“Clients aren’t just a canvas, we sometimes forget that when we focus solely on the tattoo aspect. Marketing is more sophisticated now yes, but it’s ALWAYS been a part of our job,” tattoo artist Kezz Richards talks social media and its impact on the tattoo industry

Kezz Richardson

Social media has undoubtedly influenced the tattoo industry, bringing both advantages and drawbacks. A lot of people have found their favourite tattoo artists and styles through online platforms, and smaller tattoo artists are gaining much-deserved recognition through their social media presence. The benefits are huge, making the tattooing world more accessible than ever before. But, what are the downsides? Is social media shaping or breaking the tattoo industry?

We sat down to have a chat about it with Kezz Richardson, tattoo artist, studio owner and mentor who helps tattoo artists increase their bookings and avoid burnout. With over 20 years of experience, Kezz has seen the influence of social media on the tattoo industry. Inspired by this, she founded ‘Tattoo Smarter‘ and recently launched a new course designed to help tattoo artists master their social media presence and discover personalised strategies that work for them. So, if anyone understands the ins and outs of social media and tattooing, it’s definitely Kezz.

Kezz Richardson (@tattoosmarter)

First off, do you think social media has helped or made it more challenging for tattoo artists?

This is such a nuanced question, it’s made some parts harder and others easier. Social media is so dynamic, it’s changing all the time.

I’ll start with the positives: social media has helped so many tattoo artists connect with clients on a much wider scale than before, all with the click of some buttons. Pre-social media, you might have had 50 people walk into your shop every week – then suddenly you can put your work in front of thousands of potential clients just by using your phone.

Another positive is that social media has helped tattoo artists see and be inspired by other artists’ work more easily. We used to rely on magazines and conventions, which have historically been curated and shaped mostly by white cis men (whose platforms were often influenced by industry politics).

Social media has enabled more minority voices to find their place in tattooing and has given a platform to many types of artists for the first time.

Social media has connected artists on a mass scale, and sharing information digitally has pushed both technical tattoo and business standards much further than if we were still progressing at an analogue pace. The rate at which artists are improving is astonishing compared to even ten years ago.

It’s also provided a huge opportunity to create a more diverse network of artists that may never have met before- going for guest spots meeting up at conventions etc, community & support absolutely make tattooing easier.

Now the downsides: social media has changed at such a rapid pace that some artists that aren’t able (or don’t want) to keep up are feeling completely disenfranchised and lost. They have found themselves with less and less clients because the ability to be visible online is now much harder. I completely get why they feel like this. They wanted to tattoo; the job has lots more moving parts now.

The evolution of social media has especially affected the artists that embraced social media at the start when they found it was so easy to collect followers and followers equalled bookings. Now follower count is mostly irrelevant and lots of artists don’t understand engaged niche followers are much more important now.

Social media has evolved way quicker than our collective education about how to use it.

Those who have always had social media to market themselves are on the whole more adaptable but are still struggling with the changes. I was around well before it and it’s benefitted my career massively. We didn’t need social media before, but we have become to rely on it if we want to be competitive. It was a free tool at the start where the barrier to entry was low – the goalposts have now changed.

Lots of tattoo artists still say we don’t need online visibility and that it’s just word of mouth that’s important but I strongly disagree with this. The first thing clients do after getting a recommendation is to go look online at artists before they make a decision, they very rarely just decide to walk to the tattoo shop without some digital research.

Social media has undoubtedly contributed to more people wanting to become tattoo artists – this means greater competition than before, but this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. There are clients for everyone – different styles, different budgets, different experiences are now catered for. Unfortunately, lots of tattoo artists don’t like the idea of so many newer artists coming into the industry and doing things in a different way or them having to adapt to be competitive.

There are more clients than ever before, but some tattoo artists feel that these new clients aren’t ‘tattoo people’ and are too ‘mainstream.’ This has made gatekeeping more important for those trying to exclude others.

Social media has also allowed clients to think that we owe them our time.

People expect quick responses, and send impatient messages with the expectation of an instant reply, instead of allowing us to focus on the client in front of us or have actual rest days, only adding to our stress. I advocate for professional boundaries, such as forms and digital booking systems, to address this issue. However, tattoo artists as a whole have been slow to adopt these practices, despite my efforts over the past two years to promote them.

