Get Inked in Kemp Town by Inka

The words elegant and stylish aren’t usually found together when describing a tattoo parlour but the first thing you notice when you enter Inka studio is how beautiful your surroundings are.

No darkened corner of a small Indie shop here, where you push past Goth-style clothes, pentagrams and various plastic skulls and medallions, deafened by some discordant obligatory heavy metal ‘music’ and suffocated by cloying incense to get to a small room where the tattoo artist plies his trade. Although Barbara Allen, the artist I have come to see, has worked in a place like that.

From the start it is clear that you are to be put at ease and made comfortable. From the welcoming large leather sofas to the big white Buddha figurine, the large plants and the jade elephant that graces the front window.

I am told to go downstairs enter the room on the left. There I meet the lady herself who is just finishing some work on a client’s back. For an artist with such huge talent Barb, as she is known, is petite, unassuming and welcoming.

When I comment on how lovely the studio is Barb says from the start she wanted it to be a friendly relaxing place. And that is exactly how it is. While the studio is quite an achievement, Barb has worked hard to get where she is.

I ask how she got started in tattooing. I know from her website she studied art for seven years before she began tattooing. “Oh it was over a period of time not seven years consecutively,” Barb explains. “I didn’t have the best start.”

Barb studied art on and off between working over a seven year period. She got a BTEC at Stevenage Art College then went back and did a foundation Art A-level, then later an HND in wildlife illustration in Llandeilo in Camarthen, Wales.

From childhood she knew she wanted to be a tattoo artist. Barb says: “It was my dream, even at school.” She was inspired in the 70s by punks “I thought they were cool.”

However her teacher told her to “get her head out of the clouds and get a real job”. So she tried. She went for interviews as a graphic designer, but Barb knew her calling: “I always knew I was more of an illustrator.”

It is clear there are many influences in Barb’s work as her range is impressive. “I studied textiles, and I like Tibetan artwork, Japanese art and traditional tribal stuff.”

There’s a tattoo I admire of a lady that looks like Native American Indian, which Barb says was actually from a picture of one of the other tattoo artists but she added leaves to it. That’s the thing you’ll notice about the studio – the creativity. This isn’t just your average skull and crossbones place.

“Oh we do have them,” laughs Barb, indicating a range of skulls on the shelves in the room. I ask Barb why skulls seem to feature so much with tattoos and tattoo artists.

“I think skulls are popular for lots of reasons, the dark side of life. Life is change, it's the house of the soul. They feature so often in human history: Mexican sugar skulls, Tibetan skulls, horror skulls, realistic skulls, mystical skulls, Wicca or Celtic skulls.”

There’s a lot more to this art than I understood. I am impressed and promise myself to look up more about these. I ask Barb if she has any advice for young up and coming artists. She recommends: “Definitely do an art degree. Don’t just come in when you’re 14 and say you want to be a tattoo artist. I recommend they go to college. There’s a lot they teach you. I think you get a wider experience and learn colour theory, perspective.”

Clearly Barb is a good example of her own philosophy, with a remarkable ability to be able to draw a wide range of art: from different wildlife to Native American art to Renaissance Italian saints in black and grey to colourful Japanese art. In fact you can see plenty of styles throughout the studio amongst all the artists there, who have all had training from Barb.

I asked what you would need to get started as a tattoo artist.

Barb indicated a machine that she said cost around £200 and said there are cheaper ones but she didn’t recommend anyone buy the cheap stuff. “Buy the best you can afford, the cheaper stuff isn’t worth it.”

Barb said it cost about £1000 to have a basic start up kit including what she called an autoclave, which looks like a large music speaker but is actually a very big sterilizing unit. Judging from the size of it, it is clear hygiene and care is given great importance here.

(In fact on the Inka website there is a whole page dedicated to aftercare advising how to look after your tattoos once you’ve got them and how to take care of your skin.)

Barb said: “That was one of the first things I bought when starting out. I bought a kit and practiced on myself and my boyfriend.”

“My first tattoo on myself was on my calf muscle, just a simple tribal design that I could line inside and black in afterwards.” Barb said she was grateful to a friend, Adam Dutton, who gave her help and advice, and helped to “smooth the edges” and tighten up her style in the early days. He was unable to take her on as he did not have a studio at the time, but later did move to Derby where he subsequently set up the successful ‘Tradition 180’ studio.

