Neo-traditional tattoo artist Tasha Wild has been in the industry for over 10 years now. She’s not only a tattoo artist but a business owner as well. Together with her boyfriend Steve Myles and her friend Lauren, she runs the Crawe Tattoo studio located 2 minutes away from the Leeds train station.

Tasha also attended the Brugge Tattoo convention which gave us the perfect opportunity to ask her a few questions and get some insights. Here’s what we found out.

Her journey in the tattoo industry

As we already mentioned, she’s been in the industry for over 10 years now, more specifically 10.5 years. Before her leap of faith into tattooing, she got herself an art degree and she was ‘making things’ – let’s assume she meant creating artwork.

Tasha was already busy with art before she decided to go for an art degree though, she mentioned she’d already been drawing her whole life. Gotta say, u can see it in her tattoos, the artistry is definitely there!

A blonde woman with glasses laughing and looking to the side

Apprenticeship

When she made the decision to get into tattooing, she decided to do it in a proper way and got herself an apprenticeship at her local shop in Leeds.

For 9 months long she did the typical apprenticeship stuff including reception work, cleaning, answering emails and more. This lasted until one of her tattoo artist colleagues asked her to do a Friday the 13th flash on him.

Her boss found out and told Tasha she might as well start tattooing and so it went.

Want to read more about apprenticeships? Click here.

A neo-traditional skull with octopus tattoo in color on a lower leg

Tips for beginners?

She gave us 2 valuable tips for the wannabe apprentices out there.

  • Make sure you’re drawing a lot and bring variation into it!

Tasha touched the topic of how many of the upcoming artists are tempted to draw mainly the things they want to tattoo, which on one hand is good because you’ll develop your style more, but on the other it might be a drawback. Why?

Well, at the beginning of your own journey you’ll be tattooing everything, not only your preferred style. So you have to be prepared.

We also have an article about building your apprenticeship portfolio! See our tips here!

  • Try to get an apprenticeship at a busy local tattoo shop

If you do get an apprenticeship at a busy local tattoo shop, then you’d have already practiced majority of the styles out there and then you’ll get to practice them on skin.

With time you’ll get a good all rounded grip of things which will help you in the long run once you start venturing off into your own style!

The opening of Crawe Tattoo and mentoring

Almost four years ago from today, Tasha was talking with the girl working next door (Lauren) about possibly opening their own shop. Convenient enough, Tasha’s boyfriend Steve has been wanting to get into the industry himself for a long time. They saw this as the perfect opportunity and they just decided to go for it.

The birth of Crawe Tattoo was a fact. In exchange for an apprenticeship, Steve set up the whole shop and did majority of the decoration – with consults and bits of help here and there from his colleagues. Now they just share the space.

Tasha about running a shop

For her, owning and running the shop (together with Steve and Lauren), it’s easy. It’s a quiet private studio without a phone or employees, so it’s nice and easy. She told us they just share the space and pay their own way.

And mentoring?

We mentioned that Tasha was Steve’s mentor. Up until now, that was her only mentoring experience. For the future, she told us that maaaaybe she’d do it again if the right person came along, but for now she’s happy with the way things are.

Social media, no shows and more

When it comes to social media, Tasha is also not a fan. She talked about how some people have a good routine established and are able to produce consistent work and therefore content. For Tasha however, that’s a bit hard to do, because she does a lot of bigger pieces. Consistent flow of new content is therefore not as achievable.

An inner bicep with a neo-traditional mushroom with leaves tattoo in color

While being on the topic about socials, we wanted to see how her social battery is. She shared with us that she likes chit-chatting! Although it can be draining sometimes if her client is reeeally chatty and going on and on the whole day, usually she enjoys it – it makes her day go by easier and quicker!

We also asked Tasha how she deals with no shows. She told us that when it happens, she first sends them an e-mail to check up on whether they’re still showing up or not. Once they don’t reply and they’re nowhere to be found- she lets them know that if they’d still like to come on another date she’ll be requiring the full payment upfront and that their deposit wont be returned. Which we think is only fair, because this affects the artists’ livelihood.

I don’t know about you, but Tasha is an inspiration for us.

If you were (or maybe u are) a tattoo artist, how would you handle no shows? And how is you guys’ social battery?

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