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Lastly, I believe social media has contributed to a decline in tattooing hygiene – or at least an increase in the number of tattoo artists with appalling hygiene standards. When reels showcasing terrible hygiene practices are shared, it gives the impression that such behaviour is acceptable or normal, leading others to imitate these bad practices. For example, there was a case where a tattoo artist used an actual cat’s paw to apply the stencil onto a client’s skin, with the cat remaining on the client’s legs throughout the entire tattoo session. We’re witnessing more alarming instances where people prioritise views over their clients’ safety. Examples include matching BFF tattoos where open wounds are rubbed against each other, uncovered beds or armrests, artists wearing watches, and hair or sleeves dipping into open tattoos—the unfortunate list goes on.

Phew. So like I said, nuanced as fuck.

Does managing your social media as a tattoo artist feel like a second job?

Absolutely. Tattoo artists have like 25 jobs on top of tattooing and social media is now a huge part of staying visible. There are tons of other jobs we do like admin, customer service, we are our own HR department, accounting etc.

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It takes up a lot of time and energy – especially when it’s an entirely different skillset to tattooing. It feels like an extra job because lots of tattoo artists just want to tattoo. When we only focus on the tattoo part though, we are forgetting that connecting with our clients is also a huge part of our job.

Clients aren’t just a canvas, we sometimes forget that when we focus solely on the tattoo aspect. Marketing is more sophisticated now yes, but it’s ALWAYS been a part of our job.

My advice for anyone struggling is to streamline all your off-skin work practices rigorously. For example, admin tasks can be vastly improved with a digital booking system, saving hours each week. You can then use this reclaimed time for marketing on social media, integrating it into your regular workload rather than piling it on top.

Also, educate yourself. Social media becomes more manageable when you understand what you’re doing; there’s no shame in seeking help or striving to improve. This is even more crucial if you work in a private studio where visibility is limited. If your studio has a small following, you’ll need to put in extra effort.

Be cautious with social media “assistants”; many may not be knowledgeable. If you decide to outsource, ensure they have demonstrated significant engagement. There are countless “experts” out there just looking to take your money.

Do you think social media brought more stress than good to tattoo artists?

This answer is artist-dependent. Some artists have thrived using social media, some have become completely disillusioned and some have thrived for a short period and then completely burnt out.

For some tattoo artists, social media increases anxiety about not posting enough or feeling behind compared to others who appear to have everything under control, even when they don’t. Much of this perception is an illusion. To reduce stress, the best approach is to learn how to use and manage your energy online and embrace therapy. Anything related to our income is always going to cause stress to some degree, learning about social media gives back a bit of that control.

Does having an active social media presence affect the number of bookings for an artist?

Absolutely not. You could post three times per day and it won’t get you more engagement from the right people or bookings for a number of reasons.

Understanding your client journey online is huge. I still see tattoo artists with no location in their bio or no directions to their link to book using an enquiry form etc. When you miss out on these simple things you are missing out on bookings because you’ve made it difficult for clients to book with you. Making the client journey as easy as possible gets you bookings.

Understanding your retention is massive too, you might get clients through your door using socials but if you don’t get repeat clientele then there’s something up with your client experience.

You can’t just rely on your socials. It’s one part of the puzzle.

If your content isn’t engaging it doesn’t matter how much you post. The goal for your socials is to know your audience and post quality content that will make people feel something. It also helps to be able to analyse the data around your metrics too. Tons of likes don’t mean anything – a good post with lots of inquiries does.

As I mentioned earlier your socials should be all about connection. Tattoo artists turn their noses up at the world ‘content’ but anything you post online is content, including tattoo photos. It’s just that the majority of clients don’t find tattoo photos engaging anymore. You need to find new ways of repackaging your work in a more palatable format to get you up the rankings, on to the explore page, and actually seen.

Tattoo Smarter With Kezz Richardson

If you’re interested in learning more about Kezz and her services, you can visit her website here. Kezz has recently introduced a new course for tattoo artists on social media marketing here, along with a range of other advice and courses. She is also the founder of the Together Tattoo Network business events, which support women, queer, BIPOC, disabled artists, and other marginalised voices often overlooked in the tattooing industry. For details on their in-person event in October, visit their Instagram page @togethertattoonetwork

@togethertattoonetwork

Kiwi and the Bear

Hayley, the Kiwi in Derby-based Kiwi and the Bear, chatted to us about running a “weird little colourful indie biz” with husband, Aaron (Bear). K&TB started as a hobby back in 2015, they now sell art prints, reusable face pads, scrunchies, pin pennants and more

I’ve always been a craft lover and loved trying new things until something finally stuck which turned out to be tie-dye. After I spent a couple of months tie-dying everything in sight, I wanted to take it a step further by adding artwork to the dyed fabric, so I taught myself to hand embroider. What followed was a wall full of embroidery hoops containing tie-dye and 2005 emo lyrics with a little bit of Taylor Swift thrown in, somehow that Taylor Swift hoop made its way onto Buzzfeed and shortly after onto her legal team so that hoop was swiftly retired.

