Project Labor

Tattoo Artist

• Danny Larkins

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Have you ever wondered what's it like to be a tattoo artist and how do you become one?

 Our first episode profiles Nassim (Sema) Dayoub, a New York City-based tattoo artist. He discusses the journey and craft of an artist today, as well as fighting racial injustice, economic woes, and the effects of COVID-19. Check out the book he mentions. He co-owns Flower World Tattoo, a worker-owned tattoo shop in Brooklyn. He is a writer, painter and fighter always striving for a better world. 

Discussion Questions:

  • What surprised you about the work of a tattoo artist?
  • What other jobs have permanent effects?
  • How would your job change if it were worker-owned, without bosses? What would you do to handle problems?
  • How can you think like Nassim and make your own job more sustainable?

Music by Brotheration Records

Project Labor is a 501c3 nonprofit organization incorporated in the state of New Jersey. All donations to Project Labor are tax deductible in accordance with the Internal Revenue Code.

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Danny:

Nassim is a craftsman, an artist, and a laborer who knows how to build a community, whether it's one-on-one with a client or with folks on the street fighting for a better world. Short, strong, and covered in tattoos. He's ready to tackle artistic and political challenges. I let this guy give me four and a half tattoos. I say half because one was an add-on to an existing tattoo I already had. And I'm glad I did. Nassim Dayub is a tattoo artist, and he works at a Flower World, a shop in Brooklyn, New York. Nassim, welcome to Project Labor.

Nassim:

Thank you so much for having me.

Danny:

Our first question comes from a student of mine.

Allegra:

Hi, my name is Allegra. And my question is what motivated you to become a tattoo artist, and what inspires you?

Nassim:

Oh, that's such a sweet question. Um, yeah, I mean, every time I'm like talking to someone who I'm tattooing, they'll ask, like, so how did you get into this? Or like, what led you to start tattooing? And I think the short answer is just getting tattooed and falling in love with the craft. Started tattooing at a really early age. I did my first tattoo on myself at like 17 years old. Um, and I started on the path of pursuing tattooing as a career, and by the time I was 20, it was my full-time job. Um, but what inspires me is the craft itself and working with people. I feel like every time I get to work with a new client um that has like an interesting story, or it's like, and tattooing is such a service. Like providing that service to people is really what inspires me to keep going.

Danny:

For how long have you been tattooing?

Nassim:

Um, just about 10 years.

Danny:

Yeah.

Nassim:

It will be 10 years in April. But that's 10 years of full-time tattooing, and I had done a handful of tattoos before I started full-time, so evens out to about 10 years.

Danny:

What education or training is needed?

Nassim:

Um, so you don't need like a degree to be a tattoo artist, but um I did have an apprenticeship. Um, my apprenticeship isn't like I feel like it's just the path that I was on. There's so many people that have gotten into tattooing without apprenticeships. Um, but my education was like a mix of self-taught, community taught, and then apprenticing in a tattoo shop.

Danny:

How do you go about applying for a job at a tattoo shop?

Nassim:

It honestly is different for every single person. Like what I really would encourage people to do is like really just like question why you want to tattoo. And then it's like such a relationship that you like, I don't know, that you would need to form with the shop. Like get tattooed, don't go in like immediately asking for an apprenticeship or a job. I would say like get tattooed, get to know the shop that you want to like pursue that with, and then just like see if that's something that that shop is interested in offering. You know, it's like such a huge undertaking to take on an apprentice.

Danny:

Cool. I I wouldn't have thought of that as actually getting tattooed at the place you you want to work.

Nassim:

Yeah, I mean tattooing is like such a unique craft in that like you can literally not only just like is it pretty affordable to get tattooed by one of your favorite artists, but like you get to watch them make the thing. You can sit and ask them questions. Like you get to, I don't know, be face to face with the person that you're inspired by. Um there's so much you can learn from that experience besides just like if you are, I don't know, if you want to tattoo, like maybe you don't end up working at that shop, but you can learn a lot.

