80 • SKIN DEEP MAGAZINE
After five days of retreat, Chaim decided he would indeed follow his
dreams and become a tattoo artist. It wasn’t easy, of course. His first
tattoo was on a friend who, he tells me, was kind enough to allow him
to practice on. “A little sea star that actually looked pretty good.” But
his second tattoo was something of an uphill struggle. “It was horri-
ble, actually. You know, it’s funny to talk about your first experience
of tattooing because when you’re holding that tattoo machine in your
hand and aiming it towards someone, you don’t really know how to
muster up the confidence to actually do it. So you find yourself just
trusting your instincts. And those instincts become habits over time.”
In many ways, Chaim has pretty much captured the more radical
understanding of ‘faith’ there. Faith is not necessarily about blindly
trusting in some obscure metaphysical concept. Rather it’s about
building confidence. For many spiritual practitioners, particularly
within Eastern traditions like Buddhism, faith is something that
evolves over time, something that develops through practice and
experience. It’s a belief in yourself as much as a belief in anything
external—one very much complimenting the other.
For me, there’s a strong sense of Eastern spirituality in Chaim’s
work in general—mandalas feature a lot, for example. Perhaps I’m
reading a lot into things here, but I also feel that the minimalist qual-
ity to much of Chaim’s work could in some way reflect the minimalist
sensibilities of some of the Eastern traditions—some key aspects of
Buddhism, for example.
On one hand, he agrees. “I travelled through India for a year and
since then adopted a lot of Buddhist ways of life. On the other hand, I
was a computer guy that saw the world in a drastic and definite way.”
So, in a sense, his work could be a blending of both these worlds, his
new spiritual awakening finding harmony with the linear and tech-
nical sides of his old life as an IT manager—the perfect blend, one
might say, for pattern work. “I also studied psychology in my past, as
well as computer science,” he tells me, “and I guess that the combi-
nation of those two fields is what really makes my designs interest-
ing and stimulating. It is very interesting how cold lines and dots can
have life and a unique character.”
But when it all boils down, his purest inspiration comes from the nat-
ural world around him. “I think that it is the most honest thing for us
artists to get inspired from. Just observing or thinking about nature, as
mathematical as it is, as spiritual and abstract as it can be. I try always
to balance my designs as nature does with its creations: when a designis too geometric, it often creates a cold feeling so
the goal is to find the right balance with it. When
I take on a project I always aim to create some-
thing that will look super cool from far away and
when you come closer it will have a lot of dimen-
sions to it and will stimulate the viewer’s eyes in
the strongest way. It doesn’t have to be too com-
plicated, it can simply be made from one line
that flows through the entire body.”
And of course, there is the client. The most
enlightened forms of spirituality are not soli-
tary pursuits but rather about finding a con-
nection with others, a desire to engage the
oneness within all of existence. For Chaim,
achieving a connection with each client is im-
perative to a good tattoo. “How he moves, how
he talks, how he is describing himself and how
he wants to be described. I really take the timeyou know, it’s funny to
talk about your first
experience of tattooing
because when you’re
holding that tattoo
machine in your hand
and aiming it towards
someone, you don’t
really know how to
muster up the confidence
to actually do it