Around this time we invested in an iPad Pro and an Apple Pencil, this right here was the game changing moment for me, I just didn’t know it yet. I started to drift over onto a blank canvas and began playing around with little doodles and eventually adding more art to my lettering which, was weird for me as drawing just wasn’t something I ever did – like, at all. 

I didn’t study art, I didn’t consider myself artistic – crafty yes but artsy not at all. At this point I had been following tattoo artists and illustrators on IG that I found so much inspiration in and it had never occurred to me that I could add my voice via my own artwork to the community. I was so nervous about putting my illustrations out into the world, I thought people would think it was a joke.

It was discovering the incredible creative community on IG that taught me art was whatever I wanted it to be and it could mean whatever I wanted it to mean to me, and suddenly I was free to just create. I was having the most fun and finally felt that feeling of being somewhere you were supposed to be the whole time.

So in 2018 we decided to take Kiwi and the Bear a little more seriously, we wanted it to feel more like a brand, something that really reflected who we are – a couple of weirdos trying to live life a little more positively while still remaining sarcastic and foul mouthed. We just wanted a space where we could really just be our obnoxious selves!

We made a few of my illustrations available to buy as prints alongside the embroidery hoops and it felt liberating, so new, so scary, but so exciting! We started developing more products using our hand dyed fabric, purely for selfish reasons as we were making things that we wanted in our own home. It’s selfish but it’s also the best way to find ‘your people’, those that love the same things as you, customers and friends and even better sometimes both!

Our new products and new direction came at the perfect time for us as I had to take a step back from hand embroidery due to my chronic illness making it near impossible to carry on. I’ve had juvenile rheumatoid arthritis since I was seven, two hip replacements and two shoulder replacements later, what hasn’t been replaced is painful and awkward and waiting to be replaced!

I dislocated my thumb while drying my hair, that’s all it took, they couldn’t get it back into place in A&E and soon after, I saw a specialist that showed me my x-ray, and explained that I actually had five chronic dislocations. I’d just learned to live with them. When you’ve been disabled since you were a kid you become really adaptable especially when you’re a stubborn Taurus, so when someone tells you that you can’t do something because of your disability you find ways around it. I couldn’t physically carry on with the hand embroidery, I was grateful we’d discovered things like our pennants and illustrations, so removing the hoops didn’t have to be the end for us, if anything it felt like the start of a new chapter and I found a way to keep drawing and making even with the dislocations.

When people realise I make and create what I do with my sad little hands they often don’t believe it, but for me it’s the most natural thing to keep going, stay positive and stay medicated. Plus, having a high pain threshold really helps. It also helps with really long tattoo sessions, I think nearly every tattoo artist I’ve spent time with has said that I sit like a rock, I mean come on I have to look for the positives in this disease right?

Positivity is a huge part of what we’re about as a brand, it’s strange to say as two emo kids in their 30s who almost always opt for black everything, but somewhere around my 30th birthday I wanted to be kinder to myself. Every day is a battle for my body so I really wanted to focus on the positive things, however small. It was around this time that I fell in love with colour which was super out of character for me, as the only place I ever had colour was my pink hair, but suddenly I was wearing bright fun dungarees and I realised I could be a colorful emo. I found my sweet spot and I’ve stayed here ever since.

It was around my 30th birthday that I received one of my favourite tattoos, it was a real life changing moment for me, like real-life movie montage material of me coming out the other side a bad ass b!

For the longest time I had left gaps on my body that I was too afraid to get out in a tattoo studio, something switched in me when I turned 30, I learnt to love my body no matter what size it was, I learnt to separate the disease I hated from the body that housed it.

I made a tattoo appointment with Mike Love to get my first hand poke tattoo on my sternum, I was really, really testing my limits and I loved it. This piece is so important to me, it marks the beginning of a new era for myself, I faced my fears and got ‘1989’ hand poked into a space I never thought I’d be able to get tattooed, yes it’s my year of birth (I’m a proud 80s baby if only just clinging on to the very end of the 80s) but it’s also a nod to my favourite Swift album, and this one her legal team can’t take away.