Danny:

What was your first uh paid experience like, whether it was the apprenticeship or or after?

Nassim:

Um, so my apprenticeship was entirely unpaid. And I didn't end up tattooing at that shop. I ended up leaving that shop and tattooing out of my house. Um and yeah, I don't remember my first like handful of tattoos were all for free on Friends because I was learning. Um, and I slowly started charging for materials. I think for like a long time I was just charging $60 for tattoos because it was really like I was tattooing like other punks, like other people my age who were down to like let me learn on them, which is such a gift.

Danny:

How does a typical day for you start?

Nassim:

So usually um I I wake up and do like my routine in the morning, and I usually try to get to the shop an hour before my first appointment. And I open the shop, sweep, mop, draw, if I still have drawings to do, um, set up my station, make some coffee, and wait for my first appointment to get there.

Danny:

When you say set up your station, does that mean like um like hygienic stuff or just making your materials already?

Nassim:

Yeah, so I mean tattooing or working with people's blood, and tattoo artists in New York, um, you need to be bloodborne pathogen certified in order to tattoo. So we completely sterilize, sanitize our station, and um yeah, set up for the day. Each client gets their own sterile setup. And I like to set up before my client gets there so that there's more time to talk to each client. And my process is a little different from other tattooers. Like I have a lot of flash that which is pre-drawn tattoo designs, and um people will come in and look through the books of designs that I have, the designs on the wall, and usually we'll make something together based off those designs, unless they have contacted me ahead of time and I drew something custom for them on that day.

Danny:

How would you describe your style?

Nassim:

It's definitely rooted in American traditional tattooing, but it definitely has its own look to it. Um, I like bold lines and bright colors. I like mostly black and red tattoos, um, and tattoos that are designed to last for a really long time, both in technique and also in style.

Danny:

Your tattoos on darker skin are really beautiful. Are there special considerations you have to make for tattooing different skin types or shades?

Nassim:

Oh, thank you. I mean, every single person's skin when you come into a tattoo shop, like every single person has completely different skin and sometimes different skin on different parts of their body. Like it's every single tattoo, you're kind of learning how to make the tattoo best for that person. And there's different techniques like needle depth, stretching, um, things like that, but yeah, there is like so much systemic racism in tattooing and anti-blackness specifically, that a lot of um a lot of tattoo artists are told that tattooing darker skin is different when it's really not that different in terms of like everyone's skin requires attention. And I feel like there's a lot of anti-blackness in terms of um tattoo artists saying things like tattooing darker skin is so much harder, when you just need to be paying attention and working to ensure that you're not scarring your client, you're not overworking their skin, you're not um doing things that cause trauma to the skin. So when I'm tattooing someone with more melanated skin, um, I feel like informed consent is such an important part of our practice. Like explaining how tattoo ink heals in the skin. Like the way that a tattoo looks in a fresh picture is very different for how a tattoo looks healed on anyone. But tattoo ink literally it sits in the skin underneath the melanin. So what I explain to people is like any color pigment that I'm going to use is kind of like a pane of stained glass. Knowing what you're doing, not overselling your abilities, trusting your clients to know also what's good for them, and coming at it from an approach where you're interested in dismantling the systemic racism within the tattoo industry.

Danny:

That's awesome.

Nassim:

And just wanting to provide the best possible service to every person who walks in.

Danny:

Tattooing looks hard. It looks like, you know, almost like you're doing a dental surgery. This small, precise object in your hand might be vibrating. You have to be super careful not to make mistakes. What do you do when they're you have you get achy or uh tired?

Nassim:

Um, I think stretching and going to the gym is really important for tattooers, especially. Um yeah, since I started taking better care of my body, I feel like I have had a lot less body pain.

Danny:

Have you ever gotten into trouble at work?

Nassim:

I mean, not really. I mean, I don't have a boss. So I the way that I like to think about it is like each client who comes in, it's like I'm like we're working on this together. So it's like I don't have a boss, but in the same time, in the same breath, it's like each person who's coming in, it's like I owe them my best self.

