Did you miss the year’s LadiesLadies! Art Show? Don’t worry, we’re sharing some of the artwork from international female tattooers featured at the 2019 exhibition held in New York:
Halloween Spoopy Tattoos
It’s Halloween and we’re celebrating with our favourite #spoopy tattoos from some of favourite female tattooers. But what are spoopy tattoos you may ask? For those of you not familiar with this genre of tattoos, you’ll be pleased to know spoopy tattoos are a mixture of spooky and cute. Kinda like kawaii inspired tattoos in their colour palette. Although they typically feature pumpkins, bats and ghosts, they’re not just for Halloween. They also combine classic creepy themes with food, cute faces and sparkles!
@melvin_arizmendi – so cute, we want to lick that icing right off! Hope it isn’t a trick cupcake though.
@alexstrangler – aw a ghosty holding a balloon, will the helium make it float away?
@keelyglitters – ghost, tick; grave stone, tick; adorable glitter, tick – great example of a spoopy tattoo.
@roxyrydertattoo – what’s more Halloween than the phrase trick or treat? Make it spoopy by adding candy hearts and bat silhouettes. Nailed it.
@littlerachtattoo – is it a vampire? Is a pumpkin? We’re not sure, but it’s hella cute.
@laurathedrawer – look at this little ghosty’s face! Looks so happy to be flying in the stars with its bat friends.
@jodydawber – candy corn, not something we have in the UK but we’ve all heard the legends of this sickly sweet orange-coloured sweet.
@bootattoo89 – this is how your trick or treat goody lantern should look at the end of the night!
@kirabishoppp – please tell us this adorable ice cream is pumpkin spice flavoured?
@staceymartintattoos – look at its little arm carrying that lollipop! We can’t cope!
@siknaktattoo – is the kitty trying to get out of the pumpkin, or is it loving sinking its teeth into that soft pumpkin flesh? We don’t know, but the little cat ghosts are killing us!
Share your fave spoopy tattoos with us on Instagram by tagging us, @thingsandink
We love kewpies
Rose O’Neill first illustrated Kewpie dolls to be featured in the Ladies’ Home Journal, and they swiftly became extremely popular. Born in Germany, their name derived from the word “Cupid”, for the Roman God of beauty.
Shortly after Rose was 19, she moved to New York city alone with only 60 drawings. Within three months, she had sold them all. She was shocked by their popularity. She began illustrating for children’s books and was highly successful, appearing in many popular publications including Harper’s Bazaar and Good Housekeeping. She drew over 700 cartoons for the humour magazine, Puck, which was a predominantly male-centric title at the time.
Her career was unparalleled and she truly demonstrated the traits of a strong woman. During her success, she sent her earnings home to her father, who converted their two-bedroom cabin in Missouri into a 14-room mansion. Rose also bought homes in New York, Connecticut and the Italian Isle of Capri. In a time where women could not even vote, she was truly supporting her family and allowing them to live a life they were not previously accustomed to.
Rose took inspiration for her work from many different areas of her life. Her Kewpie dolls came to her in a dream. Rose O’Neill had a dream of small little cherub-like elves jumping on her bed, one night in 1909. When she woke, she hurried to her drawing desk and sketched the first Kewpie. From there, her love of the small Kewpie never faltered.
Kewpies took their doll form in 1913, manufactured in Germany, designed by Joseph Dallas. They were five inches tall, with jointed arms, painted eyes and a distinctive moulded face. They became highly collectable, and in 1939 a Kewpie doll was entered into a time capsule in New York’s World Fair. Early dolls now raise thousands of dollars, and are highly collectable. But they were not only captured in celluloid and plastic; Kewpies were immortalised in colouring books, stationery, cups, plates and poems. More recently, they have been commonly eternalised in tattoos. Many artists now tattoo the dolls in many different outfits and styles, but always keeping to the distinct Kewpie characteristics Rose O’Neill designed.
Kewpies were popular in tattoo flash around the time of their conception, but faded out by the 1950s, being seen as old-fashioned. Today, they are almost as famous in tattoo flash as other bold traditional designs, such as the pin-up girl. Many artists are known for their amazing renditions of these cherub-like children, such as Kim-Anh Nguyen, Lauren Winzer and the late tattoo legend Mike Malone.
