Blogging my journey as a Tebori Tattoo Artist in the USA

Tebori has been around since the 1600’s in Japan & is a traditional handpoke method used way before machines were a thing. To make a traditional Tebori tattoo, it involves a few parts; the Nomi, essentially a stick, traditionally made with bamboo, hand made needles that are sterilized and freshly ground sumi ink.

For me, here in the United States, this is an enigma shrouded in mystery & I think I cracked the davinci code…

After going to the library with my lovely girlfriend and spending countless hours researching online, through books, and translating Japanese works, I have come to the conclusion that I’m probably not going to find a proper apprenticeship near Chicago, but then again, I never apprenticed to become a tattoo artist to begin with. So this is my journey :)

Hi my name is Arturo, I have been professionally tattooing for 5 years & for the last few months I have been obsessing over this old way of tattooing, this method is known as tebori.

If you’re interested, I will be posting about my journey as a Tebori tattoo artist much more frequently here on this blog.

For much of what I will be posting, even though I’m going the non-traditional route, I will continue to honor what the great “hori” before me have done by choosing to maintain respect to the craft and Japanese culture.