We have been a couple since I was 16 and Aaron was 17, so the longest stretch of our tattoo journeys do end up intertwining at times. We have a few “couple tattoos”, for instance he has “Player 1’ on his inner wrist and I have “Player 2”. We’re huge nerds and play video games together any chance we get, and after 15 years together it feels pretty safe to include our story on each other’s bodies. We do have plans for a couple of matching pieces that relate to our favourite Walt Disney World adventures together. During our trip last Halloween I got to show Ariel my Ariel piece and Aaron got to show Mary Poppins his bag and umbrella piece by Lady Chappell Tattoos, yeah we’re those kinda nerds too, and it was so freaking magical!

The one thing I’ll always thank younger me for was being obsessed with filling my arms leaving my legs bare for when I was more educated about the industry. So my legs are home to my most favourite pieces that I’ve collected through my 20s, my absolute favourite is my Rachel Baldwin piece.

Tattoos have 100% had an effect on my relationship with my body, I began getting tattooed when I was underage (I know, I know!) I think as a sick kid this was to have some control over my body when I felt I had none.

Eventually getting grew into a way to love my body, my body art plays a huge part in my body confidence and I’m finally at a point of accepting that I’m like a colourful weird little marshmallow and proud.

Occasionally someone will ask why I describe myself as a marshmallow, it’s actually a kind of sneaky way to refer to myself as chubby (also fluffy, plump and pink it’s the actual food version of me). I don’t use it to replace chubby because I’m ashamed, because I’m not, it’s been a really long journey to dig who I am. I use it because when you refer to yourself as chubby or fat in a positive way, you’ll more than likely experience someone with good intentions trying to tell you you’re not fat. Most people have received an “omg you’re not fat babe” once in their chubby and proud lives, some people can’t see it as anything but a negative, so it’s easier for me to refer to myself as a “leel marshmallow” so I just get to live my fat and proud life. Also marshmallows are pretty dang cute and if just makes someone think of something pink and chubby well, duh, hello!

We have a lot of plans for the future of Kiwi and the Bear, firstly nap with the pups, then celebrate our 15 year anniversary that we worked through, AND then we want to keep adding new illustrations to the shop. We will still take commissions (hand lettering, illustration, custom dyed pennants) most things in the shop you can make a custom request on. I hope to be lucky enough to carry on doing freelance illustration for companies with the same values as us.

The biggest plan we have is to make a zine about being chronically ill which we started working on before everything was flipped upside down. There’s also talk about possibly releasing our first ever pin, which makes sense with our ever growing collection. Really we just aim to keep being a part of the community that we love and making the things we love while making new friends.

Shaded: Pot Yer Tits Away Luv

‘Shaded’ is an ongoing interview series created by 23-year-old Bournemouth-hailing music journalism student, writer and editor James Musker, which focuses on tattooists, the interesting people who wear their work and both the artist and canvas’s relationship to the craft.

Emma Low is a Leeds-based ceramic artist who creates pots that represent the human-form in all of its wonderful shapes, sizes and colours. At first gifts for those closest to her, Emma’s pots were soon in-demand, and the Glasgow-native found herself starting up her pottery business ‘Pot Yer Tits Away Luv’. Here, Emma speaks about her “inclusive brand”, tattoo tributes to her cat Trouble and how her work aims to celebrate differences and liberate women. “Tits don’t mean sex.”

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Tell us about ‘Pot Yer Tits Away Luv’?
 Pot Yer Tits Away Luv is a pottery business that I started in February 2017. My main inspiration is a realistic representation of the female form, but I also do some work with the male form as well. It all started with a Christmas present that I made for my boyfriend. I wanted to give him something that was personal so I made him a pot with my tits on it. It was okay for a first attempt, but it looked nothing like mine – regardless of that fact, he loved it. People saw it and wanted me to create pots that represented them, and then from there it’s just snowballed. I never expected that it would eventually become my full-time job. I now spend five days a week crafting pots with tits on them, which is pretty mad.

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What first attracted you to working with clay? My boyfriend had done a short course and really enjoyed it, so I thought I’d try it out! It was really difficult to figure out in the beginning, but like everything else, practise makes perfect. I then enrolled in a night class and learned more about the craft. I never made any tit-related items, though. It was all really basic, and most of it wasn’t actually that great.

