FAQ: Are there any tattoos you will not do?

People ask me all the time if there are tattoos I just flat out refuse to do. Of course. Every tattooer has things they will not do. Most tattooers won’t tattoo hands, faces, or necks. Unless that individual is clearly heavily tattooed and understands the consequences that being tattooed might incur. I on the other hand will do hands, faces and necks. I will have a discussion making clear of the decision and make the client understand that if these actions fall flat in the future, they are an adult and things like makeup and laser removal exists.

The big ones for me are hate oriented designs. This can have a lot of layers to it, and I’ve struggled finding balance and truth to all of it. Since 2005, I’ve had many a type of person cross my path and I try to keep up with all the imagery of many groups out there that might use things for hate. The most apparent one, of course, the Nazi Swastika. I will do all kinds of swastikas because there are more of a positive meaning than negative. As a fan of Zen philosophies, I can’t ignore that “posi-swasi’s” exist. But the famous Nazi Swastika (up and the right, diamond shaped) isn’t positive. I don’t care who you are or what you think. We all know who the Nazi’s were and I will not accept any form of copycat wannabes. Because it’s never just one dude either. You tattoo one of them, and their whole flock comes with them. And I have zero interest in a hateful, extremist ideology as that.

The second one is the “Confederate” Flag. I know, I know, “But Atom, it’s actually a battle flag,” or, “It’s the Rebel flag mmmkay?” No. Shut your mouth. I have had this debate since the late 90’s. The Civil War was about slavery and the oppression of human beings and treating them as property. I don’t care what path of debate you want to take. All paths funnel to slavery. I have always floundered because people all had different feelings on it on whether it was modern “Southern Pride” or pride for the ideologies of pre-Civil War. After the “Unite the Right”, White Pride protests in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017, it became painfully clear what this image is about and stands for. A lot of people will say things like, “Nazi’s ruined the swastika forever. And like that, we changed the meaning of the flag forever.” No. The swastika can be found in almost every single religion, spirituality and practicing philosophy. There’s hundreds upon hundreds of “posi-swasi” designs that predate the Nazi’s. The Confederate Flag has been used heavily in the use of White Pride, and a banner of White Supremacy. I will not tattoo them. “It’s heritage not hate.” Sure, heritage of treating human beings as property.

The third image that swings in swiftly is the Blue Line Flag. This is another one that has gained intermittent popularity through the years. The interesting thing about the meaning of the Blue Line is only surges in popularity during times of civil unrest. Specifically pertaining to black lives. It’s the Yang to the Yin. Any time there’s a surge for black equality, which usually pertains to police brutality, the Blue Line cult try to yell louder. In 2020, it has become obvious that reformation is in order. Even as I write this (Aug 27th, 2020), A 17 year old boy (white) was charged with murder for firing on protestors. Protestors protesting in the name of Jacob Blake, a man who tried to break up a fight between two white women, once police arrived tried to walk away to take his kids home, was followed by police to his car and shot 7 times in the back in front of his children, leaving him paralyzed. Everyone is aware of the corruption of the Police. Hell, there’s how many shows about “bad cops” that use their corrupt powers to “get the job done”. Fantasy on television is one thing, reality is another. Watching buildings blow up in Die Hard is one thing, watching the 9/11 attacks is another. Every time Americans for human rights, there’s gaggles of people who “back the blue” and put Authoritarianism over American lives. If you Google “Blue Lives Matter”, one of the obvious links is to Wikipedia, and in that article is a link to “Blue Wall of Silence”. Look it up. All this stuff references a “brotherhood in blue”, that finds themselves above the law, and perpetuates a systemic racist system.

It all comes back to pride… White Pride. I have zero interest in associating with people that want to keep fellow American's oppressed.

