Conversations on Craft with Ashly Hutchins

This is a K D O I rebroadcast and that's of my old show. KDOI Podcasting I love putting these on for you because we had some great conversations back in my old show, and it would be a shame if they just lived on my external hard drive and we didn't get a chance to share them with you in this episode, talking with my good friend and tattoo artists, Ashley Hutchins, and we're talking about craft, but now here's the thing in this interview.
I'm actually getting a tattoo by her while I'm interviewing her. I've never done that before. I haven't done that since. And it was a interesting time to say the least. So I hope you enjoy this and I hope you get something out of it. If you do email me timothy@createartpodcast.com and I'd love to hear from you.

To reach out to me, email timothy@createartpodcast.com I would love to hear about your journey and what you are working on. If you would like to be on the show or have me discuss a topic that is giving you trouble write in and let's start that conversation.

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KDOI Rebroadcast Conversations on Craft with Ashly Hutchins
Timothy: Create art podcast. K D O I rebroadcast talking craft with Ashley Hudgins. Hi there, friends. This is Timothy Kimo, Brian, your head instigator for create art podcast where I use my 20 plus years of experience in arts and education to help you tame your inner critic and create more than you consume in this episode.
This is a K D O I rebroadcast and that's of my old show. KDOI Podcasting I love putting these on for you because we had some great conversations back in my old show, and it would be a shame if they just lived on my external hard drive and we didn't get a chance to share them with you in this episode, talking with my good friend and tattoo artists, Ashley Hutchins, and we're talking about craft, but now here's the thing in this interview.
I'm actually getting a tattoo by her while I'm interviewing her. I've never done that before. I haven't done that since. And it was a interesting time to say the least. So I hope you enjoy this and I hope you get something out of it. If you do email me timothy@createartpodcast.com and I'd love to hear from you.
So without further ado here is the KDOI rebroadcast. Craft with Ashley Hutchins.

I am your head instigator, Timothy Kimo. Brian. This episode will focus on craft now out of all the subjects this season, this is probably the one that is the most tangible we can put our hands or witness craft in action. And maybe that's why it's the easiest to talk about. Perhaps it's going to turn out to be the hardest our friends over at Merriam-Webster defined craft as skill in planning or executing dexterity and occupation or trade requiring manual dexterity, or artistic skill skill in deceiving to gain and end members of a trade.
To make or produce with a care skill or ingenuity. Now our two quotes come from gene Fowler writing is easy. You only need to stare at a blank piece of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead. And Stephen King amateurs, sit and wait for inspiration. The rest of us, just get up and go to work.
Now, gene Fowler was a writer with the Detroit post and a syndicated manager of king features. His later work included over a dozen screenplays, mostly written in the thirties, 1930s folks, not the 2030s and a number of books, including biographies and memoirs. Stephen King. Well, Hey, there we go guys, author of horror, supernatural fiction, suspense science fiction, and fantasy, his books.
And this is interesting, has sold more than 350 million copies. Many of which have been made into feature films, mini series, television series, and comic books. And from what I understand, he hates most of them. Stephen King's has published at least 58 novels, including seven under the pen name, Richard Bachman and six non-fiction books.
He's also written about 200 short stories and most of which have been published in book collections. So obviously the question is why aren't we discussing craft for me? This is the most concrete topic yet. It's also a bit nebulous. Some people can fake craft with shortcuts or YouTube videos. Craft takes study craft takes doing craft takes failure and picking yourself up and pushing forward.
Craft takes vision and research about where you want to go and what you want to incorporate into your work. The two quotes, I chose really speak to me about the hard work that comes with being artistic. This stuff just doesn't drop into our lap. We aren't waiting for some invisible friend in the sky to give it to us, or to give us a clue about how to complete something or overcome a barrier craft is the action of getting up when you are sick and blowing chunks, getting into your space and making something happen.
