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A local tattoo artist is a competing on a tattoo reality show.
Frank Ready, an artist at “Black Magic Tattoo,” 29 N.E. 9th St., is a participant on Season 10 of Ink Master. The show was filmed last year and is now airing on Spike.
“My experience on the show was pretty fantastic,” Ready said. “I thought I was going to be on a TV show and that there was nothing more to it, but it ended up being a ridiculously hard, really challenging competition.”
Clara Drew, dance freshman, has a tattoo of mountains and said it’s great that a local artist received an opportunity to be on Ink Master.
“OKC has so much more culture that I had no idea about until I came to school here, so showing the world all it has to offer is awesome,” she said.
Ready has been a tattoo artist all over the country for 12 years, he said. Ink Master producers found and reached out to him to participate in Season Nine of the show, which was the “team” season. The opportunity didn’t work out at the time because Ready didn’t have a teammate he wanted to participate with, he said.
“They remembered me for Season 10, gave me the callback, I did the audition, and, within two weeks, I was in the house filming,” he said.
Ready said his experience on Ink Master was educational and challenging.
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“All of the people I was in the house with were other amazing artists,” Ready said. “We pushed each other, and we ended up learning how to use new mediums and doing all these crazy challenges together.”
The filming process took two to three months, depending on how long a participant was on the show. If a contestant was eliminated, their time was shorter.
“I can’t say how far I’ve gotten, but I can definitely say that it’s been an amazing ride, and there’s a lot more to come,” Ready said. “It’s definitely changed how I work and what I do.”
Drew said a tattoo artist’s level of experience is important to her.
“Getting a tattoo from someone with that kind of experience and feedback on their work sounds great,” she said. “It’s important to research artists, and the fact that he was chosen for that says a lot about his work.”
Originally from California, Ready moved to Oklahoma in 2004. He developed an interest in tattooing at the age of 17 when he was in high school. He was a wrestler for the Midwest City Bombers and planned to go to college for wrestling, but injuries prevented this from happening, Ready said.
“While I was recovering, there was a tattoo studio in Midwest City that was opening up, and I had a few ties to them,” he said. “I knew people around the area that went there or worked there, and I started hanging out.”
Ready then began mopping floors and spending his afternoons outside of school at “Different Image Tattoo Studio” in Midwest City.
“It became a home away from home,” he said. “I dug that these people were making a living for themselves, doing whatever they wanted to, and not taking the real traditional route.”
Ready kept a sketchbook of tattoo art, and the studio eventually offered him a chance at learning how to tattoo, he said.
“Even then when I started, I had no clue what all tattooing could bring me,” Ready said. “I’ve put everything into it for the past decade.”
For more information about Ready’s work, visit blackmagic.tattoo and click on the picture under “Frank Ready III.”
See Page 2 for students’ tattoos and their meanings.
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