Today we’d like to introduce you to Jack Watts.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
My name is Jack Watts aka Tattoos for Your Enemies, I grew up in Hertfordshire, England which is just outside North West London, and I now live and tattoo in LA.
I got a lot of my early tattoos from Martin Clark at Bluebird Tattoo in Watford, England. We really got on and became friends pretty quickly. He asked me to help out at his studio one day, and that’s where the tattoo journey began. I became obsessed with tattooing during the first two years working the desk for Martin. He helped and encouraged my drawings which eventually formed into a zine with the title “Tattoos for your Enemies” the name being because the drawings were so loose that if they were to be tattoos, they would have to be on someone you didn’t like.
Martin also taught me a lot about the history of tattooing showing me videos about folk heroes like Stoney St Clair and Jack Dracula. Also listening to interviews with London tattoo legends like Big Jock.
After working the desk for 2 and a half years one afternoon, we tattooed one of my drawings on my ankle to see how it would look as a tattoo. It wasn’t that long ago, but even then the landscape of tattooing looked very different. There was only a few people doing black illustrative tattooing most inspiring to me was Duncan X and Dr Lakra. The tattoo Martin did for me looked great so he started teaching me to tattoo from there.
After working at Martins, I joined my friends at Duke St Tattoo in Essex, England. They were all into traditional tattooing, and I got a lot out of working next to all of them! I wasn’t there very long before I got offered a job at Sang Bleu by my friends Sarah Schor and Frank Carter. This was an incredible opportunity; the studio owned by Maxime Buchi was a hive of creativity and inspiration! Every single artist in there was highly skilled so as a very new tattooist, it made me up my game very fast.
I stayed there for around 7/8 years, I made some of my closest friends, and developed into the tattooist I am today. During that time I met my amazing wife Rosie, she was tattooing at her own studio in Leeds at the time but luckily also had her eyes set on moving to America!
Maxime had opened a Sang Bleu LA so after a lengthy visa process I relocated here with my family.
I worked at Sang Bleu LA for a year, but it wasn’t quite the right fit for me. I now work at Nathan Lounge in Echo Park with Nathan Kostechko, Tanner Ramsey, Delaney Renee, and Tim Shriver. I absolutely love working there, and it’s a big part of what makes LA feel like home.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Getting the visa to move here was the biggest challenge; the timing for me was a nightmare as just as my visa got accepted and I booked my appointment at the US embassy to get the stamp on my passport so we could fly to the US Covid lockdown happened and the embassy shut for two years. During that time my three-year visa was ticking away, but I couldn’t actually leave until I had been to the embassy!
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I do traditional tattoos with a twist, the twist being that I can only draw them one way and that one way is a little bit wonky, haha. I describe my work sometimes as Folk Art; I’m pretty much self-taught as an artist mostly drawing and painting for fun most of my life. It was only when my tattoo teacher Martin began helping me understand how to draw for a tattoo that I received help. We had to study Art at school, but I never went to the lessons instead I bunked off and rode around on the back of my friend’s moped.
I feel very lucky to have a distinctive style but to be honest it’s the only way I can draw! Even when I look at references to draw from, it always ends up looking like I drew it haha.
What does success mean to you?
I think that seems to shift for me fairly often. I feel very blessed to be able to tattoo in a new place and be building clients in LA. I also feel extremely fortunate to be able to return to London twice a year and still have clients to tattoo there! I have constant goals I want to achieve and every one of those ticked off feels like success to me.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.tattoosforyourenemies.com
- Instagram:tattoosforyourenemies
Image Credits
Photograph of me at Nathans Lounge taken by Nathan Kostechko