Danny:

Have you ever uh refused to give a tattoo for some reason?

Nassim:

Yeah, all the time. I think tattoos are like it's incredibly high stakes, you know. I I really look up to this one tattooer, his name is Felix Liu, and he wrote out these like rules for himself with tattoos. Like he doesn't tattoo if he cannot, if he didn't feel like he could do his best work, basically. And that's the approach that I take. If someone asks me to do a tattoo that I feel like I'm not the right guy for, then I'll refer them to someone else.

Danny:

What's been the role of mentorship now and earlier in your career?

Nassim:

Well, now I'm reaching this point where like hitting the 10-year mark feels like a huge milestone within tattooing. Like I remember when I was getting tattooed by people who had been tattooing for 10 years and what that meant for them at that time. So mentorship for me has been so important, mostly because it's something that I continually sought when I was younger. And like mentorship in many different forms. Like any person who had been tattooing for any amount of time, I was like, there's something that I can learn here from anyone, and I still feel that way. Like I have friends who've been tattooing a lot less time than me, and I still feel like I have so much to learn from them, as well as my elders who are so important to me as well. Like I have friends who've been tattooing 40, 50 years, and yeah, I don't think mentorship really takes one form. And right now in my career, I don't like I don't have an apprentice, I don't have any interest in taking on an apprentice, but I do have friends that will ask me to critique their work or ask for advice on how to tattoo a specific part of the body. And I do feel like my experience that I've amassed over the past decade is very valuable and can be used to help people make better tattoos.

Danny:

How do tattoo artists practice?

Nassim:

Um, painting. Yeah. I mean, I think that like early on I remember a tattooer telling me, like, the best tattooers are the ones who paint and paint flash all the time, never stop drawing.

Danny:

Is there a certain kind of paint you would recommend?

Nassim:

Yeah, so I I paint like traditional tattoo flash, and I use FW liquid acrylics on Arches watercolor paper. And I like to start with a bold outline and then similar to how I would do a tattoo, then put the black in and then last do the color.

Danny:

What are the like tools of the trade? I know you mentioned there's um you know health and safety type things that you use every day uh and newly for each client. Um and then of course there's the the ink, but can you talk about some of the other the pieces that are involved?

Nassim:

Yeah, so I I use traditional coil machines that were made by my friend Kevin Riley, who builds machines in Philadelphia, and he built my machines for me. They're like a Cliff Raven style frame. And Cliff Raven is a tattooer who tattooed in Chicago in the 80s and 90s, a gay tattooer, incredible, incredible person to learn about. But yeah, I choose to use traditional coil machines because I really love handmade objects and handmade tools that I understand what they're doing and how they work. I like heard someone explain it the other day is like a traditional coil machine is more like a stick shift versus like an automatic transmission, where it's just like you're more connected to the machine that you're working with. Like it's a more manual way of doing things. Um yeah. But I would just encourage anyone who is like interested in tattooing, like, really, really think about like no matter how long you've been tattooing or how much you know about it, that tattoo is still going to be just as permanent on someone for the rest of their life. So it's like very, very important to take what we do very seriously and like approach it with like the utmost respect.

Danny:

When you get to work, what are you excited about?

Nassim:

Um, honestly, I just love tattooing. I love meeting new people. I love getting to make beautiful things.

Danny:

What's the atmosphere like at your your shop?

Nassim:

It's very chill. Like you've been tattooed there a few times, and um we're a private studio, so we work by appointment only, but it is street level, so we have like big windows, lots of plants, lots of art on the walls, and I feel like it's a very welcoming environment.

Danny:

Yeah, yeah, I think it's definitely welcoming. It has almost like uh the feel that you're at not a not like somebody's living room where it's like be like, you know, cat hair or you know, dog or something.

Nassim:

Not like no, but we have like incense burning and like, yeah, totally. There's like leather couches in the front. We've gotten the living room comment before. It feels what I am hoping for is that people feel like they're stepping into a portal.

