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10/7/25 interview in CANVAS REBEL

https://canvasrebel.com/meet-pat-fish/

Stories & Insights

Meet Pat Fish

Stories & Insights October 7, 2025

We were lucky to catch up with Pat Fish recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Pat, thanks for joining us today. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

Tattooing has long been a trade learned by apprenticeship, and I was exceedingly fortunate that I was guided to get my first tattoo from the superb tattooist Cliff Raven and then ask him to teach me. He told me there are three equal parts to tattooing: “ART, CRAFT, and MORALS..” He could see from my art school portfolio that I had pen-and-ink skills, he said he was willing to teach me the craft, and he said that was because he said “I’m a good judge of character, and I can sense you’ll act in a moral manner and honor the art.” He also said he wouldn’t teach me if I approached it as learning just another art skill, that it had to be who I was, not just what I did. Forty years later it has served me well as an occupation, and vocation.
The best thing I did was always loving to draw, and so I came to this work eager to adapt what I was already enthusiastic about. There were no obstacles for me, except I’d never even been in a tattoo parlor and so I didn’t know how one ran. When I was 17 I had made a vow that I would never watch television again if in return I could live my life and never have to have an employer. Now I have had many decades, always self-employed, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Nodo Firmo Celtic Knot Leg Wrap Tattoo Design

Nodo Firmo Celtic Knot Leg Wrap Tattoo Design

Pat, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I have had a lifelong fascination with the ancient art of Scotland and Ireland, where my ancestors the Picts lived. When I decided to tattoo for a living I determined to focus on bringing that art style back alive in skin. Way back in the 1980’s tattooists offered walls of cartoon images for clients to pick from, and while a few in England might have offered Celtic designs they were unheard of in the United States. With hubris and naivete I determined I would let my tattoo clients know this was an art style they could choose, and slowly over the decades it has become a larger and larger percentage of the work that I do. As technology has evolved it has become easier for me to adjust patterns to fit on the body, morphing them to play the 3D chess of wallpapering a body part so that the lines of a Celtic design match up. I particularly enjoy the interaction with each client, seeking to externalize their aesthetics with a permanent statement unique to them.

I have been tattooing in my studio in Santa Barbara California for 40+ years, and for the past 24 years I have sold my original flash tattoo patterns online at LuckyFishArt.com so people enthusiastic about this style of tattooing can get the art even if they cannot come to me for installation.

Valiant Celtic Sleeve Tattoo Design

Valiant Celtic Sleeve Tattoo Design

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

I was an adopted orphan as a child, and I yearned for ethnic identity. Concurrent with my choosing the career occupation of tattooing I located my true family, and discovered that I am a Pict, descended from the primordial people of Scotland who were known for their tattoos. This caused me to focus my tattoo career on the ancient patterns, and bring the Pictish and Celtic art to life in skin. In the decades since, the tattoo world has seen a strong enthusiasm for cultural expression, and I have done my part to offer my clients the opportunity to wear a statement of pride in their heritage.

Condor in Flight Tattoo Design

Condor in Flight Tattoo Design

Looking back, are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

When I started tattooing in 1984 the biggest technical advancement was that I could use a 3M stencil-making machine, even then already a relic from the 1960’s. That was vital, meaning I did not have to hand-trace stencils for the intricate Celtic knotwork patterns I love to do. But it was when I got my first Apple computer that the work of fitting patterns to the bodies of my clients became remarkably easier. Using Photoshop to morph a design to fit, changing size and proportion, has allowed me to fine tune the art to exactly satisfy the client’s preferences and technical requirements. Technology enhances the ability to go from an analog drawing, scanning it and working it digitally, and then fitting it to the body part.

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Pictish Tattoo with Key Pattern Design

Pictish Tattoo with Key Pattern Design