As far as I am concerned with my personal experience with associations and organizations that I have been involved with in the 20+ years I have been tattooing they are a waste of time.

It does look impressive to have more letters behind your name than most doctors would ever attain if they spent the rest of their lives at University, but what does that mean? Actually it means duckshit to anyone else in the industry.

There are organizations that tattoo artists belong to all over the world, we also have organizations here in Australia.  Now I am not saying that all of these are bad but the ones I have been involved with in this state are. I have seen breakaway associations from those I have been involved with but have never become a member of these so I canít say whether they achieved their purpose or not but good on 'em.  If you go armed to the meetings with armour-plated vests and armed with more knives then anyone else and the technique of how to actually twist the things after penetration then you can actually enjoy them, after closing the studio for the day and listening to someone else whinge about the backyarder that opened just around the corner from them and waiting for the mobile phones to stop ringing. Sometimes you might actually get to discuss a topic of real value.

Most of these Associations have their members who tattoo under proudly displayed membership certificates who couldnít put on a decent tattoo as long as their arse points to the ground. They are actually no better than some of the backyard scratchers that can be found these days in more abundance than corner deli's and bad dog breeders.

Ask the poor guy a few years ago who forked out $20,000.00 for an apprenticeship in this beautiful industry only to get told where to go after not even 2 months and lost all his money. A member of an association here did this in Perth.

Have you ever wondered why at Tattoo Shows you are asked when being judged who did your work? Does it matter who did your work? As long as it wasnít a backyarder.

You certainly do not need the bullshit certificates hanging on the wall to do decent work, but then again maybe they are good for covering the holes in the wall with.

~ AJ ~