Then she tried, as many do, to get an apprenticeship. She said she paid £5000 for the privilege. “I really got ripped off,” said Barb. “He kept the money and sacked me.”

Sadly she was one of many who had similar experiences. Barb said when she started out 15 years ago there weren’t many women in tattooing. “It was a bit of a closed shop,” she said, “and people took advantage of that.”

I asked if she knew of other women who had experienced the same kind of things. She confirmed that she knew of other women who had been promised apprenticeships, and also had their money taken and been sacked.

Her second job wasn’t much better. After a few years in London Barb decided to move south to the coast, where, in a clothes shop, a man was renting out a room where the tattooist could practice. The man propositioned Barb but got a bit nasty when she wasn’t interested.

“Back in those days,” said Barb, “everywhere you tried to get work people were coming on to you or trying to rip you off.”

So she decided she needed her own place and in 2000 opened her first shop on George Street in Brighton where she remained for seven years. “But I got to thinking,” said Barb, “Do I want to be in a tiny side street all my life.”

So in 2007 she took the plunge and opened a studio with a friend and her step-son, who she taught to draw and tattoo (where she is now based at St James Street, Brighton).

Initially, she said, she just had one shop then she was able to expand and also acquire the one next to it. The friend and step-son eventually moved on but other artists wanted to work with her and the studio developed from there.

“I’ve never had to advertise,” says Barb. It’s not hard to see why. Her work is her calling card. That is how I myself found her. When I decided I wanted to write a feature on a tattoo artist, I looked at all the websites I could find of tattoo artists within a certain geographical area, but what caught my eye this website was different. No flash screens that take ages to load up, just a simply stylish presentation of a wide range of beautifully drawn artwork. Easy to access and clearly displayed.

And it struck me that the entrance to the studio looked nice. The first room you see when you go in. Like somewhere you would go for beauty treatment, which in some ways it is. Putting beautiful artwork on your body. And it is – the details both in colour work and black and white are really striking. It didn’t surprise me when Barb said she had trained her artists since the attention to detail is really noticeable in the body of work you see in the studio. That is what made me want to come and see who had created all this.

I asked Barb in the light of her earlier years when she had had bad experiences with tattoo artists were there places that would take trainees without charging them huge fees.

“There are places that will train you for free,” said Barb, “You can help in other ways. Work on the desk at the front of the shop and work your way up.”

So now she is well established does Barb go to tattoo conferences?

“For two years we did, but it got too crowded. They sold too many tickets and there were too many people. They need a bigger venue than the racecourse, like the Brighton Centre.”

I asked if she has any favourite artists or people she admires. “Lots,” says Barb. Though she did name check particularly John Dix from Barcelona, Rinzing, and Mike The Athens.

I asked how she keeps the creativity going as it must be hard running a studio which is open every day, to get time off to see what other people are doing.

“We have guest artists here,” says Barb. Indeed, Adam Dutton, her former mentor in her earlier years returned as a guest in 2010. Barb also said she and the tattoo artists on site had meetings to brainstorm and generate creative ideas.

I wondered whether Barb had considered making prints of her work that people could buy even apart from having a lasting tattoo on the body, as I felt some of her drawings would be nice on the wall in their own right. “We do sell some wildlife prints,” said Barb. (In fact some of the drawings are framed on the stairs you can see them as you go down to the tattoo studios).

Well I had to ask the big question: Does it hurt?

“It depends,” said Barb. “Some parts of the body are more sensitive and it also depends on the individual. It doesn’t bother some people. It’s like when you have a rough massage, you feel it but you know it’s doing you good.”

The lady having her back tattooed by Johnny looks quite relaxed. She nods her agreement with Barb’s massage example. She’s not a first timer, sporting a few other tattoos on her arms, and assures me, “It’s pretty much ok.”

It’s time to leave and as I make my way out I observe again how comfortable the studio is, warmly lit upstairs with the Buddha calmly presiding over the Eastern style room with the leather sofas and brickwork and the elephant trunk appears to wave from the window. However you came in I think you would feel relaxed and content when you left. If you want to pay Inka Studios a visit have a look at the website. If I ever get a tattoo done I will know where to come.

http://www.inkatattoos.co.uk/studio/0/10

(After this interview I found Barb has helped other tattooists like James Robinson (Featured in Skin Deep 173, June, 2009) to get started. It’s definitely a sign of greatness when you’re not threatened by others’ talent but confident in your own!)