To The Point Tattoo

After scouring around on the Internet and asking many friends I came across this local tattoo joint where the main artist and owner, John, looked like he had a phenomenal portfolio. So I bit the bullet and made an appointment with him to discuss a custom piece I wanted done. Many of my friends are inked and not one single friend ever mentioned To The Point as a place to get some done and now I know why - the owner is a flaky headcase with a large chip on his shoulder. Yes, he talks about being a professional and doing the best job possible for his clients (the ones he'll actually tattoo) after hearing what their needs are but has mostly contempt for other people, fellow tattoo artists, and prospective clients.

He seemed like a genuinely nice guy and interested in composing a quality piece for me when I went in for the consultation and I told him that I didn't have a budget for this tattoo - carte blanche. (He made it known that hagglers also annoy him, and really, why would I barter over something so eternal?) So I put down a deposit and got an appointment date for a month later. I figured this would give him plenty of time to work out something awesome that I'd have permanently etched in my skin. 2 weeks go by and I don't hear anything from him but he did contact me a few days later to reschedule another week further out because of an impromptu vacation. No problem. I'm pretty accommodating and can understand how hard it is to fit those in your timeline. Fast forward another week and I still hear nothing. So I e-mail him and he says he wont be drawing until mid-week. Now, I'm thinking "Why is he waiting so long to sketch this out when a rough idea should have been put to paper some time ago?"

Still, I'm willing to roll with it for a quality design. Finally the weekend before my Monday appointment I'm yet to hear anything and now I'm concerned especially since I have a deposit over there and zero work being done to that point. As I'm starting to panic, Sunday night he tells me that he's working on it right now but all I keep seeing are posts he's making on Facebook and the whole long episode culminates with a last minute e-mail Monday morning informing me that his wife had an emergency work session and he won't be in the shop. He asks if I want to reschedule and by that point I was over it. Went down 2 days later and got my deposit back.

For all of the talk about being a professional and a dedicated artist it all wound up being just a gust of hot air rhetoric and I can see why he hates other tattooists - because they get the job done. When pressed with a challenging new idea for a tattoo he wilted like a flower in the desert and couldn't come through. If you're in the market for a skull, koi fish, flowers, kanji, or some other generic popular tattoo trend then he may be your guy, if you can even budge him to actually do the work, but don't press his boundaries at all because this guy is no Ink Master.

That being said, the work he actually does do looks of excellent quality and the shop is very sanitary. After my adventure at To The Point I talked to some other friends of mine and it turns out that other people have gone through the same run around over there. Lesson learned, you have to ask your friends about specific places if they haven't been mentioned and driving away clients, no matter how good you think you are, is no way to run a profitable business model long term. I think I'm going to check out a couple of those tattoo parlors that he hates now like Lark Tattoo and Dead Presidents Lounge. See ya!