When it's the last thing in the world that you want to do, craft separates the wheat from the. It's not meant to handcuff us. It is, it is there to help us to push through whatever blockages we may have that prevent us from creating our net from being our creative, natural selves. So, Hey, let's get this conversation going.

All right. So we are recording live here in Sesame street. We have Ms. Ashley. She has been with us third time term. First time to get the perfect score on these seven questions. I'm just saying, well, you're the first one.
Ashly: You're the first one
Timothy: to get
well so actually put this up on Facebook and I thought it was pretty cool. It is the sword. Oops.
Ashly: Switch with switchblades.
Timothy: it looks nice. Like it's a sword in somebody's
Ashly: hands. That's how you say it's a mouse where it would be lacrosse or
Timothy: I'm just saying we've got moon and of course we have skull on. It has been with us as, as per request and some lady face and a lady face. This is my, one of my first lady with you. We've got
the the tiger could be considered a lady. It's on my heart. It represents, you know, my, my tiger at home. And then the minions they think they do represent the girls. So there could be women.
Ashly: I mean, honestly, any of these supposed to be,
Timothy: I have a lot of women on me.
Ashly: Okay, Polly. Now
let's
Timothy: take a look at this. Okay. We're not going to Facebook poll on this guy's piece. You guys gonna do a choose what I did on my arms.
Let's rock it out, make it happen, make some magic, right?
Yeah, it was really good when I got into her. Some young lady, I think she might've been 19, but she wanted to get a face of an angel or something like that. And one of your guys out there saying, okay, we've got to do this really big, really bad. So she was trying to get as small as she could, you know, the whole thing.
And I'm just like, oh, I get it. You want to get something small? So that way you can hide it.
Ashly: Things like portraits. Yeah. Think that faces definitely need to be a certain size. And that is also why, which has crafted us because that's something that people it's for the longevity of your tattoo. And not because we just are trying to talk him into doing something larger.
Exactly. So you're going to be hidden.
Timothy: Fantastic.
Ashly: Come on. We're here to the table.
Timothy: I mean, towards me towards, yeah, those are the second table.
Ashly: Oh yeah.
Timothy: And I'm getting a massage on Friday night, so, you know, I'm just getting all the therapy on this. Awesome.
Ashly: All right. So
Timothy: right.
Ashly: Yeah. When I was getting the Jim's put on my tooth and she was like, put it like Monday. I'm sorry. And I was like, I do this to people every day.
Timothy: I like the idea that it's a subordinate switchblade, even though it is a Switzerland,
Ashly: it can be whatever you want. It's like an impression is painting. It's it's whatever. There
Timothy: we go. Nearly. No one says anything different. We just poke your head balls out. Like we normally do. We're actually talking
Ashly: about
Timothy: sweet and I promise not to ask so many basic questions.
The answer to not everyone knows Ashley. Like I know actually, oh, I didn't pay the power bill. Yeah, that was the shortest tattoo I've ever.
Ashly: No worries. That's another reason why we should talk about crap. I had to learn some things that shift in your program to forget is that,
Timothy: oh no, no, we can, yeah, we can mark this as an explicit a okay. Well, I, you know, I did the one with my my nephew when I was no, we didn't do it in Chicago. We did it over a squad cast, but you know, he was dropping the F bomb, never got the vert, so we're good.
We just mark it as explicit and we can park.
Ashly: I was listening to . I said to my daughter, you talking about she's like, dad, you used to have tattooed, starts describing it, dealing with the sword, a crystal ball. And I was like, that sounds sweet. And he's like, no, I got saved. And I was like, oh,
playing. Would you just state really can hear and understand? And I was like,
Timothy: these guys are saved by somebody else.
Ashly: That's like, fuck, it's sweet.
Timothy: It's like, yeah. Well ask the song, my archive it's called up. Fuck you. I'm going up next to some nuns, you know? Yeah.
Ashly: That's the way to do that. All right. Now.