As well as creating works that celebrate the human body, you also share the work of painters, illustrators and photographers that aim to do the same thing. Can you speak about your on-going relationship with the subject? I’ve always been fascinated by form. It’s amazing how we all have bodies that essentially do the same thing, yet they vary drastically in relation to what they look like. I grew up in a very body positive environment. To me, naked bodies were never deemed as sexual. I like to try and express that in my work – especially when it comes to the female form. Tits don’t mean sex. I think a lot of people misunderstand what my work is about. It’s supposed to be liberating, not about sexualising women. I always love to share other artist’s work because I think it’s important to express gratitude towards the people who inspire you. Social media can be such a useful tool when it comes to finding out about new artists or being exposed to new ideas. There are so many amazing artists who share similar views to me when it comes to feminism, and I like to promote those ideas.

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What’s your relationship with tattooing? I started getting tattooed quite late in comparison to most of my friends. I think I was 24. My first tattoo was done by my friend’s boyfriend when I went to visit them on holiday in Berlin. It’s a black heart with ‘Trouble’ running through it. Trouble was my cat, he passed away last summer but I’d had him for around eight years. The last tattoo I got was by Olivia Chloe Lewis, and it’s a vase! I think regardless of whether your tattoos have a specific meaning you can tell a lot about a person from their tattoos and that’s what’s always drawn me to them. I’ve only ever had my thighs tattooed, I wouldn’t want to move on to anywhere else on my body until my legs are completely covered.

tattoo1Photo taken by @fiayqb_

Your pots represent the human body in so many different ways – large and small, and sometimes tattooed. What is it you feel you are addressing with your all-embracing work, and how do you feel tattooing is part of that conversation? I just want to have an inclusive brand where everyone feels like they are represented. People who have tattoos usually want me to incorporate them into custom pieces, and I really like drawing them on because it can sometimes be challenging! Just like anything else; scars, piercings, moles, third nipples, freckles. Regardless of whether it was a choice, like a tattoo, or a mole you were born with, it all makes you the individual person that you are and that’s what my work is all about: celebrating differences.

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Who influences you? My boyfriend, Archer. He’s very creative, and I wouldn’t be doing what I do now without him. My best friend, Tammy, has built her own nail empire (NAF! Salon). She has shown me that it’s not at all about getting lucky, it’s about hard work, dedication and endless passion. When it comes to artists I absolutely love, the work of Sally Hewett. She is unapologetically honest. Her work is so well thought out and the end product is always so beautiful even if to society the subject might be seen as “ugly”. I have a massive girl-crush on Jen Gotch, founder of Ban.do. Her personal Instagram is so refreshing. She talks openly about her struggles with mental health, is a huge babe, dresses like a crazy old lady, and pulls it off, and somehow also manages to run a very successful business.

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What’s next for you? I have a few collaborations in the pipeline! The only one I can really talk about at the moment is a jewellery collaboration with Lou Clarke. We’re doing earrings! It’s such an exciting time for me. I feel like there are endless possibilities when it comes to doing fun things, but at the moment I haven’t really got a clear path. I’m just gonna keep doing what I’m doing and see where it takes me. I’m not really one for planning – plans stress me out! So yeah, to be honest I have no idea, but for now I’m happy just living in the moment.

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You, Me & Bones

27-year-old Waan Pivasiri is a candle maker and creator of You, Me & Bones in Melbourne, Australia. We chatted to Waan about what inspires her creepy and cute candles… 

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How long have you been making candles? You, Me & Bones’ third birthday will be at the end of April!

How did you start? What did you do before? It started as a hobby; I wanted to gift my friends one off hand-made products rather than things that are mass produced in a factory. I was a front end web developer at the time and after a year or so, I went part time so I can focus more on candle making. Then a year after that I went full time on You, Me & Bones!

Do you have a background in art? Not really, however, I’d like to think I’m pretty creative. I used to draw, paint, sketch and all that but I don’t think I was ever really good at it. I like all things crafty and I like making’things, I’ve been dabbling a little in cross stitching and well as pottery and I’m loving it!

What is the process behind each one? How do you make them? I brainstorm ideas of what I’d like to make then my sculptor Dan create a master for me and we go ahead and create molds off the cast. Sometimes we have to remake the cast if, say the candle won’t burn down nicely, etc, but most of the time it’s perfect. I then make candles out of the mold! The best bit is the first time you unmold your new design. I get super excited!

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What inspires you? Everything I create or want to create are the things and people I am fascinated with and would like to have in my own home. I find dolls so creepy but I just can’t pull away from them. I have a small collection of random doll parts but I have them tucked away so I don’t see them because sometimes they just weird me out so much. I know, it doesn’t make sense, but things that don’t make sense inspires me.