Danny:

Hey, I'm Danny, host of Project Labor. There's a lot of podcasts about work. A great majority of them have to do with how to be an entrepreneur, how to make more money, how to work hard and play hard, hustle and grind. You want to retire in your 30s? You want to make your first million? Well, our show won't be like that. We're gonna document and listen to the stories and successes and struggles of real people, independent non-corporate radio, for workers by workers. Thanks for listening. How many tattoos or hours spent actively tattooing is like the ideal amount to do in a day where you feel like, okay, yeah, that was that was solid. That was like uh, you know, not too much, not too little.

Nassim:

Yeah, so this has changed for me a lot over the years. When I first started, I was doing as many tattoos as I possibly could every single day of the week. So I didn't have any days off and was working, yeah, as much as I could, which at that time was a lot. And now I do two tattoos a day. Two like good size tattoos. Most of the tattoos that I do are, I would say about hand size, if not bigger. So doing two gives me the flexibility to like outline an entire back piece and then also do like a hand-sized tattoo on someone's arm.

Danny:

What can you say about the how the pay works for a tattoo artist?

Nassim:

Yeah, so I mean, it is so subjective, depending on who you ask, when you ask them. Like, it's really not a profession with predictable income at all. And um something that I'm really curious about is like sustainability within tattooing in terms of yeah, like there are times when it's really, really busy and you're making a lot of money, but then there's times when it's really, really slow and you're working a lot, working on drawings and like marketing and all of these things, but no one is coming in the door. So yeah, there's um it's very different for everyone.

Danny:

How does pay sharing with your shop work?

Nassim:

This is also um different for every person in every shop that you work at, but most shops, the artists will pay a percentage of what they make to the shop. So if you get paid for a tattoo, you pay 20% of that to the shop. And then if you get tips, then you get to keep those.

Danny:

So you mentioned that you you don't have a manager um or someone that really evaluates you. So how what what do you do to sort of self-evaluate?

Nassim:

Well, that is an excellent question. Um, I mean, I'm always striving to become a better tattooer and a better artist. Um, but thankfully I'm in community with a lot of tattooers and will critique each other, amp each other, or yeah, just like hype each other up. And yeah, I'm like constantly reevaluating my work, like seeing how I can push it further.

Danny:

What are some of the projects and achievements that you're proud about?

Nassim:

Mmm, that's such a sweet question. I mean, I I have a few that I'm really proud of. I've been working on this project, it's like an ongoing project for the past like two years or so, where anyone who gets a tattoo for like Palestinian solidarity, I have like multiple flash sheets that people can pick from. And that money goes a hundred percent to mutual aid. I started doing it so that I like will cover the material costs, and then everything after that goes to mutual aid. So through that we've been able to raise quite a bit of money, and I have people just donate the money themselves so the money doesn't pass through my hand. Um, so there's no way to actually like have like a concrete number to be like this is how much money we've raised. And I recently was a part of an art show in San Francisco at the San Francisco Public Library, and the show was called Living Traditions, and I was one of many artists who are a part of the show, but part of what that show and book that came out was about was like tattoo artists taking their cultural backgrounds and what the relationship between the client and the artist is. And I feel really proud to have been a part of that project.

Danny:

That's awesome. Yeah, mutual aid is uh like you mentioned for Palestine. Mutual aid is uh a great way to um share resources and uh directly help people who are in need. Uh and and we all need help. So it's not exactly yeah, it's not like a trickle-down help or uh siphoning through a whole different, you know, all different hoops. It's yeah, pretty direct.

Nassim:

No, and it's a way to feel connected and to be connected to others.

Danny:

When you get home after after work, how do you feel?

Nassim:

Um, sometimes I feel tired, but I honestly just feel very grateful. I like sometimes feel like a broken record where I'm just like, I am so grateful for this life. Like, thank you to each person who gets tattooed. Um yeah, usually I feel inspired, and a lot of times I'll leave the tattoo shop and go to my painting studio and work on things, or I'll just, you know, lay on the couch and um just reflect on the day.

