Following my placement here I have become a tattoo artist apprentice and in recent events, I have quit my retail job of eight years to pursue an art career. This change has been predominantly positive, but it has its negatives, it is quite a feast or famine wage packet I get every week, as I don’t know if the client will even bother showing up or would they want to bargain with the price I have given. Operating out of Derry I am a tadpole in an ocean of talent, so I have a lot of catching up to do to receive the praise of that my peers and earn the respect of the artists that have been honing the craft there for years. It is the other minor things, going into business for yourself that you must learn such as taking deposits to make sure clients show up on their chosen date, as well as learning how to do taxes, which is very murky waters for some. I have taken steps to learn the best way in keeping up with receipts, financial details and business expenses, the smartest thing I have done was set up a business account, so everything can be monitored via this account so at the end of the tax year, it would be a lot less stress and grey hairs.