‘Kedai Tato Bahagia’: Inked with Happiness, an Interview with Mr. Charlie Chris Evan

Interview

‘Kedai Tato Bahagia’: Inked with Happiness,

an Interview with Mr. Charlie Chris Evan

“Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.” -Confucius

Photo by: Patricia Emanuelle

‘Kedai Tato Bahagia’ is a private tattoo studio located in Kebayoran Lama, South Jakarta and have been well-known for their unique and conceptual designs rooted from Japanese & American tattoo styles made by Mr. Charlie Chris Evans; one out of two brains who have run this business since 2013 and never stop giving away people happiness with their ink masterpieces ever since.

When did you start tattooing? Since when you are interested in tattoo? How did you start tattooing?

I started making tattoos in 2004, when I was still in high school and in a street punk community, I made tattoos for them. I haven’t got myself tattoos yet at that time. The machine was self-made, not a proper one, it was actually not safe at all and not try-able. I was curious about the medium of human skin, because I used to draw only on paper. In 2005, I stopped drawing because I was entering law school. In 2012, I got a job in a law firm and wasn’t thinking about starting a tattoo business at all. I don’t feel comfortable and I quitted. I met my partner, Ms. Kartika Yahya (Ms. Tika) who reminded me of my true passion since I was high school; being a tattoo artist. So we started together and prepare everything necessary starting from the business, concept, and equipments to make ‘Kedai Tato Bahagia’ in 2013.

How do you manage your time to make something you are passionate about become your profession?

Managing time is actually easy and hard at the same time. Since we are entrepreneurs, that means we are the boss and the employees of ourselves. For me, personally, we have to manage our self, decide when we are going to work on the concept, make a list and timeline of each of our works. If we want to keep moving forward, we have to set our goals, to write down and mapped our vision and mission. It helps.

Why are you interested in tattooing? Why do you made this as your profession?

Firstly, I’m happy and in love with the process of drawing on paper. It’s such a relaxing thing for me to do. I feel happy (‘bahagia’) when I can challenge myself with exploring other media in drawing, such as human skin. I feel challenged to draw on human skin, in this process is a tattoo. I also like to meet new people and learn something new from them, anything new regardless if it’s positive or negative. That makes me feel ‘completed’ because we can see and hear people’s perspective, characteristics, and attitude against others. This job made me learned a lot of things and keep making art, at least when I die later, I’ll have permanently memorable pieces that people know: it was my work. That saying, “Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life” is actually true.

Photo by: Patricia Emanuelle

What is the history behind the name ‘Kedai Tato Bahagia’?

We come up with that name since we’ve always felt happy (‘bahagia’) and think about happy things when we tattooed. Tattooing itself, making concepts, brainstorming is a relaxing process for us. It’s all about our happy feeling when we celebrate the perspective against the client’s body and the artists’ body themselves.

What is your motivation? What are the challenges you’ve faced?

My motivation is to keep exploring. Always digging what’s happening in my surroundings, always be critical to everything. I’ve faced challenges from internal such as family, maybe the way they see my profession as a tattoo artist is still not matched with their perspective about tattoo itself. Because they grew in a different time than us now. But until now on, they already gave me enough support for doing my job. Challenges of the society is probably as the same as the struggles that graphic designers faced; underestimating art workers, fees, and the lack of respect against art workers. It’s too actually our ‘homework’ to educate other people about our job, work, etc. My partner, Tika is really supportive since we’re also a teamwork and often brainstormed together for out of the box concepts, solutions, and it’s very much interesting. The challenge, including to keep to supporting each other throughout the whole time.

Photo by: Patricia Emanuelle

What do you think about tattoos in Indonesia (tattooed people, tattoo artists & the culture itself)?

It’s growing nowadays, and it’s going to a better future too, hopefully. There are a lot of tattoo events to introduce the tattoo culture to the society, to educate other people, erasing stereotypes from the past. It’s now more acceptable in the society. For me, personally, I don’t really fancy being in a community. In a tattoo community, I feel like I’m losing my personal identity, it’s like being labeled by its own community. I’m much more comfortable and focused on my own, even the fact is I’m not ‘alone’ since I’m partnering with Tika.

How do you picture the future of tattoo business in Indonesia?

About the business, I don’t really mind much, since it’s now growing to be better; a lot of tattoo artists showed up, the stereotypes are gradually erased and such. If we keep wasting time thinking about the future, we’ll eventually lose our focus on working something that is going on right now. Well, the future isn’t written down anyway, it’s not really imaginable too. If we look from the business perspective, the tattoo culture/scene will grow a lot. Tattoo isn’t always about the business, the money. It’s also about our respect to customer’s body, our body too. In Kedai Tato Bahagia, it’s not about ‘you come here with money and come home with tattoo’, not just about that. It’s all about respect to each other’s body, way more than the ‘business’ or the money.

What are your expectations against the tattoo culture, artists, etc. in Indonesia in the future?

I hope the new generation is going to be more aware, since you’re the ones who can easily get information and research about tattoo culture. Maybe we can educate everyone else together about tattoo itself, or about another branch of art. After all, tattoo is not the only branch of art that exists and needs people to have more knowledge of it.

References & Bibliography

https://www.brainyquote.com. (n.d.). Retrieved June 1, 2017, from https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/c/confucius134717.html

tattoo. (n.d.). Dictionary.com Unabridged. Retrieved June 1, 2017 from Dictionary.com website http://www.dictionary.com/browse/tattoo