Timothy: Now, just let everybody know Ashley's using the painless needles, the non-permanent each. And this is her very first time tattooing this isn't a
Ashly: very first hologram.
Timothy: This isn't more
Ashly: So
Timothy: you're going to families.
Ashly: All of you might say,
Timothy: well, he posted something on RVA. Podcasts was about, I'm doing a panel discussion for the galaxy. So I was like, yeah, I'm doing for that dude.
Ashly: And everybody was talking to me, not talking to you about
Timothy: talking to me, talking to you. We're talking about everybody, but no, I've been trying to hook up with him for awhile.
Kind of get like a meetup down here, somebody podcasts, that
sort of stuff. Okay. Fantastic. Well, I was going to let you get a little bit warmed up in there. You're good. All right. So let's see here, let's start off with something basic. So like I know for me, you know, podcasting, I got into in like 2006, I had no idea what I was doing had no no apprenticeship or anything like that.
And I seem to recall in college, you getting the sense too? That was on your neck, wasn't it? It was your shoulder. Okay. Geometrical.
And so when was that bars or how did that hit you of, Hey, you know, I might want to do this.
Ashly: I have been wanting to do that since I first learned about what they were when I was about six or seven
Timothy: years old,
Ashly: much to the chagrin of my mother. I started drawing all over myself with the Sharpies. So I've always wanted to be
Kind of have to have the right set of circumstances,
but yeah, I've always wanted to learn how to do it. That's definitely one of those things where it's like one of the labs beside being like the trade, like a carpenter or something like that. It's one of the last professions where you really do like one-on-one training specifically, just, you know, And sentence and you have to be committed to it.
No.
Timothy: Now did you have to learn these secret handshake and the door knock and the quaint nudge, nudge and all that we don't talk about? No, but
Ashly: the guy guys all behind that, you definitely want to do a, have some sort of like may Sonic S ceremony. When I got my license
Timothy: incessantly on my own,
Ashly: which does not a full verse about migration and migration. A lot of history is that doing in there, which is really fascinating. And there was a lot of slate. He has to be all of those things. You have to be a technician. You're not just an artist. It's not some sort of like rockstar attitude
to it as well, but you have to be humble mechanics. I just don't go about learning. Like, I love that new machine. It's about learning about your equipment, you know,
Timothy: so you're not just, you know, well, I hate to say you're not just an artist because you know, people have a bad connotation of what artists do. Sometimes you're a mechanic as well. You have to have some mechanical apps as well as have that eye for detail and that skill and counseling or advising your, your clients on what they should get.
Or,
Ashly: yeah, there's definitely
being able to draw. A lot of people don't realize. I mean, you can get that
Timothy: and your canvas, you know, jumps out at you sometimes and switches and.
Ashly: Yeah.
Moving is, you know, that's another bird that you found to learn about it as you go along. So I'm not knocking anything about art. I love art, but I also like,
I love the equipment issues, but like, I don't find that to be something that
should be in the foreground is important.
And you shouldn't be. It shouldn't ever seem like it's beneath, I'm fortunate to work with a bunch of people
that like,
something like that or warning them up again. I don't really follow stuff like that because it's unrealistic representation out there doing it. It's a game show
which I used to do
Timothy: earlier today. We were talking, you were not aware though, that the world is a weird,
Ashly: strange, strange world. And even like not to get too technical about stuff, they didn't even have a whole lot of moving parts in it. They basically, they didn't have to even assemble all of it, like before they had to set up string, just not complicated.
People are like, oh, I always get mine repaired. I haven't done that in years. You know? It's like, like it's something that you just, you know, like if I find that to be ridiculous,
Timothy: we kinda, you know, buy a new tattoo machine every week and then open it up out of the box. It's all pre sterilized and everything like that.
Well, well now for you that, I mean, for the show though, it's just kind of like, everything was all pre setup for them. They didn't have to do on their own set up. Yeah.
