Page 20 - Trending Magazine 2017 Winter

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“A paper is stagnant, it doesn’t move. When you’re
working on a living thing — something that breathes,
something that reacts — it’s a huge learning curve,”
Gammack said. “Just because you can draw, doesn’t
mean you can tattoo.”
With hard work and determination, Gammack has
been tattooing now for nearlys three years.
The challenge of the trade, and the ever-growing
talent in the community, is the reason Gammack still
loves what he does.
“All these tattoo shows on television have upped
everyone’s game and upped everyone’s creativity.
Tattooing has become so popular that it allows people
to be much more creative,” Gammack said. “I love the
challenge of it. People come in with good ideas all the
time … and basically you’re taking their ideas and
making them your own. My goal is to try and make it
better than they thought, better then they hoped for.
You’re constantly improving and striving to be better.”
With Brandon being as small as it is, tattooing has
become somewhat of a competitive field, Gammack
said, which is a good thing.

Kristen Shaw shows her finished tattoo created by
There’s so much variety to tattoo artist Eric Gammack at Adam's Body Art Tattoo
every artist in Brandon, and Piercings.
and there’s so many The colourful tattoo on the side of her torso took close
amazing artists here. to two hours to create.

The tattoo artists at Blood and Iron Tattoo tend to
agree.
“The amount of talent in the industry now is amazing,”
said tattoo artist Lee Elvers. “You think you have a
good day, and then you look at something someone
else has done and you’re like, ‘well, I suck. Time to
sharpen the pencil’ … You just have to keep trying to
outdo yourself.”
“Every time I turn around there’s someone doing
something you’ve never seen before,” added tattoo
artist Scott Oldenburger.
Elvers and Oldenburger have both been in the tattoo
business for approximately 16 years, with their fellow
artist, TJ VanStone joining the team a little more than
three years ago.
A lot has changed in 16 years, Elvers said.
“People who would have never gotten tattooed when
we first started are now coming in,” Oldenburger said.
“We see a wide range of people.”
“From kids to seniors; cops to criminals, basically,”
Elvers added.

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