CxCx wrote:If both of the other shops that opened in our town were high quality shops with amazing artists, then I'd find your point to be valid. As it stands, one is an alright shop (run by a guy that started out as a scratcher) and the other is a group of factory workers that were scratchers on the side and decided to "make a go" of it. The "level of artistry"? I'd honestly rather NOT go there OR the issue of safety.
You need only pick up a tattoo magazine from 10 years ago and compare it to one today to see how much the overall quality of art has improved. That much can't be argued.
Sure, at the street level tattooing's current popularity has attracted a lot of bottom feeders seeking to cash in. But on the flip-side it now also attracts very talented people with art degrees, who before would have gone into other fields.
The result of this is that there are a lot of old timers who may have been the shit 10 years ago, but as the artistry on a whole has risen over the years, they didn't or couldn't keep up.
There's a guy in a neighboring town that's a perfect example of this. He opened his shop in 1982 and for years he was the big fish. His work back then was the best around. But today, he's still churning out the same old fine-line biker style he was doing 20 years ago. It all looks the same and he can't (or won't) do anything else. His is now one of the worst shops around. It's not that he's any worse, it's just that everyone else is better.