Danny:

What are some of the activities you enjoy doing outside of work?

Nassim:

Well, I play music and I enjoy going to shows. Um, I also have been really into weightlifting and going to the gym lately. Yeah, I like camping in nature, like painting, hanging out with my friends, cooking.

Danny:

What do you think is the biggest misconception the public has about the labor involved in being a professional tattoo artist?

Nassim:

I mean, I think that a lot of the public perception of tattoo artists is really informed by tattoo reality shows like Inkmaster and Oh yeah. Yeah, maybe not so much these days, but at least like when I was getting into it, that kind of was the public perception of tattoo artists. And I mean, most of us are just like artists who are struggling to get by just like everyone else. And I think that there's a lot of ideas about what yeah, about what it means to be a tattooer. And everyone has their own ideas about what tattooing is, and I would say like no one's got it totally figured out. Like it's um I still feel like I'm trying to figure it out, and I'm also like very resigned to like accepting the mystery of it all.

Danny:

What was your uh I've made it moment where it's it was no longer like you fake it till you make it kind of uh mentality?

Nassim:

I mean, I feel like I continually have those moments like all the time.

Danny:

Yeah, I've been teaching for about 10 years, and sometimes just in a lull in the class when I'm talking, I'll look out at everybody's faces and I'll be like, wow, there got like 20 people here listening to me. That's it's still surprising.

Nassim:

How did I get here? Yeah. No, totally. I think recently, like I was like, I I mentioned that show in San Francisco, and I mean the artists who are part of that show, like I am so inspired and humbled to be a part of that show. Um, I really look up to a lot of the artists who are part of it. But I got to be on like a panel afterwards with um Leo Zuletta, who's like a dear friend of mine, huge inspiration, one of my like personal heroes, and very, very lucky to call him a dear friend. Um, but yeah, getting to share like the stage with Leo and Taki and this other artist, John Henry, like these and Molly, like that was that was like a huge moment for me where I was like, How did I get here? This is crazy. Um and yeah, just instead of feeling like imposter syndrome over it, just continually choosing to be humbled by it and then wanting to step up the work.

Danny:

As a tattoo artist, you're doing high-stakes work. You have to be careful with this permanent uh body modification. You also are doing work that the client may have a very serious uh emotional attachment to, whether it's related to a deceased loved one or just something that's uh a magical, spiritual, important part of their life. Or maybe not, but but it definitely can be. And uh that that puts uh a lot of pressure on you. Um and you're also talking to this person for upwards of an hour, maybe several hours in in this uh close quarters. What is the emotional labor of your work like?

Nassim:

Well, it's interesting. I'd actually recommend my coworker and dear friend wrote a book called Could This Be Magic? Um, Tattooing is Liberation Work by Tamara Santibanias. And Tamara has really I feel like Tamara's work has really affected the way I see emotional labor within tattooing, and it's been interesting like knowing them as a friend after they wrote their book and the subsequent conversations that have come out of that work. Tattooers, we're not therapists, we are not trained or licensed um in any way to be therapists, but we do hold a lot of um like emotional responsibility, and I think it has been great for me and my work to set boundaries and also like be pretty fluid with them. Like I I try not to talk too much about my personal life with my clients, but then also it's like I'm a person and they're a person, and it's okay to like you know tell stories and and listen. I really love listening to my clients talk about their lives. Um but yeah, I like when it comes to like these heavier topics, I think because like yeah, I do a lot of work for like Palestinian solidarity. I I try to keep the conversation pretty light when I'm tattooing. It's like it helps me at the end of the day to like you know, not not be talking about like the most heavy things. Um, but I also like sometimes that's what is needed in a in a day. And I'm like allow myself to kind of like be flexible with it and know when it's time to like talk about movies, you know. But then also like know when it that it's totally also okay to talk about like the horrors in the world that we're living in today, because I think ignoring that completely is also a disservice.

