Colombia.... such a great place. Totally stereotyped as dangerous, thanks to their drug cartels from years ago, ruled by "El Patron" - Pablo Escobar . There are still guerillas in the mountains and at night you can see the lights of camps inhabited by families which have been displaced by these guerillas. There are tons stories about kidnappings and the muggings in the major cities. Well, we didn't have any problems. The climate in this town was perfect... mid 70's to 80 degrees every day and a really good tattoo scene. Our friend Edward organized a few seminars in his town. With the help of Tato the owner of the Tattoo Shop / Bar where the seminar was held.
The participants in the tattoo machine seminar were great. Probably the fastest learning class we have ever taught. They were really enthusiastic and eager to learn. It seems that in other countries apart from the USA and CANADA, that people are actually interested in bettering their career, bettering their abilities and furthering their education in order to better their trade. Here in North America, the egos are so big that no tattoo artists wants to admit that they "don't know". They don't see that we must educate ourselves in order to advance!
We spent a few days there in Colombia with Edward. The guy is a champion...
Art, Enrico and Steve.
We flew to Chile to do a convention. Our hosts got us an apartment on the 18th floor of an apartment building. We were guests of honor. We met our friend Enrico Colombres, who is also our machine distributor in Buenos Aires Argentina. We were treated like kings... this place was deluxe. Perfect waves out front... nice beach too. The waves were good everyday and didn't drop below 5 feet! Unreal!!
Check out the boogie boarder getting ready to pull in to a tube! And the surfers getting ready to take off on the next wave!
Here are part of the organizers. The 2 patos and their friend Gerson... such cool and generous people. They bent over backwards to make sure our stay was perfect. And it was.
Our double wide booth was situated in the middle of the convention floor. We repaired like 30 machines and sold quite a few machines!
The judging in the competitions was fair. The quality of the tattoos and the judges' understanding of skill and technique resulted in a great competition!
This guy has been tattooing for a mere 2 years! This color portrait of Ozzy won him second place in the realism competition.
Tattoo conventions in other countries are amazing. Especially south of the U.S. border. The artist seem to have a mutual respect for one another! Totally unheard of in North America.
Now... come down to the shop and get tattooed!!