[/media-credit]

Many people wear their hearts on the sleeve, but Brian McCauley has his life story on his skin.
McCauley, 42, an arts and photography major, is owner of Traditions Tattoo in Imperial Beach. McCauley is changing the reputation of too-good-for-you that has been given off by artists over the years.

“I’ve been to so many shops and a lot of them act like they are better than everybody else and what the client wants is stupid, “ he said. “Tattooing is about the individual, it is not about me. It has nothing to do with me, it’s about what they want.”
With only a limited amount of free space left on his skin, McCauley still remembers where and when he got each tattoo. At the age of 15 in Germany, where his family was stationed with the military, there were few regulations and some people really did not care who was getting tattoos.
“I remember walking into the shop,” said McCauley. “It was dark and dirty they had just finished tattooing numbers on a dog. A big burley man asked me how old I was. I said 18 but he knew I wasn’t. I picked out a cross on the wall and I sat down. He dug that needle into me hard, I think it was to teach me a lesson, but all I could think was ‘what a tool’ and vowed to never treat my clients that way.”
Tattooing was a life-long fascination, he said. His uncles had them and McCauley  pasted temporary tattoos on every inch of his arms as a child, he said, but it was not his first career choice. Before becoming a tattoo tycoon, McCauley served 20 years in the U.S. Navy. It was not until he was 33-years-old and moonlighting part-time at a motorcycle shop that his fate called to him through an airbrushing kit.
“There was this kid at the shop who would airbrush the bikes and I thought to myself  ‘I could do that’,” he said. “My friend laughed at me and reminded me that I couldn’t even draw. That same day I went out and bought one of those teach-yourself-how-to-draw books.”
Tattooing poked its head into McCauley’s life again when he worked as a body piercer at a friend’s shop. An artist in the shop discovered McCauley’s hunger for art and offered him an apprenticeship. Interns review the basics along with learning how to clean the tools and following state health laws.
“My apprenticeship sucked,” he laughed. “But it wasn’t until a friend who owned a shop in Pacific Beach offered to let me finish it at his shop. That is when my eyes opened and the doors just opened for my career and me. I learned how to really treat my clients and how to become an even better artist.”
A few years before McCauley retired from the military he opened his own shop in July 2008. McCauley walked through the main floor of his shop opening his arms to the direction of his artist.
“This is where the magic happens,” he said.
With five stations in the shop, each artist has his own artwork proudly displayed on the walls showing off their talent. Tan marble floors reflects the image of a proud papa watching his artist at work.
“Being a shop owner is a lot different than being just an artist, I’m finding that out,”  said McCauley. “It is like night and day. When you work for someone all you have to worry about is yourself, now you have to pay for everything, you have to have artists and make sure they are good artists. They also have to be able to talk to people and treat them with respect. If you treat people like shit you’re not going to have any business.”
Facing the responsibilities of being the owner comes with facing the pressure from the state about health regulations. McCauley jumps those hurdles and aims to go above and beyond the requirements. California requires tattoo artist to take a two-hour course on blood-born pathogens, he requires a six-hour course to gear up in his shop, he said.
Being the owner of a shop has not removed McCauley from the tattooing floor.
“You definitely don’t forget that he is the owner, but he doesn’t pull rank on you,” said Chris Reed, 40, a fellow veteran and tattoo artist. “If you don’t feel well one day and ask for the rest of the day off he is cool with it. He wants you to be 100 percent into it so you can do your best work.”
McCauley’s apprentice Enrique “Hank” Robledo, 32, has been under McCauley’s wing for nine months and has already learned two very valuable concepts, he said.
“He taught me to be humble and to slow down,” he said. “I never used to surround myself with people who could draw so I always thought I was good, sometimes the best. Working with mostly cartoons before I came here, I worked at a very fast pace. Brian put the brakes on and told me to slow down, take my time, to double check myself and that I can always be better, to always strive to make it just a little bit better.”
McCauley’s desire to teach stemmed from his experience at SWC where he is in pursuit of his Associate’s degree in fine arts and photography.
“I’m not here because I need a job or need to learn a trade, I have one of those,” he said. “I’m here because I want to learn more about drawing and art. I want to be able to teach it to other people.”
Tattooing is a form of religion for McCauley on many levels. His largest and most significant tattoo covers most of his legs, pelvis and stomach. It is a traditional Samoan tap tattoo done by Sulu’Ape Angela, the only female in the world to be traditionally trained in the craft, at Big City Tattoo in North Park.
“This is more than just a tattoo,” he said. “In their culture it is a sign of manhood and fertility. It took seven sessions at roughly five hours each. It is very painful, but in the end the artist puts their stamp on the belly. If you don’t get the stamp it means you were not strong enough to endure it and you were a disgrace. This is why I love tattooing. It is more than just a fad, they mean something. It is a privilege to be able to give someone something they are going to wear forever and that means something to them.”