Tattooing: Art or Craft?

May 13

Written By Colby Morton

Walk into almost any tattoo shop today, and you’ll hear the word “traditional.”

But what does that even mean anymore?

For most people, it’s a look.

Bold lines. Simple color.

Anchors, panthers, daggers.

A style that’s been copied, filtered, remixed, and reposted a million times over.

But if you go back far enough, “traditional” wasn’t about the look.

It was about the work.

The repetition.

The discipline.

The trade.

Traditional tattooing was a craft—hard-earned, passed down, guarded by the few who lived it.

It was taught by doing.

You learned by cleaning tubes, wiping sweat, pulling lines over and over until your hands knew the motion without thinking.

It wasn’t glamorous.

It wasn’t Instagram-ready.

It was shop life.

It was respect for the process, not just the outcome.

Somewhere along the line, the style outlived the craft.

The images stayed.

But the rituals, the respect, the slowness—it all started to fade.

And now we’re left asking:

Is tattooing still a craft? Is it now an art? Or is it something else entirely?

The Craft

Craft is about repetition.

It’s about learning through your hands.

Through failure.

Through showing up every day and putting in the work.

Craft is humble.

It doesn’t care if you get followers.

It’s not interested in statements.

It’s about the doing.

In craft, the value is in the discipline itself.

A tattooer working in this lane sees themselves as part of a lineage—carrying on the knowledge of those who came before, refining it, keeping the line alive.

The Art

Art, on the other hand, is about expression.

It’s about pushing the form.

Reinterpreting the past.

Breaking rules and finding new ways to speak.

Art challenges.

It asks questions.

It says, “what if?”

Tattooers working in this lane might take the same anchors and panthers—but twist them, bend them, reinterpret them, or throw them away entirely.

For them, tattooing is a personal language, not just a craft to master.

The Tension

The truth?

Tattooing has always been both.

A craft first, art second.

But that balance is shifting—and it’s making some people uncomfortable.

When the craft dies, the art can lose its backbone.

When art takes over, the respect for process, discipline, and lineage can fade.

But when the two work together—that’s where the real magic happens.

You can’t have art without craft.

But you can have craft without art.

And maybe that’s what scares people.

Dead Idols is Here for the Question

We’re not here to tell you what tattooing is.