“Ink Master” is a well-known reality show which follows different tattoo artists through different rounds of challenges to determine who is the “master.” Season Two featured Cee Jay Jones, also known as “Inky,” which comes from her roller derby name, Inky Gash.

“I skated for seven and a half years for the Detroit Roller Derby. Everyone calls me Inky for short,” Jones explained.

Jones has been tattooing for 27 years but started as a muralist and aspiring gallery artist. As her art reached different tattoo artists, she was approached many times to become an apprentice, but she didn’t bite until she was walking through a trailer park where a man offering tattoos gave her his card; she followed him to his studio and was hired on the spot.

Being a woman in the tattoo industry today isn’t anything new, but when she started in 1997, the industry was very different than it is today.

According to Jones, “Used to be, the only way you really got into tattooing as a female was if your old man was a tattooer. Women just didn’t do that back then, not very many. Unless you grew up in the biker community, which I did not.” Misogyny was very prevalent in the field when she entered, as it was a predominantly male industry. “I was one of only two in the entire Downriver area. Now women tattoo all the time,” Jones said.

To try to combat the gender bias at the time to make it in the industry, Inky had to come up with a solution. Jones said, “That’s one reason I go by Cee Jay, because early on in my tattoo career, a lot of people wouldn’t get tattooed by me because I was a girl. So, I changed my name to Cee Jay because that way, they couldn’t tell if I was a boy or a girl, they would just judge my work. But still, some would come into the shop, see I was a girl, and leave anyway.”

Now that the industry is vastly freed from its old gender biases, there is good and bad news: the good news is that anyone can be a tattoo artist, no matter who they are. The bad news, according to Jones, is “there are too many people in the industry, period. It is extremely oversaturated. And the economy has tanked.”

Jones explains that economic changes are nothing new to her. “A lot of people are dropping out of the business right now. I saw this back in 2008, when the economy tanked before. A lot of tattooers quit then. It was rough like this. We’re on a downturn right now.” Jones explained that tattooing comes with its busy times and its slow times. There is cash flow and there is drought. To people who are relatively new to the business, this has been a very scary time. Jones said, “Everyone who just started tattooing in the last five years has never experienced the hard times, and that’s just hitting just now. In fact, a lot of people that have been tattooing for roughly ten years have never experienced this kind of an economic downturn.” This is leading to a lot of tattooers leaving the industry, but it isn’t all a bad thing considering how it could balance out the overflow of artists.

Jones applied to “Ink Master” after a friend of hers, James Vaughn, was featured on the first season of the show. In her debut on the second season, she unfortunately was eliminated early. During the flash challenge in the beginning of the first episode, she couldn’t get her ink open and under the stress of the clock, got ink all over her. This later inspired her memoir titled “Ink on My Face,” which reflects on her life as a tattoo artist. Reality television is much different behind the scenes, but Jones stressed how wonderful the production crew was and how they made the show as great as it was. She later went on to be featured in various episodes.

Jones previously had a blog that she will soon turn into a podcast titled “Under the Gloves.” This project will delve into another one of her big passions: helping tattoo artists take care of themselves and their health. Tattoo artists notoriously don’t live the healthiest lives, which Jones hopes to change, especially with managing things like stress, sleep deprivation, eating habits, and back pain.

One thing Jones stresses is “the tattoo industry in general is going through growing pains.” With so many advances in technology and social media, the industry is facing many changes. Through online resources and digital art mediums, a lot of new resources available now can be a great, efficient tool for tattooers. Before this technology, to make a certain word or phrase in a particular font, the client would pick the font out of a book, trace letters one by one, make it straight, or cut it and straighten it and make a copy, and trace it. Now, you can just use an iPad or computer to mock up a phrase with different fonts in minutes.