Danny:

So you've you've been tattooing for um just about 10 years. That means that you were probably tattooing during um the the peak of COVID. How were you affected by COVID?

Nassim:

So I actually owned a shop in Chicago and we shut down completely for I want to say March, April, May, June, and July. So that was a very rough time. And we had some savings, and they they didn't last very long. And we um yeah, we it wasn't safe to tattoo, and it was also during like the George Floyd uprisings, and a lot of um, yeah, a lot of us were out in the streets doing a lot of organizing work, so it really wasn't the time to be tattooing. Um but tattooing is what paid the bills. So what we did was we um like I started painting and I was selling paintings in order to pay rent, and I like made some merch, like I made t-shirts, and that helped me get by. Um but we really like we pivoted hard, we turned the shop into like a mutual aid distro, and like it was really beautiful to think about like the ways that the community came together to like address the multiple crises that were popping up around COVID, systemic neglect of marginalized communities in the city of Chicago, which is where the shop was. And at my shop we still mask. Um, so that is half of my tattoo career. I've been tattooing people with masks. So I haven't seen like a lot of people's faces who have tattooed, which is such an interesting phenomenon. But I'll like be out somewhere and someone will recognize me and they'll be like, You've tattooed me multiple times and I've never seen their face before. And um it's yeah, I I don't even I fully haven't fully processed that. It's something that's really interesting.

Danny:

I know you have a sign up in your in your shop about the rights of the tattoo customer. Um they're not things that all customers need to be consciously thinking about while they're there, but it it does sort of set the tone, set the vibe uh for the place and for the artist that it is a a caring place, one where you're anticipating people's needs. Um totally. But for your own needs, are are there are you your shop being the the setup that it is, it kind of is like its own little union uh or its own uh collective. You know, like forget about union where you're bargaining with your bosses. You have no bosses.

Nassim:

You know, we're yeah, yeah. Yeah, we are worker-owned.

Danny:

Yeah, you're a worker-owned shop.

Nassim:

Yeah, and that's something I'm very proud of. And like it's the second worker-owned shop that I've been a part of. And yeah, that that's something that I think about a lot is like where labor fits into tattooing and where tattooing fits into labor. And um something that I think a lot about is like how labor changes throughout a person's life. Like tattooers, the only time that we get paid for for most of us is like needle to skin, time when someone's in our chair. But we do so much work outside of that, like so much work actually, like um to maintain the shop, like ordering supplies, like drawing emails, all of these things that go into our job. And then throughout a tattooer's lifespan, like there's not a lot of like security and stability for older tattooers at all. And because there have been, there's such an influx of new tattooers as time has gone on, like we're going to be seeing like a lot of elders in tattooing that either have to turn to other jobs or will be supported by other means. But something that I really think about a lot is how can we take care of elders within tattooing and how can we like make tattooing sustainable to support tattooers who want to have families? Like, there's just so many, like, we don't get health insurance, we don't get a retirement plan. You know, like there's a lot of things that we have to figure out for ourselves, and I'm grateful that we are in a position to kind of like think about these things now. Um but yeah, what you said about like what are the rights of the worker in the tattooer, um, is something I think about a lot as well.

Danny:

Yeah, well, it it's it's uh good to be part of building a community in your in your neighborhood, in your city, uh in your multiple cities where you you work, um, and and being a such a proponent of mutual aid, you know, that's that helps all of us. So hopefully that continues to grow in popularity and people's awareness about helping out your neighbors, helping out the people who are in need, because we're we all need something and we all have something to give.

Nassim:

Absolutely. I could not agree more. And we are part of a collective, we're not like in this alone at all.

Danny:

Well, in the same, thank you for being on Project Labor. You're such a cool guy. I'm so glad you were able to make it. Um, I hope we see you soon.

Nassim:

Likewise, thank you.

Head Shot

Danny Larkins

Host
Head Shot

Nassim Dayoub

Guest