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JEN DABBS
REALITY CHECK
by Jonathan Williams
Photos by Brian Kip and Jonathan Williams
From the May 2006 issue of Prick Magazine
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Jen Dabbs may not be a household name
just yet, but when new episodes of
Inked begin airing on A&E this month,
TV audiences will get to know her a little
better. As a new receptionist at Hart &
Huntington Tattoo Company in Las Vegas, Jen is
a dark-haired vixen with an attitude as colorful
as her tattoos that is sure to stir some
emotions on the show.
But even she will admit that reality TV
isn't exactly like real life.
"There's nothing real about reality TV,"
she says. "I thought it was just going to be
me being me and it's not. Most of it's not
me at all. I'm a smartass and it's very hard
for me to shut my mouth and not say anything,
especially to the people I work with
who are [characters]. It's hard to be yourself
when you've got cameras in your face
and you've got people asking you things and
telling you to say things and putting words
in your mouth and scripting things for you.
There are certain things that I've said that I know, and any of my friends
and family would know, Jen would never say that. If I ever say something
on camera like, 'Can you leave me alone?' in reality I'd probably
say, 'Can you fuck off?'"
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 Jen's self-portrait painting. |
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Prior to becoming a part
of the Inked cast, Jen was living
in Orange County, Calif.
working as a MAC makeup
artist and pursuing a career
as a painter. Having been a
fan of tattoos for most of her
life, she has become friends
with a few tattoo artists,
which is how she ended up
at Hart & Huntington.
"It's actually kind of
crazy how I ended up going there," she says. "My friend,
Sean 'Ozz' Oliver [of Amazing Tattoo in Houston, Texas],
they went after him to get the [new tattoo artist] job. He
called me up and was like, 'They asked me if I knew any girls
with tattoos that would be interested in working there.' I was
like, 'Yeah, I'll go. It'll be an experience, for sure.' Needless to say,
yeah, what a fucking experience. So I went to L.A. and talked to
the casting producers and all this kind of stuff and they ended up
telling me I got the job.
"At the last minute, they backed out with him and told me
I still had the job," she continues.“So
I ended up having to move out
here by myself [and] I had four
days to find a place to live. It was
pretty stressful."
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Florida artist Joey Hamilton
ended up getting the position
Oliver was after and Jen and
Joey quickly became
friends. But Jen actually
already had a
friend at Hart &
Huntington in
artist Clark
North, who did
her left sleeve
when he was working in California.
"That was kind of a big deal for me because it
was the first tattoo that anyone could see," she recalls.
"When I got [my sleeve] I was probably 21 and I did a
lot of thinking about it and I talked to my mom about it.
I had wanted to get tattoos for a long time, but my mom,
of course, was a little leery of me doing stuff. So I talked to
her about it and looked at artwork for probably at least a
year before I actually got it. I went to Clark [and] talked to
him and we kind of did some stuff together and he
did my first sleeve."
Not long after that, Jen decided she wanted
to become a tattoo artist and was going to
apprentice under Clark.
"He said [he wanted] me to think about it
and make sure that was what I wanted to do and
he'd be willing to help me," she says. "After that,
he ended up going to Vegas and taking this job, so
I didn't have someone I trusted and someone I felt
would be a good teacher to me. I went to art
school, I got my degree, I learned how to paint, and
then when this opportunity came up, I thought it was
fucking perfect. So I came out here with the
intention of learning how to tattoo. When I
first came out here, they knew that was
something I was thinking of, but I don't think
they knew how serious I was about it."
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She was so serious, in fact, that she
recently left Hart & Huntington to further
herself as a painter and a tattoo artist. While
you can still see her on new episodes of Inked,
Jen is currently finishing up her apprenticeship
with Hamilton (who will be her first guinea
pig) and will be tattooing at Tattoo Heaven on
the Vegas strip.
"There were no hard feelings," she says.
"They know I want to focus on tattooing and
my art and that's not something I can do at
[Hart & Huntington] right now, which I'm
totally fine with. They're not going to show me
leaving on the show because they might have me come back on season three in Florida. I
already have a lot of my friends that want to get tattooed, but I'm not doing it until Joey
says it's OK."
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