We caught up with the brilliant and insightful David Groth a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi David , thanks for joining us today. How did you learn to do what you do? Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process? What skills do you think were most essential? What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?

I learned to tattoo pursuing an apprenticeship as soon as I turned 18. I had traded painting a shop’s name on their wall for my first tattoo and after getting some more tattoos and picking up mural jobs close by, I gained my apprenticeship at the same studio. A few hard years of living and learning later, I was licensed in 2014. You learn a lot trying to balance being at the studio full time, while holding down another job, all while growing up in the meantime. You have to decide if you’re truly dedicated and keep your eyes on the prize, any distractions will definitely slow your growth.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

I’m a tattoo artist with a focus on custom lettering and calligraphy. These are two things that go hand in hand, but must be learned separately, then brought together in harmony.

I was born in south St. Louis in 1993.
I fell in love with hand painted signage, typography and graffiti at a very early age. My father is an artist and I remember him pulling the car over to take photos of old signs when I was a little kid. Seeing the clean, shadowed letters on signs and the wild graffiti in my city had me mind blown and eager to learn how it was done.

I became fascinated with tattoos towards the start of high school. I’d see them in magazines and think it was it crazy how they made artwork fit on the body. I was constantly getting yelled at for drawing them on myself as a kid! My older brother tattooed when I was in 9th grade and that definitely got me more interested. I knew I wanted to be a tattooer and had to make it happen.

I started tattooing professionally in 2014,
Coming up in a walk in shop, you had to learn it all. Whoever walked in the door needed to be taken care of so we tried to do a variety of things in different styles, color, and black and grey. A passion for lettering was there from the start but it was only on occasion I could tattoo it. It took over completely towards 2018 when I threw away all my colors and made the dedication to lettering.

Everyone has a phrase, or a name of someone special to them. I strive to create a piece that isn’t “just lettering”, but a piece of art with layers and depth that accent the body naturally. I try to bring the feeling of the phrase or name to life with values and styles that match it’s characteristics.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

I think when you jump into being a lettering tattooer, the idea is to “wow” people with something new. When I first started, a lot of my work was more heavily inspired by graffiti/wild style. Norm AWR was a huge inspiration and I wanted to bring together street styles into tattooing in a similar fashion.

I’n my early years of tattooing, I struggled a bit finding a balance between style and legibility. Most artists going this route have heard the classic “wow it looks pretty cool but I can’t read it.” When you hear that after putting work in on a piece, it can be kind of discouraging. However, there was truth it in.

I had to learn to jump back to basics and school myself on typography rules, and THEN apply them to a custom piece.
Diving deeper into learning more about Typography and sign writing has helped me find that balance into something that “wows” the client and viewer, but you can still read !

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

Tattoos are one of the only things you can take with you to the grave. Seeing and having tattoos from artists that have passed reminds you of the permanence, and knowing our artwork lives on through others is a crazy feeling. Having a client come in and give me creative freedom on a permanent piece of art is the biggest compliment.

Through my work I’ve been able to open my own studio, Blackletter Tattoo in my hometown of St. Louis. I’m ecstatic to have a space to share my work as well as other talented artists’ to my city
I feel blessed to be able to make a living off of the way I draw letters and it’s definitely something I’ll never take for granted.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: Www.instagram.com/thealphabetaddict
• Other: Email for info [email protected] Shop Instagram Www.instagram.com/thealphabetaddict