Pym's Bio

People always ask me how I got into this trade, why I wanted to be a tattoo artist and how long I've been doing it. So for those of you who want to know, here are the answers....

I always worked in art related trades, anything from airbrushing motorcycle tanks, through chalk paintings on the pavement. I used to get really frustrated with the lack of permanence of the work I'd spent so many hours doing, and then.... I discovered tattooing!

So there's the why, the how is a little more complicated. When I started to get involved in tattooing, apprenticeships didn't really exist and were really expensive if you could find one, so basically, with a little help from my friends, I taught myself. I spent a couple of years hanging around a shop in Gibraltar cleaning up after the guys and sneaking as much info as I could, tattooing names on drunken sailors when the guys had no time. Eventually, I bought a truck, kitted it out for tattooing and went on the road in Spain and France. There were only about 5 shops in the entire country of Spain back then and there were a lot of tattoo hungry kids out there. I would join up with the carnies and the gypsy ferias and tour with them, 2 weeks in every town... laying lots of ink on the hot, dusty road!

After a couple of years, I managed to get a job in a tattoo studio in Germany, but soon I was back on the road, this time working in shops around the world and as many conventions and motorcycle rallies as I could get a booth at.

In 1995 I opened my first shop, Red Dragon tattoo in Neustadt an der Weinstrasse, Germany. In 2001 ,I opened River City Tattoo in Old Sacramento, California; moving on in 2006 to open D.D.T. in Colusa, still on the banks of the Sacramento River.

How long? Well, that might make me sound too old! In the words of my good friend Mr. Thomas Lockhart "more than 10 years..."

Magazine Articles on Pym

Pym's backpiece is a Celtic warrioress, inked by Tin Tin of Universal Tattoo Studio, Paris. It has won many awards at international conventions for best backpiece and best large female tattoo. Pym has been featured in several European tattoo magazines including the French publication 'Tatouage', German 'Taetowiermagazin' and 'Body Art'.