Inklination
Gez
Gez
Early Life:
Born in Portsmouth in the mid-eighties and growing up in Gosport with hard-working parents, a close knit family & many friends my future career wasn’t decided until late on. Everyone around me seemed to know what they wanted to do and were working towards it from a young age. Me, on the other hand, had a typical young man’s view of “I’m gonna be a sports star!” (Basketball). I got real good, won competitions, got medals & had trials with a few known teams, I was good, but not good enough, My future was again open after many security jobs @ various concerts, football stadiums, music events and 6 years of doorwork @ various clubs around the south coast I’d realized I’d always loved but never thought about doing “tattoos”.
What Sparked The Interests Of Tattooing?
My Dad is who got me interested in tattoos, it was at an early age even without meaning to, he has a vast range of ink mainly old-school and random recollections of his life. I remember being overly interested when he’d walk in the house with a new addition to his skin and I’d think “yea, how cool”. My Mum, on the other hand, hated them and did so for as long as I can remember (until 40 odd years into her life and I got her, lol). Also where I mainly listened to rock & rap growing up all my idols where rocking round the stage or the TV heavily tattooed and I found this look amazingly interesting. I always thought how amazing it would be tattoo but never thought it possible
My First Ink :
At 15 I got my first ink and it has been an obsession ever since, I would frequently be on the way to town to pay bills and get distracted by the local studio and end up getting inked instead of paying the bills, the missed payment charge was always worth my new “too’s” .
The Beginning:
One day I was in the studio and I mentioned that I’d love to tattoo and showed real interest, also my parents had been friends with the artists for years & years – an apprenticeship was offered to me! It was on the condition I wouldn’t get paid to begin with and had to earn my living on the doors @ night. I worked the studio counter 10 till 5, Tuesday to Friday, week in week out – slowly learning. To begin with it was all cleaning the studio, booking in customers and watching, after a couple of months came the tube cleaning and the transfer making, more and more was slowly added to the equation, yea it was hard and painfully slow and there were times I struggled to keep focused but I wanted it more than ever. For 8 months I worked full time for free to prove my worth and enthusiasm, I had a laugh and learnt a lot. After a year of watching and learning my time came to ink! I tattooed a pitbull on my thigh (sick some might say but I wanted to learn & progress – I soon learnt about needle depth and machine speed! 0) I tattooed myself again and again & soon one of my teachers was confident for me to ink him, he wanted me to colour some flames on his arm, I was happy but nervous, I felt sick and got the sweats – all this waiting and training – its got to be done. I set the machines up as I’d seen done a thousand times; I prepared my work surface and away I went, slowly but confidently putting ink to skin and with advice throughout the job was completed well. My other teacher was soon confident for me to ink him too. They then said your ready to do a complete tattoo from start to finish – I knew my dad was eagerly awaiting the time for me to do my first full piece on someone and I had drawn up a custom skull to commemorate the start of my newly founded career, with more nerves than I though possible I got through the design – it took me such a long time but it was perfect and my dad and other artists were impressed. From then on paying customers were on the agenda, I started to earn a small wage, not regular customers but 2 to 3 a week. I soon found out there wasn’t enough gun time for me there and I was told I was being held back. :0/
So Next :
I tattooed from home for a year, building my clientele to a regular 20-30 a month which grew as time & talent improved, trying techniques and tips from magazines & artist @ expo’s etc etc. A friend of mine was being tattooed by Ceri here @ inklination, they were talking about my work and what I was doing etc and at the time they were looking for an artist. I was asked to bring a portfolio down to the studio which I did, she was impressed but could see where improvement was needed.
Inklination :
I started work here in June 2007 and was taught straight away in the areas I’d never been shown, having been here this length of time I’ve learnt and improved to make me the artist I am today. Don’t get me wrong, in this industry you always learn, you never know it all and there are always different ways of doing things which I fully appreciate, more so than others. To improve my artistic abilities even more and make myself as good as I can be I have enrolled on an A-level art course at a local college to widen my views on everything. You have to keep improving to stay in the game – the same as most competitive industries.
Artists I Admire:
Boog, Fillip Leu, Bob Tyrell, Tom Renshaw, Chris Garver, Robert Hernandeez, Dan Marshall & Kat Von D.
Favourite Styles:
My favourite style is Black &Grey Street, I think stars are too common (yea I have some) and masses of black work bores me, but I pretty much tattoo every style to constantly try new things to differentiate my style with various tattoo styles.
Current Thoughts :
Inklination is a great place to work with great people & artists, everyone gets along and I couldn’t imagine being anywhere else with my life right now.
Shout outs :
Most importantly are the people that have helped me on my, so far short, but amazing journey in this industry.
Firstly, my parents, who from a young age have believed in me whatever I have chosen to do, and through my tattooing stage have pushed me along when I was dragging or having a funny 5 minutes, they believed in me when I didn’t in believe in myself, at hard times they kept me focused, also to family members who helped me fund things to begin with, it just wouldn’t have been possible to begin with otherwise.
Secondly the guys who gave me my apprenticeship and put me on the right path to further myself in the industry.
Ceri & Kyra @ Inklination for giving me the opportunity I have grabbed with both hands and having me as part of the team, and also for teaching me new techniques etc. just for being funky people to work with as well, I guess. A thanks to Helena – my painting mentor ( “you not finished yet?”) & Lizzie for being her random self, lol.
A big one to Vicky for putting up with the silent sometimes stressful evenings & stupidly late nights of design work, also for everything else you’ve done :0)
Last but not least all my cronies, lol, - for being guinea pigs back in the day, and for being there as willing victims for me to try new methods on and believing!