White Plains Tattoo Artist Makes it to Prime Time
Ralph Giordano, of Addicted to Ink located at 38 Westchester Avenue in White Plains, is living a dream come true. Already popular locally because of his outstanding ability as a tattoo artist, Giordano now has the opportunity to rise to a much higher level with exposure at the national and even international scene through the NBC Oxygen Channel.
Giordano was chosen to be one of 12 cast members out of 100,000 applicants on Season 2 of the reality series Best INK. The new season premiered last Wednesday and surprised friends and colleagues are now “addicted” to the show to see how Giordano will fare as the season continues. He is sworn to secrecy.
In a phone interview last Friday Giordano told The White Plains Examiner that the whole thing has been a “little surreal.”
“I was tattooed by the head judge on the show, Joe Capobianco, and that is how I got involved,” Giordano said. “There was an open casting call and I gathered up my portfolio and set out for the first meeting. That was followed by a video interview and then the waiting game began. I had to wait several weeks for the final interview. But the really stressful part was waiting for the final phone call.”
When Giordano found out he had made it, he couldn’t tell anyone – not friends, not the people he worked with at Addicted to Ink.
“It took 10 weeks to shoot the series. I spent the entire time out in California. All anyone knew was that I was on a long vacation,” Giordano explained, although he suspects some people had a vague idea that something was up.
Giordano says he loves White Plains and thanks his Westchester following for helping him to get ahead. “For me. For where I am in my career right now, this is the best thing,” he said.
Giordano began his career in art as a comic book illustrator. His style has developed with time; he has been working at Addicted to Ink for at least five years and today he is pushing out a unique style he calls “edgy comic book realism.”
The challenge is on and Giordano won’t tell anyone what’s coming next. You can be sure all eyes will be on the Oxygen Channel this Wednesday, April 10 at 10 p.m. From what we hear on this week’s episode, the artists discover that there is more than one way to tell a story when they are faced with creating tattoos using a controversial medium. Music recording artist and host of Oxygen’s “Bad Girls All Star Battle” Ray J (@RayJ) drops by to guest judge the mysterious “Flash Challenge.”
Good luck Ralph.