Now, being in the western world that is the United States of America is another questionable organization that even heavily fuels the above groups; Christianity. This is something that I have struggled with my whole life. This group, and it’s many subgroups are extremely known pedophiles, sexual predators, physical abusers and influence the oppression of a lot of people, “not white”. All the while not understanding, Jesus was a brown dude from the Middle East. Not a white dude from Missouri. The KKK, the Proud Boys, the Alt-Right in general are all hate groups based and bathed in Christian philosophy. Millions of people have been killed in the name of the one true Christian God. The oppression of People of Color, LGTBQ+, and even women and children are heavily grounded in Christian practice. Not all Christian’s are bad, “Hate the sin, not the sinner” right? Well, when a book that is treated as the source for all guidance and morality, is contradicting in every facet and ultimately allows for any type of behavior, one must wonder it’s integrity. I’ve tattooed many a person who hates in the name of God. And those people aren’t wrong. There’s plenty of scripture to justify hate, oppression, intolerance and cruelty. There’s also plenty of scripture that promotes the opposite. There’s no one, “True Christianity.” So, it is difficult to navigate. For some, the cross means supremacy, and for another it’s equality. I do try and avoid religious tattoos if I can. I will do them, and I will appreciate them and the people that are receiving them. But, if the piece requires a substantial amount of time, I do refer them to our other artist; he is a Christian, and if you’re someone looking for a “faith-based tattoo”, then he’s 100% your man. If the tattoo is going to require you sitting in a room with someone for an extended amount of time, I’d much rather you spend it with someone who shares your passions. If it’s a quick little “banger”, and I can knock it real quick, then I am equally excited to do your tattoo as you are getting it.

I always ponder the question to the faithful, “Would you rather be tattooed by someone who knows a lot about the Bible, but doesn’t believe, or someone who knows almost nothing but does believe and has faith?” The handful of people I’ve asked, have chosen the latter. Interesting concept.
That’s the biggest ones. There’s some other smaller concepts; “Micro” tattoos of course. You can read my other blog about that. One design I’ve never been asked to do, but know requests are made, is the NAMBLA Spiral. Fuck off you goddamn monsters. Besides that, everything else is appreciated. There’s very little I will just straight up refuse, and I’m sure with my website the way it is, it’s pretty obvious my position on these topics and will pretty much ward off anyone requesting this bullshit.

Thank you for your time! See you soon.

** BONUS **
With 2020 and the rise of conspiracy theories, I have to wonder what kind of people I want to attract as a clientele. I have felt that we have one life to live on this planet, and I would like to spend it around people I appreciate and love being around. Since the first day I started tattooing, I have always tried to treat my clients as friends, or even family. I had an uncle that left our home state to get away from a religiously oppressive family when I was young. When I became an adult, we reconnected and shared our appreciation of life without God. He expressed how sad it was the family, and especially my mother couldn’t be a part of my life and appreciate the art and music I create. It was sad they couldn’t value my talents because I wasn’t a Christian and didn’t do everything through Christ. We spent years as friends when I was a child, and then later as an adult. When Covid-19 and the lock downs that followed, he started preaching to me about God, Jesus and Heaven. I initially thought he was being satirical and joking around about the “end of days,” but he wasn’t. I asked him nicely to refrain from preaching to me, but he persisted. I asked again with an explanation as to why I was asking him to stop concerning the abuse from my mother and the rest of the family, but again he persisted. In the end, after several attempts to achieve respectful footing, the relationship was severed. I wasn’t going to let another family disrespect me, put me down, and abuse me further through Christ.

That’s just the smallest part of this whole year. We dealt with Covid lock downs and some people treating them as tyranny, the death of George Floyd and protests for human equality, and now we’re dealing with groups like QAnon spreading fantastical conspiracies without evidence. The one I want to focus on is the “war on pedophilia”. These people are out to destroy anything that could be related to child sex trafficking. Key words there are, “could be”, not IS. They want to cancel anything that is assumed to be acts of elite pedophiles. These QAnon people are very upset with the Catholic Church while not acknowledging that pedophilia happens in all sects of Christianity. They attack anything they think is “Satanic” while not understanding all forms of Christianity advocate for pedophilia and sexual predation. The part in Leviticus that said that a man shall not lie with a boy, was changed to a man shall not lie with another man. They didn’t add homosexuality, but replaced pedophilia with it. Want to talk conspiracy? How about Christian groups removing the rule that makes pedophilia a sin, is now trying to get “God back into schools,” and “prayer in schools.” Saying so much of the carnage we experience in this country is because we took God out schools. So, the Church removes anything against pedophilia in the Bible, fights to get Godly behaviors in school, and then starts blowing stuff up in the media about pedophilia, while supporting a president who’s best friends with known child sex traffickers? Over exposure to something is how you desensitize people to things. The kicker to all of this, is that these people are fighting in the name of God. They’re Christian warriors fighting for God’s wishes. Looks like the group that’s supposedly against pedophilia, is the one that’s ultimately normalizing it the most.

