00:00.88 archpodnet Welcome to episode one thirty five of a life and ruins podcast reinvestigate the careers of those living a life in ruins I'm your hosts Carlton go and today I am joined by this week's guest Daniel Reday Daniel thank you so much for joining us can real quick. Can you please? Ah, just. Tell our listeners who you are and what you do so. 00:22.60 Daniel Riday Hi good morning. It's good to be on the show I'm a big fan of what you guys do on this podcast and glad to be ah included as a speaker. Um, so my name is Daniel Reday I'm a machine free hand poke tattoo artist. With a kind of artistic and visual focus on ancient history and paleolithic art of France and western europe. 00:46.19 archpodnet Right on man and today you're joining us from where exactly. 00:49.35 Daniel Riday Oh I live and work here in North Island New Zealand where it is currently 8 am tomorrow 00:58.85 archpodnet 8 am 8 yeah to tomorrow for me. Yeah, exactly no, it's it's super fun having and we've been talking with Daniel for months now and he was one of those guests that got unfortunately caught up in all the the ah transitions of of the podcast. But today we're. Super excited to finally have him on on the show to talk so dude how did you get hooked into so I guess let me rephrase that do you have a background in anthropology or archeology or archeology like through education or anything like that. 01:31.98 Daniel Riday Nope I have no formal education whatsoever I'm a enthusiastic layman. Ah I think um, the anthropology archeology Interest kind of comes From. You know when you really love something. You don't just love it at a surface level. You start you know, investigating like all the aspects of it and so for art in general when art became the main focus in my career and my life I wanted to know what it was like down to its roots. And so when you start digging down you start finding that you need to start engaging in anthropology and archeology to understand art and tattooing at its core. 02:18.86 archpodnet Dude, that's awesome. So you know yeah as you know you've listened to this show like this first segment is dedicated like who you are so what got you into becoming ah an artist and by extension to tattoo artist and. 02:32.48 Daniel Riday Um, every child is an artist until they're told not to be and I was just one of those ones who was never told not to be so I grew up doing art. Um, actually I was going to try to move into concept design ah for like video games because I grew up in Seattle. Like I could have biked down to the Microsoft headquarters and done that but um, that didn't seem like it would be fulfilling in the same way that I needed you know? So ah I wanted to do tattooing but my wife and I were were spending. Most of you know my twenty s going around on backpacking trips around the world and you can't really settle down into an education while you're jumping from place to place so when I when we finally settled down in Belgium. I started looking for a teacher and I got involved with a mentor. Um in Southern Holland who um, introduced me to how to start my career in this field. 03:40.00 archpodnet And what's that process like of of finding finding a teacher to for this art like how long does it take to to finally to to be led on your own ah to tattoo people and. 03:52.43 Daniel Riday Um, it varies so wildly. Um, there's no formal education I think some people are trying to start schools for it because the system is a bit old-fashioned. We have 1 mentor and 1 apprentice usually would be the deal. Um, but there's no regulation about. What that mentor needs to teach. There's no time frameme for um, how long it needs to take um the old- school guys like some of the people I know had to just wash cars for their mentor. You know, go bring the beer. Go do the something and then ah. Finally, if the mentor felt like it after 2 years of having a slave they might teach them a bit about tattooing and so um for me, my mentor didn't want to waste my time I was already in my late 20 s starting a family I had to I had to. What 4 hours trip one way to get to the studio. Um, where I would go take you know like a long walk a long train for buses and finally arrive 4 hours later and he knew that that was ah a sign of dedication enough to to um. Teach me without wasting my time washing cars or doing like menial tasks. So maybe my education was a little bit quicker because I had um maybe a little more mutual respect with my mentor. But yeah, with no formal. 05:19.73 Daniel Riday Outline or education process. It really varies wildly half a year to 6 years nobody really has any gauge on it. 05:29.64 archpodnet You gotcha. So then how did you end up on the North Island in New Zealand okay 05:36.61 Daniel Riday Um, we had done a lot of backpacking trips I'd gone through Asia twice central america um met my wife in Nicaragua and then when she and I had kind of. Finished Mexico and central America we jumped down to New Zealand for the working holiday visa and spent a year living in a van down here. So the whole country fell in love with the people and the the landscape and after living in Europe for a while and raising our kid in Brussels. Um. We decided. We'd kind of had enough of the big city and when we thought of like what would be the best place to to settle down and raise a family we decided to come back down here. Um, yeah, so now we live in a little off-grid tiny house I've got my tattoo studio out in my garden and um. 06:32.65 Daniel Riday It's all coming together. 