After Losing His Arm, Tattoo Artist Gets World’s First Tattoo Gun Prosthetic

(TMU) — When life hands you lemons, you make radical art from the citrus fruit. That’s essentially what 35-year-old JC Sheitan Tenet did after he lost his right arm. Despite the setback, he is thriving as an ambidextrous tattoo artist in France.

Tenet began drawing at the age of 3. Business Insider reports that at the age of 10 he lost his dominant arm. But that never stopped Tenet from pursuing a career as a tattoo artist. Approximately eleven years ago, Tenet fulfilled that ambition and he can now use both hands to tattoo his clients with the help of a revolutionary prosthetic.

It all started when Tenet met JL Gonzal, a visual artist, at a tattoo convention. “When he saw my creations, he imagined he could bring back his right arm and tattoo with it,” Gonzal told TI. “It was a crazy, but such a beautiful, idea. I was immediately ok for that.”

Gonzal attached a rotative machine to the base of Tenet’s prosthetic. The machine is capable of turning 360 degrees with minimum vibrations, ensuring it is comfortable to wear. To make the prosthetic more appealing, the visual artist encrusted the prosthetic with an old mechanical typewriter, gramophone, and manometer.

The tattoo gun prosthetic is powered by a generator. Fortunately, the cables linking the two are long enough so Tenet isn’t bound to one space. Because Tenet is re-learning how to tattoo with his right arm, he mostly uses the prosthetic for shading. But, this will likely change as his skill redevelops and he takes on different projects.

Examples of his work follow:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10212001142317702&set=picfp.1047545316&type=3&theater

Tenet is already working on another prototype. Reportedly, wrist mobility will be emphasized in the next model. “With the next [prototype] I’ll try to work with a tattoo gun in both ‘hands’ to find new designs,” wrote Tenet in an email to TI.

By Mandy Froelich | Creative Commons | TheMindUnleashed.com