You can afford to hire a part-time assistant. You shouldn't be able to hire someone to work full-time for you for $20 a week. I hope that's obvious.
A) Someone is a gifted tattoo artist and you want to learn the craft from them, so you pay them to teach you. You're responsible for your living expenses and you get by with odd jobs or what-have-you.
B) Someone pays you $5/day to do office work for them.
C) Someone is a gifted tattoo artist and you want to learn the craft from them, but you don't have any money to pay them. So the tattoo artist takes you on as a full-time paid intern, making a non-living wage