06:35.46 archpodnet And dude that's awesome and what was it like to get a ah visa ah to live and and work in New Zealand because they know that it can be pretty strict with with people coming in. 06:45.30 Daniel Riday Yeah, we got in at a good time I think um, it was all pre-covid stuff. We've been here about 5 years or something and um, my wife is a midwife and the hospital was looking for qualified health workers. So actually her career was on a list of what was it skilled migrant shortage something like that. So she fulfilled a hospital career and now does um ceramics for for fun and for her career. 07:12.24 archpodnet Excellent and so you got a pretty good life experience traveling the globe running into people from a whole host of different cultures and backgrounds and Beliefs. How did this I Guess when did you really start looking into like paleolithic and like art and archeology in your in your career or even in your personal life and. 07:46.83 Daniel Riday Um I don't remember really when it would have started for the paleolithic fascination. Um, the the funny thing is when I wanted to make the switch so I was trained in machine tattoo in by my mentor. Um. But when I wanted to make the switch into hand poke tattooing I taught myself and a lot of the times we we will just practice tatooing on ourselves because um, you know you don't want to just ask somebody else to be a guinea pig you work on your own leg and when I was going to try it on myself I yeah. I tried to think what's an image I really want to put on there. It has to be something that really speaks to me and what's an image I want to put on there that really doesn't matter if it looks a little bit shabby because this is a first attempt at handboking after machine tattoos and I chose one of the the dear heads from the lascaux cave. France because it doesn't really matter if the lines are a little bit messed up or or something and ah when I put it on and I I had it on my leg and I looked at it and was like oh my god the art from that era really comes to life on a cave wall and on skin. Much more than it does like if you printed it out on paper and stuck it on the wall. It doesn't have its own kind of sense of life until it's on a cave wall or on a person because there's the form and the flow of the body that kind of mimics the form and flow of cave walls and that's how um, the people would. 09:21.20 Daniel Riday Select the right part of the cave wall to paint something on so it would come around 1 surface and kind of be displayed in 1 way or another and for the human body. It's a lot more like that than it would be just printed the same thing on a piece of paper flat and static. So yeah. 09:38.70 archpodnet And that's awesome man. So what kind of like hitting on that. Um, that thread that you that you mentioned what was that impetus for you to go from machine tattooing to hand poke. Yeah. 09:53.33 Daniel Riday Um, I think the hand poke was always the greater fascination but being trained in machine tattooing allowed me to live and work and support my family as a tattoo artist. So um, like I said. When you have a fascination you want to know about all of its aspects down to the down to the bones of it and um I feel like the world has quite a few machine tattoo artists. Now. It's it's becoming kind of like a a crowded superhighway. Um, rushing down towards the newest the fanciest the best and and I wanted to stop rushing and and um, kind of take a slower road to understand how tattoos can be and um, one of the huge influencing factors of that was that my teacher. Took me down to volunteer at indigenous tattoo. What was it called world culture indigenous tattoo festival in Myorca in Spain so we spent two weeks down there um getting to meet um and help out and work for and set up. A lot of indigenous tattoo. Um, cultural revivalists um people from Borneo Japan a lot of polynesian islands including New Zealand Samoa um North America um all over the place. 11:21.12 Daniel Riday And then getting to spend two weeks with with a lot of these people who are doing all of these important functions for themselves and their communities. Um, this was pretty early on when I was still an apprentice so it was hugely influential. Um in my career. And so we did two weeks in Myora helping out that one and then I went as well to tahiti when there was a follow-up event in 17 and a lot of the same people came to that so I got to spend another two weeks volunteering and and getting to know a lot of the people who are doing indigenous cultural revival. Um, more on um, a good friendly level. We were you know I was helping them out and they knew it and there was a good respect. It was a lovely way to to spend days actually speaking and telling stories and. And getting to know a lot of the people who are doing this important work while covid I think got right in the way and clogged them all up. There was 1 recently actually right here in North Island New Zealand in tauna just over the hill but I was actually away in France. 