Apprentice Hopefuls, Beware: The Only Person Incentivized to Train Apprentices

The world of tattooing has exploded in the past 15 years, and more people than ever are vying for the coveted and scarce role of apprentice. But there are a lot of risks involved with the search for a mentor, and countless horror stories from apprentices who were suddenly dropped and left in limbo. To those of you angling for an apprenticeship, take heed:

The only person with incentive to train a new apprentice is the shop owner.

Unfortunately, as you may have guessed, that narrows the pool of potential mentors by a lot. Maybe you’ve been hoping to apprentice under someone who isn’t a shop owner; maybe you really like their style, or they seem like they’d be a good teacher. Maybe they’ve even expressed interest in apprenticing you! But that doesn’t mean they have an incentive to teach you, or even retain you as a mentee.

So why is the shop owner the only person incentivized to train apprentices? The answer is simple: non-owners can’t afford to spend countless hours out of their week—consistently, and over multiple years—providing a free education and career for another human.

Taking on an apprentice is labor-intensive.
The vast majority of tattooers qualified to take on an apprentice work full time. In order to take on an apprentice, the tattooer must carve out time from either their booking hours or their time off in order to effectively teach.

Apprenticeships are ultimately a business transaction.
This means both parties need to receive value out of the arrangement. One party exclusively giving and one party exclusively receiving is not a valid contractual agreement.

Paid apprenticeships have more or less died out.
For a multitude of reasons (I’ll get to this in another article), paid apprenticeships have almost completely died out. It’s incredibly unlikely that you will find a genuinely qualified artist who is open to being paid in exchange for an apprenticeship.

Does this mean aspiring apprentices should never seek out non-owners as mentors? No. I am advocating caution.

Protect your own interests; think about the business transaction that is taking place. The shop owner is incentivized to keep and train apprentices because it is a long-term investment in keeping their business staffed and people walking through the door. What tangible incentive does another artist have to apprentice you?