This is all just conspiracy. This is just my observation of the happenings I see around me. It makes me wonder though, if we’re going to go around cancelling things based on feelings, and fairy tale “evidence”, would the above idea constitute an action to say tattooers shouldn’t be tattooing Christian imagery because Christian organizations are the ones advocating for pedophilia, sexual predation, and child sex trafficking? Would I be allowing these ideas to prosper if I continued to tattoo these philosophies? Something to think about.

** 2021 **
Well… Here we are. This is an amendment to this blog. On January 6th, 2021 we watched these treasonous, QAnon, Neo-Nazi, Neo-Confederate, Trumpist seditionists storm the Nation’s Capitol in the name of Donald Trump, Faketriotism and White Supremacy. Let’s just be real. If you support this stuff, please don’t request work from me. I am adamant about creating a peaceful environment and part of that peace is being able to speak about facts and science based information. I’m not interested in White Supremacy, anti-Women’s Rights/BLM/LGBTQ+/POC rhetoric. If you love Fox News, OAN, Newsmax, Cucker Carlson, Sean Spamity or the like… I’m not the artist for you. Please find someone that better aligns with your values.

This is a request of kindness for the both of us.

** 2022 **
We’ve finally reached a second amendment to this blog, and I think it’s finally time I put this story into writing. Right before the lock downs in 2020 I had three people that had given me an extremely hard time by creating some conflict within the studio concerning my behaviors. What were these behaviors you might ask? Having discussions about religion. They didn’t like what I had to say and even went as far as to fabricate some things to further hurt me. Like the phrase goes, “There’s no love like Christian Hate.” Since the dawn of Trump in 2016, hate, prejudice, and bigotry is at an all time high. He empowered people on the Right side of the isle, and their prejudices along with them.

I used to get one or two bad reviews every couple months. I love bad reviews. My philosophy is that once a client is upset enough to compose a bad review, they’re gone. Like everything in my life, I stick to the facts, and keep feelings out of them. I reply to every bad review, and state the facts. I don’t try to be kind or unkind, just factual. This type of action has gained me many a client. Many, an amazing client. After the lock down and mask protests, I decided to start being more public with my sociological feelings, and after the George Floyd/BLM protests, I doubled down and even got aggressive. This blog is outcome of some of that. I also stopped taking patriotic, military and religious tattoos as much as possible, and during the first year since lock downs… Not one bad review. Not one. It wasn’t till a few weeks later I received one, and it was from a person wanting a cross based memorial. I didn’t even get the chance to properly consult her before they had attacked me. The thing that had triggered them, was after expressing impatience, I had texted them that we may not be the shop for them as we were booking at least 3+ months out at the time.

Last year, 2021, a person told me I was extremely hateful because on my Instagram I said, “Fuck Trump, Fuck Racists, Fuck Nazis. And fuck you if this is you.” These things are inherently American. I mean… Come on. Fast forward to today, March 2nd 2022. I very recently was called a racist because of what’s in my bio on this site. That being what’s mentioned above about basically being against anything Right Wing… Including the religious aspect. How the hell am I racist when I’ve been anti-racist my whole life? Weird.

Now, to my point. Since Covid began, I have been focusing heavily on my mental health, and we have been living in a world with awful, entitled people that can’t be bothered to wear a mask, get vaccinated, or even distance. It’s extremely fucking frustrating. These people don’t care for anyone but themselves, and with a wife that’s prone to getting sick, and a baby with no ability for immunity, I don’t trust these people to be in a room with me for an extended period of time. They can’t even be bothered to distance at a grocery store. I have also grown up with lots of abuse from family and some society in general because I’m not Christian. As I mentioned above. I have had Christians try to get me fired and blast my credibility because of thinking differently. A lot of the people I deal with are not kind, empathetic and care for no one. It’s stressful. So, I have finally decided to put in writing, I will no longer be taking on this type of work. To be completely honest, I kind of want to cry writing this because it makes me so happy to be in a position where I can finally work on healing my heart and mind. I have always wanted to treat people like my friends and family, and provide a safe place without judgement. And having this kind of boundary helps people to feel like they’re home with good people. That’s what I’ve always dreamed of; love, compassion, understanding with no toxicity of judgement or persecution.

With that said, thank you to those that continue to support my mission and my dreams. It’s been 16 years in the making and I can finally feel like I can truly be myself and express myself with people I care about. I really love all of you for helping get here! Until the next amendment!

-Atom