 Can you tell us about your own tattoos? Apart from my shoulder tattoo (which is also my favourite – done by Lee Stain from Inktricate), all my other tattoos are kind of hidden. They are mostly on my the front and sides of my thighs – I feel like they would hurt the least so I get tattooed there. My sculptor Dan Danckert is also a tattoo artist at Killer Bees Tattoos and he did a beautiful Victorian doll head candle on my thigh. I also have a lot of candle and cat tattoos on me!

Where can people buy them and do you do commissions? You can find my products on my webshop. You can also check out my Instagram for updates and the like. Unfortunately I normally don’t have time for commissions but it never hurt to send me a nice email to ask about it!

Toy Tattoo Machines

Emily Rose is a 31-year-old stay at home mom who was a tattooer in Lewisville, North Carolina in the United States who runs an Etsy business from home selling toy tattoo machines that she makes. We chatted to Emily about how she makes the toys and what inspired her to do so… 

il_570xN.808635497_4h7wMy health and lack of child care after having our daughter meant that I was forced to stop tattooing for the time being but I found a way to still contribute to my family and stay somewhat relevant in the tattoo industry when I started my Etsy adventure so I just found another way to work.

I have a solid background in art, I’ve been in art classes my whole life and have my bachelor’s degree in fine arts from a university here in North Carolina. I started my apprenticeship straight out of college and never looked back; I was 21 and now my husband and I run our own shop in our little rural town. He now tattoos there by himself while I’m home with our daughter making toys. It’s tough but I like to think we’re making the best of some difficult situations we’ve been handed.

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I created my toy tattoo machines out of necessity really, our daughter just needed one, and there wasn’t one out there for her, so I made one. She stayed at the shop with us for the first year of her life, we opened the shop when she was a month old. I had to take her with me to breastfeed and tattoo, it was a mess really, but the one thing that made it all worth it was seeing how much she really loved to be at the shop as she grew. The bigger she got the easier it was to have her there with us, so she’s just been a little shop girl from day one.

It was too hard for me to say “no you can’t handle that machine, or that ink” because she couldn’t understand why, so I tried to find ways to make her feel like a part of what we were doing at the shop. But it really inspired me to start making her things that she could use to mimic what she saw us doing at work. I thought they make those little doctor kits why not a tattoo kit? And it worked!

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She had her own little machine and didn’t need to mess with mine, she had something that made her feel like a part of the work day and I decided to start selling them locally before I eventually opened up an Etsy shop. The first ones I made were just scraps of wood and bits of stuff I had laying around, I was able to make them better! I save enough here and there for a new tool or some fancy new paints and I get the most rewarding feedback from moms out there! I could tell my own little one was dying for a way to connect with us over work, she sees us so dedicated and in love with our work I think it’s only natural for her to want to be a part of that too.
I’m beyond excited to see how many people are ordering for little girls, the toys avaliable for girls are still geared towards shopping and domestic duties so I’m happy to see how often the pinks sell out! People are excited to give their kids something other than what they see at the store, and they’re excited to be getting it from me! It’s amazing!

 

IMG_5454Emily’s art work 

I grew up around the art world but it wasn’t until I started getting tattooed that I really felt like I’d found where I was meant to be. I just felt an instant sense of belonging in the tattoo industry as soon as I was old enough to start collecting my own. I was drawn to tattooing because for me I can make such an impact on someone’s life just by giving them the fruits of my labor. I can tattoo anyone, normal people, cancer patients or victims with scars and they always feel so much better afterwards. I liked the idea of sitting with someone and helping them make a monument on their bodies to some internal struggle or painful event, I loved the idea of helping people feel more beautiful.
When I get tattooed it’s almost like I’m becoming more of who I was meant to be, like this colored and decorated version is the real me and I’m just revealing it as I get tattooed, I wanted to help people feel that way too. I also really enjoyed being friends with artists, feeling really connected to them as the people I’d chosen to tattoo me. It’s a special bond, I miss it terribly!

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My own tattoos are mostly pieces I’ve collected from friends at conventions and shops in my years. I have a full sleeve from an amazing friend in Texas named Mark Vanness and it’s a whole arm of birds, it’s probably my favorite! I have a birds nest on my hand there and even a secret ostrich on my bicep, my other arm is generally American traditional and I have black and gray movie portraits on one leg, and some weird ocean creatures on my other leg. I’ve been saving my back for a really epic pelican I’ve been thinking about for years while waiting for the right artist to cross my path. I have saved all the worst spots for last.

Check out Emily’s Etsy store for tattoo toy machines…