Danny Lewter
Published December 2007
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Dave Muller: How did you get started in the business?

Danny Lewter: I started hanging out at China Doll Tattoo in Hammond Indiana about 9 years ago. A friend of mine was apprenticing to be a piercer, so I hung out there, and in the process got to know the owners, Jim and Penny. They seemed to like me, so I kept coming back whenever I wasn’t working, but I never mentioned anything to them about tattooing, or even that I could draw. I’m sure they heard that a lot, and I didn’t want it to seem like I wanted something from them. A couple of years later, I was laid off from my job indefinitely, and that day I had stopped by the shop and told them that I had lost my job. They were in the process of remodeling, and it was then that a mutual friend of ours mentioned to them that they should teach me how to tattoo because he knew that I could draw, and that being a tattoo artist was something that would fit my lifestyle. I’m not a suit and tie person. With him vouching for me, they offered me an apprenticeship.

Dave Muller: What was your apprenticeship like?

Danny Lewter: At first, it was a lot of running errands, but then slowly they started having me do small pieces on friends and family. It was roughly a year after that when they finally took the leash off of me, so to speak. I think that they had confidence in me already, they were just waiting for me to have confidence in myself. It was pretty hard for me to learn, and difficult for them to teach me at first because they’re right handed and I’m a lefty.

Dave Muller: Why would it be any different being left handed?

Danny Lewter: The mechanics and movements of it are a little different. When you’re right handed, you pull your hand away from what you just drew or tattooed, but when you’re left handed, you push your hand over what you just did. That can tend to make the stencil a bit messy. I had to learn different techniques, sometimes I draw the stencils upside down, That way I can pull the lines instead of pushing them. I solved my problem about learning from right handed people by watching them work in the mirror.

Dave Muller: What is your style like?

Danny Lewter: I like new school and traditional, and I do a lot of it. I don’t really go for much else, and I can’t really get into portraits. I like warped imagery more than reality. Portraits are pictures of things that exist, but I’d much rather bring something to life that never existed. I think a lot of us still watch cartoons, and I have collections of them on DVD. It’s a much more fun style, it’s not so serious. I like a lot of the neo-traditional stuff, people look at them and think that they’re easy to do, but they’re not. The drawings look simple, but they’re really well thought out, and there’s a formula to them. I love the heavy black shading and the clean bold lines. It’s also a difficult style to do because there’s not a lot you can do to fix the lines if they’re wrong. There aren’t five colors you can use to hide the imperfections. They’re good technical tattoos, and though some people might think they’re boring, they can really be a challenge.

Dave Muller: What do you think about some of the recent trends in the industry?

Danny Lewter: I think that with all of the shows on TV now it seems that people are getting more informed about custom tattoos. They know that they don’t have to pick something off of the wall anymore. The downside to this is that they tend to think that they know more than I do, as far as what will work. Still, I’m glad that more people are getting involved, and I think that in 10 or 20 years it will lead to less regrettable tattoos. Now, I’m hearing radio ads for ink that will laser off in one treatment, but to me, that defeats the whole purpose. If I have the slightest inclination that someone is going to erase the thing two years down the road, well then, I wonder what I’m doing this for. If you don’t want a tattoo you don’t have to get one, it’s not mandatory. I think that some people get them because their friends have them and they don’t want to be made fun of. Tattoos are very popular now, and everybody wants to be cool. Sure, there are probably instances where somebody misspelled a name and ink of that type would come in handy, but at a certain point if you regret a tattoo that you wanted, you have to learn to live with it, and that’s a good thing. A tattoo is not going to define you as a person. You can have skulls on your arm and still be a big dork and go home to watch Three’s Company. You are who you are, a tattoo is not going to change that.

Dave Muller: Aside from art, what other skills do you need to be a tattoo artist?

Danny Lewter: You have to be a salesmen, a comedian, and a therapist. It’s like being a bartender, you’re in a room with a stranger for a few hours and you don’t want to sit there and not talk to each other. People will tell you their problems and they figure, “Who am I going to tell?” Some you actually get to know pretty well, and you actually care, but others you’re just like, “That sucks!” I’ve made a lot of friends on this job, sometimes they transition from someone who just happened to walk through the door one day and the next thing you know you’re sitting at their kitchen table hanging out.

Dave Muller: How has tattooing changed your life?

Danny Lewter: For the most part, I wasn’t really a people person until I started working here, but now I have to be. It’s definitely a lot more fun, meeting a lot of people instead of being introverted. It’s been therapeutic for myself as well. I used to be so quiet and now I say some of the most outlandish stuff here, just to make someone laugh. People walk in and it’s their first time, they don’t know what to expect. I don’t want them coming in and being afraid, with us all sitting here with serious looks on our faces. I think if they’re more relaxed, they’ll sit better, plus, they’ll come back because they dig the environment.

Written by: Dave Muller
Photos courtesy of: Danny Lewter

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