His parents had other plans for him. They also thought of a kind of art, but it was related to cooking. Eri Grazhdani exceeded all expectations. He didn’t become a cook, but a tattoo artist. He would face the scorn of his parents, the wrinkled lips of his tribe, the stares of his neighbors and other acquaintances, but he had chosen it: he would become an artist, but of a special kind: a painter on the skin.

He started doing tattoos when he was still a child, it’s been 13 years now. Initially with fabricated tools, with fabricated electric motors and machines, in conditions of lack of colors, to grow through experience, through the advice of colleagues and online information. If once the provision of the material base was a problem, today you can provide it in all ways, just want the best and offer maximum safety and sterility.

He experimented with himself, with his friends… And there were still taboo times, while today the mentality has changed and having a tattoo does not constitute anything exceptional. Even Er’s parents, who were completely against it, now have one.

“It started as a passion and turned into a craft, a way of life”, says Eri, while in his studio, young people come and go, who want to “stamp” on their body a figure, a symbol, an initial…

“I consider it art. I never saw it as just getting a tattoo done. I always want to see further than that. This is the profession I have been looking for. There is freedom, creativity, communication with people”. That he himself is a tattooist or a lover of tattoos, this does not mean much. In addition to being dressed in black and with a long beard, both arms are covered with “drawings”, that each eye has a meaning for him. Like the number 13, which he says is his lucky number and, coincidentally or not, has guided him through life. He is a young man who has found himself exactly in this kind of art.

As in any kind of creativity, the realization of tattoos also needs imagination. According to Eri, the best thing is that every realization is an original creation, starting from an idea, from a temptation, but it cannot escape the requests for ready-made images, that they have seen somewhere on the Internet, that they have seen a ” star” of the screen or sports. “The good thing is that the tattoo is personal. The customer would have to think a little longer..”.

The requests are among the most diverse and strange. There are also “consequences” of bets, but in most cases they are related to minimalistic tattoos, thin, fine writing; there is neither “japanese style” nor “blackwork” nor “trash polka”, which offers more freedom. “The important thing is that we have removed the tribal from fashion”, he says with a laugh.

Communication with the client and patience are the secret of this profession. “It requires patience, concentration, nerves of steel, as a job can take up to 6 hours, and above all communication skills with the client, to understand what he is really looking for”.

“Repentants” often come to his studio, those who want to remove or modify old tattoos, or modify and correct mistakes made by other tattooists. “Not everyone who buys a device online can get a tattoo. I am not talking only about unfair competition, but it has not rarely happened that this has led to a serious mistake, and these cases are numerous. The people who come to me, to correct a mistake of one of these pseudo-artists, are not few”.

But the most numerous cases of penitents are those who…. write the name of the boyfriend or girlfriend.

“I always tell them not to do such a thing, because you never know. And this is a common case. Despite the fact that I show them endless cases, there are still many requests to write names or initials”.

Of course it’s an expression of love, but you better listen to Erin: engrave your lover’s name on your heart!