvious that it is a special and interesting world.
Japanese tattoo comes from a culture, it’s esthetic above all. That is why I don’t do Maori
tattoos, because each pattern has a specific meaning : where you come from, what you
do, who your ancestors are, it’s kind of like ID. I think that 95% of people that do Maori
or Tahitian tattoos have no idea what they are doing, so it’s not solely an esthetic tattoo.
It requires loads of knowledge and even locals, well, they still don’t know everything.
A European with Maori tattoos doesn’t thrill me, even if it can be beautiful to us.
I did a couple of course, but every time, I’d tell people “we’re gonna a do a little DIY here,
we’re going to do whatever”, but most people don’t give a damn. Unlike Japanese tattoo
that is essentially esthetic, so one can identify with it, I mean a European with
Japanese tattoos is still beautiful. Obviously a Japanese person with Japanese tattoos
is even more powerful. But to me it’s quite a universal form really.
It’s also interesting because it is part of human history. Man has always had a kind of
reflex to decorate himself. It’s our kind of rite of passage, that and the army and boarding
school, or whatever, since we don’t have rites of passage here anymore, well there
never were anyways. But in certain tribes there are precise rituals, and tattoos are a part
of some of them and I think that for some people it is a way of growing up, of
appropriating one’s body.

Is it a moment of intimacy ?

Yes, because you make someone bleed, people are in pain. It is intimate and at the
same time not, because personally when I am tattooing someone who bleeds a lot, for
example, if I’m trying to lay color into the skin, I tell myself “he’s a pain, he drank
yesterday” (‘cause if you drink alcohol it makes you bleed more). So you still have an
intimate relationship with the person. But I’m not really in that intimacy, you see, I’m
in the technical aspects, the guy bleeds too much and I’m like “fuck, he’s annoying, he’s
gotta stop bleeding” you see. I’m not like telling myself “this is magical, we are
really creating a… I don’t know… immemorial link”. But I think the experience is much
more intense for the clients than what I experience, actually. Because I am always critical
of what I am doing, I am a professional ; I’m not like tripping about what we are going
through together. I’d rather not think about all that, I don’t want to think that I am marking them for life and that this is a huge moment for them, I think I am more humble than that, I don’t want to start imagining things…