Stef Bastian holds a special place in today's tattoo landscape. As a tattooist, charity fundraiser, interviewer for his podcast Tattoo Tales and teacher, the Florence-born Italian talks to Inkers about all the contributions he makes to his passion for tattooing, which ultimately make his life a rich and full one.
For those who follow you on social networks, you never seem to stop. A real workaholic! Between tattooing, conventions, fundraising for charities, how do you manage to reconcile all these activities?
Well, I gotta say that in the last 10 years the balance work-life has been leaning a little too much towards the first. These days, I am re-evaluating priorities and time distribution. That being said, in Confucius’ words: ““Choose a job you love and you'll never have to work a day in your life”. In practical terms, all the activities I get involved with are complementary to each other and spark from the same core values and principles: passion and contribution. This way I can adopt a yin-yang approach. They are different enough to give me a break from each other and they are connected enough to benefit from each other.
Work is at the heart of a new mentoring activity for professional tattoo artists. How do you call it by the way, mentoring, coaching? Can you tell us about it?
More than the label that I could put on it, I focus on the why behind it. When I run assessment interviews for the possible candidates to my programs, I often get asked: “Why do you want to teach?”. I do that for two reasons, both outer and inner oriented. Looking outward, I want to contribute in forming a more competent and conscious generation of new artists. This job is more than knowing how to draw and pull a line. This is why I have classes on tattoo history, mindset and goal setting. On a more selfish scope, I love to teach because it exposes my weaknesses. If there is some concept I haven’t assimilated 100%, at some point someone will ask me exactly that. This way I can identify my flaws and work towards improving them. Bottom line, tattooing is changing and I believe today the focus is shifting more towards sharing information for the common benefit, as opposed to some more self-centered old ways.
With the availability of new digital tools and the development of new technologies, the profession seems more accessible than ever. And yet, your approach highlights other issues and difficulties, which ones?
As with many other things, a coin has always two sides. Availability of information and decentralization of power can be good, as enables to take control of your career, free from certain circles of influence. On the other hand, the value of certain practices gets diluted because that information is often handed down by someone with no experience or heart in the business. That can bring the wrong kind of motivation and, while you might develop the tecnical/marketing side, you are gonna lack a fundamental understanding of a practice that is more than just monetization and profit. Hard working ethics and a service attitude can only be developed by being exposed to people that contributed significantly before you.
Competition, versatility, communication, technical improvement, does the tattooist today have to be a "super tattooist" to exist?
That’s a bit of today’s sour spot. It seems that, under a practical point, today is not enough to do good tattoos and give a good service. You need to be a marketing guru, content creator and all of that. The quality you mentioned have always been integral part of this job, versatility first (today’s projected specialization is a bit of a misunderstanding), struggling for continuos improvement, good communication with the customer, who is ultimately the most important factor in the equation. The problem lays more on the fact that today’s market is ruled by social medias, which as we said are a great thing and a terrible one also.
What do you think about AI? Danger or opportunity for the tattoo industry?
Nobody can really predict how this will develop but its growth is by nature exponential, not linear. It can definitely pose a threat as the majority of people always look for the easiest way to get things done. That being said, I believe that, if anything, AI might make “human made” products more valuable, as there is an element that can’t be reproduced. Your art is a reflection of yourself, a byproduct of your life, and that can’t be replicated, there is only one you.
Sharing experiences is also learning from your own mistakes. Could you tell us about the ones that have been the most instructive for you?
One thing that I teach in my classes is to redesign our relationship with failure. We often identify with our mistakes and that’s what creates the problems. We are not our mistakes, that’s just a step towards a better version of ourselves, as long as we learn and implement. Like everybody I’ve made many mistakes, and that’s what shaped me. Because of those, today I’m less naive, more respectful, more grateful. The most significant perhaps are related specifically to those qualities, coming either from misjudging someone (perhaps putting them in a pedestal forgetting that like any human they have shortcomings), not behaving to my highest standards or choosing the easy way rather than the right way.
Do you have any mentors or reference figures around whom you have built yourself?
Having been on the road for 10 years, constantly moving from place to place, I drew inspiration and motivation from the many people I have crossed path with. That was ultimately the goal of so much traveling, to learn from the best. When it comes to ethical foundations, the ones I refer more to on a daily basis in life are great teachers, contemporary and from the past : Marcus Aurelius, David R. Hawkins, Tony Tobbins, the Bhagavad Gita, C.G. Jung, Viktor Frankl, Simon Sinek and many more.
All this work and intellectual activity, research, questioning, requires I imagine an iron discipline. What does a Stef Bastian day look like?
Discipline has definitely a big place in my life. By that I don’t mean some sort of military/ascetic-like mindset. As Jocko Willink says, discipline is self-love in motion. Choosing between what you want now and what you want the most. Also, and more importantly, emotional discipline. The awareness of where different emotions we experience through the day come from and cultivating the constructive ones, for ourselves and those close to us. Usually I start my day with breathing exercises, meditation and a cold shower. After breakfast and cartoons I get into the daily tasks, which I try to organize with a system designed to optimize the process. Mid-day workout, more work in the afternoon and disconnect in the late afternoon for some quality time with friends, my partner or whatever can make me happy that day. It’s all about balance.
By the way, where did tattooing start for you?
I got my first tattoo - if you could call it that - when me and my friend tattooed each other in his bathroom with China ink and a sewing needle. We were 13. At 15 I got my first tattoo made with a machine and I became obsessed. Fastforward a few years and I’m hanging out at Maurizio Fiorini’s shop, an historical Italian tattooer of the past living in my neighborhood. Those were amazing days where I would sit at the shop listening to his tales of French Legion, prison tattoos and gangsters. Soon after I started traveling to absorb everything I could, wherever I could.
After years of travelling all over the world, you finally chose to settle in Barcelona, why?
Being Italian a warmer country resonates with me. I used to live in Spain and speak Spanish, Barcelona seemed a good change from my life in Copenhagen to reconnect with an environment more familiar to my roots. It’s also a fantastic city, easy to reach for traveling customers and with lots of art, good food and good vibes.
You have a project in the pipeline, an illustration of Dante's Inferno. Can you tell us about it?
This is something I have worked on for about three years. It will be soon released by Raking Light Projects with a book and an exhibition. I wanted to connect my experience in tattooing with my own cultural heritage, that’s why I decided to illustrate one of the most important works of literature in History : The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri. It’s been an ambitious projects as I have also written about the story (in three languages) to give people the full experience in regards to what has been painted. This way you can understand better the relationship between the paintings and their cultural roots.
What is your interest in Dante Alighieri?
I am from Florence, Italy, same as Dante Alighieri. If you come from there, he is not only someone you study in school but almost one of the family. His big statue in front of my house is what I would see everyday on the way to school. Apart for the enormous respect that people in Florence have for this titan of poetry, my work connected to his poem is also a tribute to where I come from, a city of immense beauty and inspiration when it comes to art. + Stefbastian.com @stef_bastian @tattootalespodcast @stef_bastian_presents
