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For the first 4 or 5 years of my tattoo career was a real struggle.

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I was living off of bread and margarine sandwiches,

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and I'd skip meals even then,

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it was really tough gaining a clientele when you're that young.

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Sometimes I'd lie to people about my age,

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because people won't trust a teenager,

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and rightfully so, who would trust a teenager?

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But you just gotta tough through it

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and it makes you develop a thick skin

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which you really need to be a tattoo artist.

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And I think that's what you really need to be an artist in Vancouver as well.

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You really need to be like aggressive in a way,

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but yknow, but really able to make connections with your peers and take advantage of that.

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There's a negative stigma attached to commercial art,

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especially when it comes to other artists.

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Like if you're doing commercial art, you're "working for the man"

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or you're subscribing your art to the average person's tastes or something.

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So... I don't know, I don't really consider that part of my practice at all.

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I just do what I like to do,

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but I mean tattoos inherently involve other people's skin and ideas,

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and so I kind of have to work with that.

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Um, my painting is just like more of an outlet for me,

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and it helps that I am able to do gallery shows and other people are interested in it,

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but it's just this more of a personal practice,

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and it's just a little bit more, um, selfish, I guess.

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In a good way.

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Working as a tattoo artist has both negatively and positively affected my painting career,

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and vice versa as well.

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I mean, people will see my paintings

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and they'll try to incorporate that kind of imagery into their tattoo,

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which is really awesome cause you get this fusion of these two styles which don't traditionally go together.

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And I think it's really pushing the boundaries of both illustration and tattoos.

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But on the other hand, both practices are so time consuming,

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and there's only 24 hours in a day,

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and I don't sleep,

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and ...I'm really tired at the end of the day,

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but it's worth it.

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That's what I keep telling myself at least.

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The illustrator's life!

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I feel like a lot of my friends in school

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will have this idea that you can just go through a school system,

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or you could just complete a degree

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and then you're magically imbued with the abilities to be a professional artist.

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But you have to have like a drive inside of you,

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you really have to be able to, like I said,

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aggressively kind of push your work out there,

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but without stepping on your friends,

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and just yknow making connections with people, and using that to your advantage.

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Yknow, it's great to have shows, it's great to have galleries on your side, and gallery managers,

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but at the end of the day, when it comes to help,

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your fellow artists are really the people who you can rely on,

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and the people who are gonna help you promote your work,

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and you can stand on each others shoulders and go to each other for advice.

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So establishing a network of friends who are artists is essential for any artist working anywhere.

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I'm a hella introvert

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and I'm scared of people

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and yknow, like I said,

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if I had it my way, I'd just sit in here all day and watch movies,

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but I can't, this is my practice,

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and just have to suck it up

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and give 'er!

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Yknow? Jump into it,

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like I said you have to have a thick skin to be an artist.

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Hello, my name is Nomi Chi and I'm a tattoo artist and I'm an illustrator. [website: nomi-chi.com]