What to do next

ok here is my situation. I am in a sort of apprenticeship. I been tattooin for almost 3 yrs. I taught myself because noone would take on an apprentice out here. frustrated, I bought everything i needed read almost everything i could get my hands on, talked to other artists and started practicing on myself. Once I became comfortable, i started hittin the shops again. My work wasnt great, i was learning, but i thought to myself that doin this might make it a bit easier to get where i wanted to be. WRONG. ppl please dont try and teach yourself. you develop bad habits. anyways i got lucky bout 6 months ago. I stopped at a shop with some of my work and a few ppl i did work on. They agreed to apprentice me. Now heres where I need some direction. Nothing was ever put on paper! I agreed to come in everyday (which I had zero problem with) and kinda relearn. break my bad habits ect. They would charge me a nominal fee which i would pay from the tattoos I did. so i quit my job ( bad fuckin move on my part) and concentrated on tattoin. I been tattooin in this place 6 months now. And Ive gotten nowhere. There is an artist that loves takin my clients, and bad mouthin me infront of customers. The shop refuses to do anything that might bring ppl in. I mean we have maybe 3 or 4 walkins a week on a good week. I appreciative of the oppertunity ive been givin. But somehow I feel as though this is nothing but a dead end. Im givin almost no oppertunity to further my art and get better and at the sametime have many of my customers refuse to come in anymore because of how the other artist is with them. real cut throat. So now im unsure of weather to just bite my tongue, which is gettin harder each passing day, or say fuck it and try to find a shop that will actually help me grow as an artist so that I may help thier shop grow as well. Any suggestions from anyone would be greatly appreciated. Monti

Monti here is what i would do.(but this is me mind you) PACK MY SHIT! START WALKING OUT THE FUCKING DOOR! the second that bad mouthing artist said one fucking word to me id BITCH SLAP HIM IN TO NEXT FUCKING WEEK AND TALK TO HIM ON THURSDAY! look ya got previous CLIENTS telling YOU they wont come back because of the attitude! FUCK EM! GET THE HELL OUT! find another shop get another job do the apprenticeship part time untuil you can get a good clientel base going.And get the training on a contract form. NO ARTIST SHOULD BAD MOUTH A FELLOW SHOP ARTIST! I went through that shit also and finally walked out! best of luck keep us posted on the going ons here! now i have to go punch in those fucking numbers to post this LOL