We recently connected with Rob Vintage and have shared our conversation below.

Rob, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Do you wish you had waited to pursue your creative career or do you wish you had started sooner?

While it sounds nice to go back in time and start sooner, I’m glad that I had my late start in the arts. I started in my late twenties. I had spent most of that time working in the military and life insurance industry after my service. I learned a lot about myself but I wasn’t in the best place mentally at that time though, being in a war changes you. Leaving the military it was a rough few years trying to figure out my niche and what I wanted to pursue long term, that’s how I found my tattoo career. Starting sooner would have meant less time fumbling around different jobs and questioning where I fit in this life and more time spent honing my art skills. I have been an artist all my life but I let my family convince me that it wasn’t a viable career choice. It wasn’t until I was 27 that I took the plunge and gambled on starting an art career. Starting sooner would have meant getting established in the arts much earlier in my career. However, I don’t know if I would have had the same discipline and drive I have now. So many things come to mind about how my experiences would have molded me but I ultimately am grateful to have started later.

Rob, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I’ve always been artistically inclined but I was always discouraged from pursuing an art career when I was younger. I came into tattooing after having established a relationship with my tattoo artist. I was constantly at the shop drawing while they were working or in general helping out so that I’m not just taking up space there and wearing out my welcome. I was doing this for a couple of years in my spare time when I wasn’t getting tattooed or working. I was having a hard time finding steady work and when I did find it, it wasn’t paying enough. After hearing that I was turned down for a promotion at my job, my tattoo artist offered me an apprenticeship to learn how to tattoo. Since then I’ve honed my art skills to develop myself in the tattoo industry as a voice for emotional healing and transformative tattooing. I believe there’s a deeper transformative connection between our physical and spiritual selves when you get a tattoo and my job is to help cultivate an experience that will guide my clients to face themselves in a new light, foster better mental health, and love the way they look with their new ink. If there’s one thing I’m proud of, it’s that. I’m proud of being able to make my clients feel seen through my body of work.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

If I had to sum it up in one word it’s healing. I live for the tattoos that have a transformative impact on my clients and their lives. Whether it’s a coverup, or just a big tattoo that they wanted, the process of tattooing is a cathartic experience that for many can lead to a form of ego death and transformation that helps usher in a new era of you into being.

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

I think teaching more about media literacy is important but also giving the arts their due respect and appreciation. I see a world that doesn’t understand the necessity of being media literate when we use the arts, whether visual or performative, to create commentary about the world around us. And not being able to understand the arts can negatively affect future generations. I think that in teaching media literacy we can help young artists learn how to use their talents to make their voices not just heard but understood by the world around them.