Other digital tools, such as artificial intelligence (AI), are taking the industry by storm. Although it can be used for good when used correctly, Jones feels like “It’s killing the art of the tattoo” when it is being misused. “What I’m seeing is there’s this bizarre detachment of reality.” Jones expands on this by referencing something that she noticed a few weeks ago at a tattoo convention. “One of the last conventions I did, I of course brought a portfolio of my own tattoos and my own artwork, and a sketchbook, samples. That’s just what you do. There were ten of us. So, three of us I would consider adequate tattooers, we had our shit together. The rest of the tattooers were all kind of lackluster in a certain manner, like technically ‘in-proficient’ tattooers.” There was one thing she noticed about the in-proficient tattooers and the portfolios that they brought. “What was happening was they were taking pictures, AI pictures, not even pictures of tattoos that they had done, not pictures of tattoos that they had drawn. They had them cut out and put on their table.”

Taken aback, Jones decided to observe how one of these artists performed. “He cut out these AI images, and when he was tattooing the people, it didn’t look anything like the picture. It was a resemblance. A terrible resemblance.” Concerned and shocked, she decided to look at the other artists at the convention to see if this was becoming a common theme in modern tattooing. “I took a walk on the floor, and I was just shocked by what I saw. I would say like 70 percent of the booths had some form of AI as their tattoo design work.” Some of them pulled it off, but some didn’t. However, Jones clarifies that AI isn’t exactly the enemy, it’s the abuse of how it’s being used. “I’m not really against AI. I understand that it’s the wave of the future, and we’re not going to be able to stop it. But I think at this point, it’s like the Wild West and it’s being misused in our industry specifically.”

There are great ways that AI can be used in the industry. Before AI and the internet, Jones explained that she would go to the library to trace images or get a cheap clearance coffee table book of photos they could use for reference of realistic things, like animals or flowers. Now, AI can speed that process up and help come up with reference photos of specifically what you’re looking for instead of scouring the internet or photos in books. It can also help come up with designs that will fit certain body parts specifically. As Jones says, “a good tattoo will move with the body and flow with the body.” AI can help with adjusting the design to fit the right placement.

Jones explains there are creative uses of AI that still can be considered work by the artist. She says, “If your brain is thinking of it and you’re telling it to the AI, I guess you did kind of create it. I don’t know if it’s necessarily taking away from anything.” She elaborates, “When you do portraits, you’re pretty much just a human copy machine. You’re just doing what you see in front of you. That doesn’t make any of the portrait artists any less talented or any less creative. So, if you’re using AI for the image, and you’re nailing the image and your tattoo is technically proficient, how are you any different from a portrait artist?”

Jones explains that as long as you’re a proficient tattooer and can pull off using different reference images, AI can be a great resource. However, if you don’t have the basics, and you aren’t a competent tattooer, AI can be used for false advertising and be very deceptive. Artistry is important, and coming up with ideas for clients is creative in itself. It’s okay to use resources to help with that such as AI or the Internet, if you can tattoo the references correctly.

The tattoo industry is wonderful because it provides opportunities for people who are talented and dedicated but may not be able to afford schooling or paid training to be able to become apprentices under different tattoo artists. They can make a wonderful living doing what they love to do.

Jones explains how she is concerned due to the upcoming and ongoing government interference with the industry that it may lead to tattooing becoming a career that requires a college degree. This is discouraging to the community because it defeats a big reason why a lot of artists became tattooers who were talented but lacked resources and opportunities to afford to pay for education or experiences. Jones says, “Tattooing is one of the last bastions of freedom where we’ve been relatively unregulated by the government, and that’s changed, and that’s scary.”

Trends in tattoos go in and out, but when asked what will always be in, Jones says traditional style tattoos, portraits, memorial pieces, and script will always be timeless. She is well versed in many different art styles and finds it challenging to choose just one to call her “favorite” or her “signature.”

To book an appointment with Jones, contact her studio Mended Art through Facebook, Instagram, or Mendedart.biz. She also accepts inquiries through her personal Facebook and Instagram under Cee Jay “Inky” Jones. Her book, “Ink on My Face,” is available on Amazon, and be sure to keep an eye out for her upcoming podcast, “Under the Gloves.”