12:14.85 archpodnet So when's the next one. 12:30.88 Daniel Riday I'm not sure if ah I had even been here if I would be involved I'm not sure they needed volunteers and um and I would love to have gone over I have a lot of friends who are participating but it's something I've been kind of um. Wondering about my place in in the world of of um tattoo Revival If if European historical art and tattoo revival counts and I don't know I've been struggling to to find. Yeah, my place in that world or in that community. 13:03.52 archpodnet Got you is there a indigenous art style that you find that you're particularly more fond of than others or do you all you do just like all of them differently for different reasons. 13:15.38 Daniel Riday Um, differently for different reasons I got invited over to um to Sarawak and borneo by men named Jeremy who's who's kind of a driving force behind their tattoo revival. Um I had a great time over there. Jeremy was introducing me around and I got to meet a lot of the guys who are doing their their spearheading their tattoo revival and um for the iban people when they're when they're um. Communities get affected by palm oil plantations and the people need to ah they get kind of forced into selling their land and then once it's sold it becomes plantations. The people have to go live in the city. Um, he was saying that a lot of the time their population gets a bit homogenized with a greater. Malaysian population and that it's just the tattoos that would be the identifying marker for who their people were and to not get lost among all the other um ethnicities in the city. It's really important for them to wear their tattoos and. 14:27.87 Daniel Riday So like he was saying that everyone who wears one helps them not get lost. Well I've got my throat done my shoulders done with their tattoos because they were like gifts from the people who um, want the world to remember that they exist kind of. So those ones always spoke to me I had saved these spots specifically in the hopes that it could happen and that now having made friends who are part of that that revival and um, doing really important work I feel really personally connected. They have an upcoming tattoo convention that I'm trying to. Really hard trying to save money for so I can fly back to to Sarawak in February and and be engaged in that one that'd be pretty fun. It's a hard question to answer if there's a lot of good art out there. 15:18.98 archpodnet Absolutely and so are do you strictly? just do hand poke now and in your shop How many oaks come to you for for tattoos. 15:24.66 Daniel Riday Um, yeah. 15:29.20 Daniel Riday um um I work four days a week now I I think I'm doing yeah for 4 medium to large tatooos a week I've been doing a lot of. 15:47.20 Daniel Riday We would call like I guess norse historical lately. My main interest is is paleolithic art but I'm having fun just doing big dragons and telling you know, viking sagas and myths and in in art and so I spent now. Probably 3 years only only hand poke there was a transitional phase but I think I've been tatooing for about 8 years um when I stopped machine tattooing I just stopped I put the machines down and I haven't touched them since I knew it just was the right move. 16:12.13 archpodnet Yeah. 16:23.32 archpodnet Okay, and is it. You know this is I've never got ah a hand poke I still have a sleeve to finish. But ah yeah I know it's I need been need to finish it for quite some time now. It makes a little bit difficult when you move across the country away from your artist. Um, yeah. 16:26.68 Daniel Riday Um I see that. 16:37.77 Daniel Riday Yep. 16:40.23 archpodnet Um, is it. Can you do color tattoos with with hand poke. Yeah. 16:44.21 Daniel Riday Um, yeah, um, where you're still using um, modern tattoo Ink Modern tattoo ink just goes into the skin it stays there. It's ah it's pretty easy I've tried some ink making it's one of the things that when I have a little more time I'll I'll try to really. 16:54.75 archpodnet Right. 17:04.40 Daniel Riday Focus on but it's ah it's not as easy as it would seem and I've had mixed results in the few that I've tried in myself with with homemadeating. Um, there's some debates going on about. Um. Ochre being used in in ink you know there's some sarmation tool kits that have ochre pigments that are I would say they seem quite definitively tattooing tool kits in the in the graves they found over in the sarmation burial site Philip Wafka um and I've never seen any modern tattoos that have been made with color ink um from natural pigments. Um, like that I mean like really natural pigments in their raw form. But I'm pretty curious about that. So I might start doing some some research in that regard as well. 17:55.47 archpodnet Gotcha why man? well all right? Everyone we're gonna go ahead and take a break. We'll be right back? Um, for episode one thirty five after these messages.