Tattooing

The map grows where someone is actually going

That's all I'll put up for now. The rest of it — every place, the schools, the teachers, what the credential is actually worth — is researched and sitting in my files. I open a craft on the Atlas when a member writes to me about it — or, now and then, when one pulls at me hard enough that I go and check it myself.

That isn't a tease. It's how I keep this honest: I publish a sheet when someone is genuinely going to use it, so I can check it properly before you read it, instead of checking 116 things badly.

So the key to this one is a letter, and the letter comes to me — Arnaud. Not a form and not a team inbox: my own, and I'm the only one who reads it. Write it below and I'll answer you.

What we check before we send you anywhere

This Atlas exists because there is a real difference between a school that teaches you and a good-looking website — and too much of the internet is the second kind. Here is what a place has to clear before it goes on here, and what we'll tell you straight when it doesn't.

• The craft is actually alive there. A working scene, with people who do this every day — not a demo put on for visitors.
• There's a real teacher behind it. Named, still practising, and certified where the craft has certificates.
• The credential is what it claims to be. A state diploma and a certificate a school prints itself are not the same thing. We check which, and we say which.
• Nothing here has been stood in yet. An open sheet — one with a school named — means desk research, not a visit. No place here has been stood in and dated. When one is, the check will carry a name and a date. We'd rather say that than pretend.
• Nobody pays to be here. No commission, no selling the trip. The order on this map is the strength of the community, never the size of the wallet.
• An honest blank outranks a plausible name.