Ami James is a
famous tattoo artist and was born April 6th, 1972. His life didn’t
start in the United States like most of us; his started in both Israel and
Egypt. As a child he spent much of his childhood without his father who left
the family when James was four years old. (Wikipedia: “Ami James”). He also
suffered from severe ADD, “James explains that he was drawn into art and tattooing from a
young age as his father had tattoos and was also a painter” (Wikipedia: “Ami
James”). He didn’t let ADD stop him from doing what he loved he later went on
to move to the United States at the early age of 12 and moving in with his dad
parents, and then later moving down to Miami, Florida by himself, but later he thought
to himself and decided to go back to Israel and join the military and that’s
when he got his first tattoo, and that’s also when his life of being a tattoo
artist began.
The people from Miami inked interviewed James
in Israel, and asked him this, “what was your first tattoo experience”? Ami
James: When I
was 17 years old, I joined the army here, but before that, I went to get
tattooed by a guy named Avi Psycho. He wanted to take a break while he was
tattooing me and he left me in there for about 10 or 15 minutes. I just grabbed
the machine and started tattooing myself. When Avi walked back into the shop he
freaked out and started screaming and yelling. But when he looked at it he was
like, you know what? That’s not a bad job. He asked me if I wanted to finish
the whole tattoo and I said that I’d love to. That was my first glimpse. At
that point, I knew it was going to be my career. The problem was that I had to
wait until I got out of the army, and that didn’t happen until I was 20”. (Interview: “Ami
James”) They
later went on to ask him what he did when he go out and he said that he started
doing tattoos out of his house and that’s what leads me to my next
question-answer, where did he work.
“In 1992, he started his apprenticeship with
tattoo artist Lou at Tattoos By Lou Sciberras.
He now is the co-owner, with Chris
Núñez another tattoo artist of the Miami
Beach, Florida tattoo parlor Love Hate Tattoos”.
(Wikipedia: “Ami James”)
Another
question that I can answer is why doesn’t he expand his shops and what makes
him love doing art like this, He said in an interview, “If I was really fucking
greedy about money, I would’ve done it. But it’s all about opening shops and
knowing the work coming out of them is good. That’s much more important to me
right now. I could have opened 100 of them by now and been a fucking
millionaire. It’s not about that. It’s about the love of the art and tattoos”. (Interview:
“Ami James”)
Work Cited
Horaczek,
Stan. "Interview with Ami James from Miami Ink." Japanese Tattoo.
N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Apr. 2014.
"Ami
James." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 04 May 2014. Web. 10 Apr.
2014.
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