Tattoo Master 20

Towards the end of 2010, I wrote a piece I was hoping to get into a tattoo magazine. I can’t even remember what it was about but it read like something out of one of those late night education shows on telly. You know the ones, where you die of boredom before you learn anything? Of course, I didn’t know this at the time… I thought it was brilliant. With great pride, I presented the finished article to my wife, Faye, who read it through once and then let me know how shit it actually was. In a rage that only creative people seem to get when other people critique their work, I wrote another one which I sent off to Skin Deep – it got accepted and so began my new path writing for the magazine.

Faye was right and I learnt a couple of lessons. The first is that it is hard to look at your work objectively when you are so close to it… which leads onto the second lesson, there is nothing better than having someone you trust to look over your shoulder making sure you aren’t cocking up. These lessons must have done me well as here we are, three years later, and I am steering a very big truck while trying to read the owner’s manual… kinda scary, but a hell of a lot of fun!

Swiftly onto this issue and we have as our guest editor, the amazing and charming, Sean Vasquez. I first met Sean at Tattoo Jam in 2011, where I was immediately struck by his passion and love of tattooing. I also happened to meet Sean’s wife, Leticia, and soon realised we shared a common interest in the anthropological and sociological roles of tattooing. From then on, I knew I wanted to work with them on something. But time rolled on as it does and besides chatting, nothing came about. So when I was handed the reins of Tattoo Master, I contacted Leticia straight away and asked if she would write a column for the magazine. As Leticia and I discussed the column, I discovered more and more about their life in the tattoo world and the more I learnt, the more I wanted Sean to be guest editor. I approached Sean, he accepted, and we were on.

It’s these times that I feel the universe is giving me a little push; when everything seems to move effortlessly towards the final goal. Sean calls it, the flow. Whatever it is, thankfully, on my first issue as editor, we had it. Not only was it effortless working with Sean, it was a pleasure to see what it really means to be a tattooer, to have a deep love for your craft, with a solid ethos underneath it. The only regret I had was that we could have filled so many more pages with Sean’s life.

So, here we are ladies and gentlemen, issue 20 and Mr Sean Vasquez.

-Trent