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The veteran ink slinger runs Red Handed Original when he's not designing neotraditional tattoos.

Tony Klett spent years building up a steady clientele in and around Mesa, Arizona.

He became widely known for his traditional and neotraditional tattoos and established himself as one of the top artists in the greater Phoenix area, but now Klett spends much of his time working on a secondary business to complement tattooing.

When he’s not tattooing, Klett is now busy gaining recognition for his custom chain stitch embroidered patches. As the one-man army behind Red Handed Original, the lifelong artist makes every piece by hand with machines from the medium’s heyday.

Myspace sat down with Klett to discuss the similarities between tattooing and chain stitching and whatever else came to mind. 

 

 

A photo posted by Tattoos by Tony Klett (@tek9ine) on

You’re known for your tattoos, but now you’re doing chain stitching too. What’s that been like?

It’s cool. It’s the old school chain stitching like you would’ve seen back on bowling shirts and old western wear. I’d seen some of it a while back and started trying to emulate that look by hand, but it just took an enormous amount of time. I started researching machines, and I found a few. Of the three machines that I have, the one that works best is an old machine from the ‘40s or ‘50s that I cleaned up.

What are some of the similarities and differences between tattooing and chain stitching?

I thought the work I was doing in tattooing would translate very easily into chain stitch, and I feel like there’s a lot more I can do with it the better I get at it. There are a lot of similarities. You do an outline. You fill it in. It’s all controlled by hand, so it’s not digital and can’t handle a lot of minute detail. It’s still the same rule that if you step back from it, it looks great. I try to make it look good when you’re right up on it too, but it’s really meant to be understood from afar. It’s like tattooing in that it should look good from a distance.

How do you balance your chain stitching with your tattooing?

I don’t think I’ve found the balance of it quite yet, because I’ll have tattoo stuff that I want to devote time to and I’ll feel the pull from the embroidery machine. Or I’ll have stuff I want to get stitched up, but there’ll be something I have to do for tattooing. I basically just look at my calendar and know how much time I need to leave myself when I have a tattoo coming up.

How has tattooing changed since you started in the industry?

When I did my apprenticeship, there was very little known about tattoos to the general public. There were very few shops, and it was a very guarded community. I worked in advertising for five years between my apprenticeship and when I started tattooing, and when I started tattooing was right around when the TV shows came out. Everyone wanted to be a tattooer and there were shops on every corner, the information was everywhere.

Social media has changed everything. You see so many new guys starting out, and in a year or two, they’re making amazing tattoos. Most of us struggled for 5 or 10 years just to get to the point where we were making decent tattoos, and I think it’s just the accessibility to amazing artists. When I started my apprenticeship in ’99, if you wanted to see other artists’ tattoos, you bought magazines. No offense to the magazines, but the stuff they publish is generally shit.

We thought we were making good tattoos, but we were really just making shit. Kids these days get on Instagram and they can see amazing tattoos to emulate and make amazing tattoos. If we had access to that, it would’ve been very different for a lot of us coming up.

What would you say to someone who is just getting started in tattooing?

Make sure you really love it. You’re going to give up a lot for it. If it doesn’t really matter to you, find something else to do. And be patient. Things come in their own time, and you can’t force it. You’re going to get better when you put the work in to get better. It’s not going to happen overnight. The clients will come when you put out enough good work.

Do you think there are any big misconceptions about tattooers?

People think we’re all rock stars and it’s just partying all night and sleeping all day. Really, it’s more like draw all night, draw all morning, tattoo all day and night, and then do it all over the next day. That’s not to say there isn’t time for fun amongst all of that, but if you take it seriously and want to be really good, you don’t have time to be a rock star.

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