Ashly: Or having a hard time doing some filming with the easy word of putting up a tattoo as you. But just talking about working on one, like it's the meat, you know what I mean? Yeah. You know, I'm the best on the east coast and whatever, you know, like, I, I haven't done this forever. I just send it out. I used to work with someone who I will not name who was like, that would just like, you know, could just immediately anything went any sort of way.
And he's like, oh, well, if I try to repair my filter and I can't send it back to him, like, it's just an excuse for not liking
Timothy: well, I mean, I think you have to know whatever tool that is that you're working with. No matter what what discipline you go into like a painter needs to know their brushes, the canvas that they're using.
And you know, how the paint interacts and then the different mediums that they could add subtract from your existing, same way. You need to know how that machine works and how it's going to do the things that you put in it. I was going to react to certain skin and all that jazz.
Ashly: Yeah. It's basically you wouldn't, you know, knowing your stuff, which is why in my version of it was a big deal.
The guy who me on the tattoo to emphasize the business prep before the night. So often,
Timothy: oh, I'm doing okay. And B you know, on the other side of the of the, of the machine, you know, you have to prep for. What's going to happen because we got that one long as you get up. And I did not eat that day,
but afterwards I was like, and I went down, but that's another aspect of your craft that you need to know how to deal with somebody like that.
Ashly: crashing, but yeah, you gotta be prepared for something like that. You're actually officially
tattooed.
Timothy: Well, you're the only person that I've interviewed doing their art while I'm interviewing.
Ashly: This is just getting the sending. Cause last time we went and got and
Timothy: exactly, exactly at a restaurant of which we're not going to name because it's a cool place and we don't want it to get all his Stearns for people to go there and try to get our autographs and all that kind of jazz.
You have to be very protective of that.
Ashly: Yeah. It's an hour thinking, thinking your show on,
Timothy: well, you know, you, it's easy to do
so I think you kind of mentioned this, but for you, the attraction is more the craft versus the arts say, or
Ashly: I enjoy.
Yeah. If I'm having like blocks working on packing machines as fulfilling as well,
it sounded like, and I'm not saying that he is not a crap, cause obviously it is, but it's kind of like, like a pottery, you know, where you, there's another apparatus that you're using and not just like a pencil or a paintbrush, there's some, a whole other mechanical aspect of something that you use to create art.
Lends it more to a craft for me.
Timothy: Well, and you have your client, your patron, your desk, wherever you want to call them. Right there you get, you're getting the immediate feedback while it's happening.
So, I mean, if something doesn't come out right, and just like bullshit or, you know, when it comes out fantastic, which, you know, not tooting your horn for you. That's what I do. But this is number 12,
Ashly: really?
Timothy: No, no. There's number 12 on my body. No, no,
let's see the frame of chess. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.
I'm losing count. That's okay. This is what happens when I get my a fifth core math skills become even worse.
Majority of my tattoos are done by we'll just say that. Yeah. Cause I only had four done by somebody else and then you've done the rest. So
I had the the Texas the chemo and then the dagger up here,
the diagram, the scope of which, you know, it's, so it's like a dagger and a still after set that 92 94,
Ashly: you
Timothy: know,
air force base. That's what city
that was just down in San Antonio. That's right. Yup. If I was going to move to Texas and it tells you the town I'd go to,
it's a good place. I went to a big old comic book store there it's right next to a Chinese buffet, Chinese buffet. It was first perfect match.
so getting back on the crash site. So no, like in my, because I have a day job, this is your day, this is your job. And I put air quotes. So that way everyone can see the air quotes. That's what I do. Audio air quotes there, but it's your job for the work that I do. I do a lot of counseling with my clients and all that, but I do realize.
There are some days that I do phone it in. Now when I do my art, I'm usually not phoning it in because that is something that, for me, it's a treat that I get to be. I don't necessarily get to do my art with every client. And I'm with you, you are doing your, with every client that you have with using your skills, you're using your craft and all that.
I'm not doing
Ashly: my art with everybody. I am definitely doing my craft with everyone....