THE RAD APARTMENT W/ MARK PRATA ‘TORONTO INK’

The métier of being a chapter illustrator in a humans anthology. To be an instant workmanship machine of virtuosity, the bona fide and vision takes a certain individual to capture all 3 and while not forcing nature. Call this individual the therapist of ink. We spoke to Mark Prata, a man that covers all of those bases to speak on his journey to the chair.

To start off, what was your voyage to becoming a tattoo artist and was that your mojo from day one, since I did read you were a former pro-BMX Rider? Yeah, I used to ride professional BMX, my uncle was a tattoo artist so I have been around it since I was a little kid. With my allowance, I used to pick up bubble gum tattoos and stick them all over my body. But tattoos and bikes kind of go hand and hand, as I got older I wanted to be full of tattoos. I broke quite a few bones in freestyle BMX. So on my downtime, I would hang around a local tattoo shop, draw, help out and clean up. As I got a bit older, I realized that a rad BMX career wouldn’t be in my future. So I took my drive and motivation to push towards my love for art and pursue tattooing career. Like most jobs, learning that particular craft is drilled by college, or university and there are multiple classes to teach you how to ‘draw, sketch’ do you believe this craft is a gift, that is self-taught or over a period of time that can be developed? I believe that it’s defiantly not a gift, with hard work and determination it can be self-taught. My drawing skills were good but they weren’t excellent. I did take courses to get better, I drew constantly, speaking of which I would choose to go to Jack Astor’s as my favorite restaurant because you could draw on the tables. Always pushing myself into getting better, identifying my weaknesses and working and pushing myself to improve my skill level in both drawing and tattooing. I always have had trouble drawing hands, I would draw hands whenever I could, I would look at my own hands, other peoples hands and try to draw them over and over. The problem with some people learning and getting into the industry is that they develop an ego and it gets to their head, I have seen this so many times. Thinking they know everything and can’t admit to themselves they have a certain issue/weaknesses in an areas of drawing or tattooing. They will only hurt there career and get stuck in their way which will make it very hard to get better.

Touching on practice and the progression through tattooing and drawing. When doing something unique that stands out everyone has their signature touch, is there something you particularly specialize in or is your fatherland look? I specialize in a style of tattooing you would call “New School” . It’s kind of a cross between realism and cartoons. It’s like illustrative drawing but with some realistic features to it and dramatic lighting. That’s my favorite style, I do come from a bit of a graffiti background so that does inspire this style. When I learned to tattoo, my boss said: “don’t limit yourself to one style”. So worked hard adapted to all styles and do my best to tattoo anything someone throws at me. Which is the best way to do it I believe? It’s okay to have your favorite style or art but it’s awesome to be well-rounded there is no loss in being able to tattoo a cartoon bunny or a rad portrait of someones loved one. This just makes every day interesting and pushes me. There can still be some misconceptions with those that have ink. Why do you believe ink has been an eye-roller to potential employers? and maybe some comforting words to someone contemplating getting something meaningful but fearful? I think things have changed a lot in the last 16 years. I would say maybe in the last 5 years or so people getting ink are not so worried about where on their bodies to get there ink or what other people are thinking. I do think to do your neck, your hands or your face is still on that borderline or “job stoppers” I call it. but I have tattooed CEO’s, doctors and even tattooed a surgeon once. These are extremely professional people getting tattoos on their forearms, chests backs and even full sleeves. I don’t think tattoo “image” is affecting the workplace so much anymore but definitely something that discriminates other people wouldn’t fly.

Now, that we know your thoughts on the outside field. Give us the rundown on the good and the not so good of the tattoo industry to a person reading this that is looking to entering this field? The best part of the tattoo industry you get to do what you love every day and meet awesome new people all the time. You’re not going to be a fan of every person, but you learn to develop ways to deal with handling some difficult clients, to try to please them and make them happy and shut the ego down, it’s important to remember what might not be important to you could be extremely important to someone else. The bad side of tattooing it is that with social media being so big now, you have to be on you’re a game constantly. It’s not fully a bad thing, but a few years ago if I was doing a tattoo that I wasn’t unsure of I would try my best and let the client know that this is new to me but I will try and smash it out of the park, if they weren’t satisfied the tattoo would be on the house. But now, I wouldn’t even touch the tattoo I was unsure about because if a photo had circulated up on social media and wasn’t to the standard of work I would do normally, this could destroy your name very easily. The other thing is that your presence outside of the industry. You have to be on your (A) game always. When you’re more of a known artist and go out for dinner locally with your family, it’s often your recognized as the “tattoo guy” and it spreads fast, you could be talking tattoos for an hour with the server or a few people at another table. It is not always fun because you just want to enjoy dinner with your kids and my wife. But at the same time, you have to promote your business and your self. So you listen to them, get involved, share ideas and give a business card. Sometimes this works great and you get to do an amazing piece but lots of times you just listened to someone’s ideas for an hour and you will never see them its all part of the industry. But I wouldn’t change it for the world. Has there been that 1 or few rememberable clients or experiences that sticks with you that keeps that thought of, “this is the reason I opened Toronto Ink”? I really enjoy working with memorial tattoos, I love the deep meaning and thought behind them. Thankfully, I haven’t lost many people in my family. But there is just a certain power with memorial tattoos. I think people are more creative nowadays than just “rest in peace” or ‘Mom’ with a heart. People are getting portraits and meaningful collage tattoos, which are becoming more and more popular. I just did a piece on this awesome woman of cartoon drawings that this woman’s brother did before he passed away at 10 years old. She took his sketchbook to me and we revised them but still kept the same idea. We created a whole half sleeve of it of a collage of these cartoons and made a story on her arm. Nobody would ever know it’s a memorial tattoo. She’s not the only one to do this, there are many people to get hidden meaning in a tattoo. It’s just this power with memorial tattoos that just feels like to doing something really right. As for clients, I have made some great friends over the last 10-12 years. I have met some pretty amazing people.

Toronto Ink and yourself has become so successful ( seen on MTV etc) What is your definition or what we like to say ingredients to Toronto Ink that makes you stand out? I don’t know how other places work but one of the biggest things with Toronto Ink is we really care about the people. As far as artists go everybody says their studio is like a family. But by the time we start tattooing we are not socializing with each other. We do our best to help each other but we really *really* care about the client. We do a lot of work outside of tattooing to help the community and city where we donate a lot to charity, local schools and BMX tracks with gift cards, and tattoo raffles. We were able to raise $1,300 with tattoo giveaway recently in a charity raffle. We are constantly giving back and I think that shows. 1. the way we portray ourselves and 2. our karma points are raised. When we are dealing with people we don’t fluff anyone off unless we feel the design won’t work well as a tattoo. When it comes to a small little tattoo or a back piece. We care about doing the same job for someone paying $100 or $3,000. As an artist, in your life do you have any influences to create an ink piece that you haven’t done yet in the future such as music or Monet? That changes every day! You always want to do something different all of the time. There are times where I dream I would love to do a tattoo like something I saw. To be honest, I will go through a week like Christmas holidays, I will start painting and want to put more effort into doing that next year but that’s not going to pay my bills, I need to do tattoos! One day I want to do a mandala, the next I want to tattoo cartoons or portraits, it’s so sporadic. Sometimes we can gear our client’s ideas to what we would like to draw them. But it’s important to do what the client wants. I have seen it so many times and it’s not worth upsetting people over your personal gain.

The last but the most self-digging question you need to answer. If someone were to ink a portrait of you, what colors/ink would represent you? It would have to be very dramatic! Very lit up. I have many faces. You would start with your dark tones, like blacks and blues in the back. Then your energy colors like your reds, yellows, and greens in the front. A very multi-colored portrait.

A massive permanent ‘thank you’ to Mark Prata for letting us visit his locus away from home. From personal experience dealing with tattoo artists myself and even piercers, I don’t think I have ever felt so comfortable in a shop, the comfortability starts from the welcome at the door and I wasn’t even getting a piece done. You can tell Mark Prata’s heart is for sure inked on his sleeve. To view Mark Prata’s incredible portfolio and keep up with Toronto Ink you can use this link HERE  Or @markprata on Instagram