Kewpie necklace, by Bete Noire.
The Coven girl gang
We met up with Sapphire, founder of The Coven, an online membership for female founders and freelancers, to find out more about her girl gang, her tattoos and inspiration.
What inspired you to set up The Coven? What’s the ethos around it? Do you have any membership requirements or rules? When I started, my first ever business (a flower studio) I went from being around lots of people all of the time to working by myself. I don’t think until you are in a situation where you work by yourself all of the time, you realise just how isolating it can be. I was battling such conflicting feelings – I was so excited to be running a business and so desperate for it to work but, on the hand, I was also extremely lonely.
This isolation inspired me to build a virtual platform to bring women from across the UK (and now the world) together, so that you’d have somewhere to log in, a place to go to break that isolation and make you feel supported even when you’re sat by yourself.
We don’t have any requirements, we are a Coven not a clique – we are for those who need us, as long as you identify as female and are happy to follow our only rule, which is to be nice, then you are welcome through our virtual doors.
How is it different from other clubs? How do we join? It’s funny, I get asked this question a lot now. When I started The Coven, there wasn’t much else like it, I knew of two other membership platforms who also targeted female founders, one of which was in America. Fast forward 15 months since launch and they are everywhere.
Our main difference is that absolutely everyone is welcome, we have been all about community over competition since day one. And we encourage our members to adopt the same ethos. What’s so beautiful about The Coven is that there are women from hundreds of different industries, all following different paths – we aren’t targeted at a particular industry or a particular type of person. We just want to support those who need it, we are for the people who believe in the power of community and want to be a part of something magical.
Another difference, one that isn’t as obvious, is that I work on The Coven full time and I have since day one. I’m heavily involved, even now we have a team, in the running of the business. I chat to members via email every day, reply to posts in our FB community and often jump on accountability calls to find out what a member has been doing that month. Many platforms take your money and leave you to it, I care about every single one of my members, I see them as people and not money signs.
We have a waitlist, you can add your name to the list to join us. We reopen doors on 1 October and will let in only 500 members, act fast!
Saph, tell us a little about your background, where you grew up and where you live now? What do you love about it? With a name like Sapphire people always expect me to have an exotic background but I was born in Crawley, West Sussex – you can’t get any less exciting. I moved around a lot when I was younger we lived in various places in Sussex, West Sussex and Surrey before moving to Essex when I was nine.
I went to Thailand at 19, tried New York at 23 and then moved to Ibiza at 24, which is where I’ve been living for the past eight months. I’ve actually made the decision and taken on a flat back in Essex near my family. It was a really difficult decision to make, I’d gone through a real bout of loneliness in Ibiza (loneliness seems to follow me!) as I didn’t manage to make very many friends. Once again it was difficult because I had all these people telling me how amazing it must be to live in Ibiza and how lucky I was but… a beautiful view isn’t always fun if you don’t have anyone to share it with. I looked at moving to London but the prices are extortionate and I craved being close enough to my family to have Sunday roasts and see my friends. The flat has literally been signed today, so I’m back to being an Essex girl for at least the next year or so!
Tell us about your tattoos and piercings. Are you planning more? I am covered in tattoos, all of which are extremely random. Tattoos to me, are like memories and I tend to get them as a spur of the moment thing to look back on… this is sometimes a good way to do it but has lead to some hilarious regrets.
My first tattoo I got on my first girls holiday to Magaluf. I absolutely hated the place, maybe if I’d gone to Ibiza I’d have got a classier tattoo. One drunken night led to me getting a chinese symbol on my back. It says courage, to remind me to be brave. The first thing my mum said when I got home was ‘wow, Chinese symbols, they were tacky even in the ’90s’. Every time someone asks me about it, it makes me laugh, although for a while I regretted it, now it just makes me smile.
My second tattoo covers the bottom half of my left arm and is of two very detailed red roses, a completely random idea at the time, wasn’t a particular lover of flowers but I went on years later to own my florist, so it ended up making sense.
Another funny one… I am a HUGE Bill Murray fan and have been for years. During my time in Thailand, my friend said he was going to get an ‘I love Nicholas Cage’ tattoo and so I ran off to get a Bill Murray one. Into my local tattoo shop, shoved down my shit drawing of what I wanted and got inked right then and there. I marched back to the cafe where we all hung out, next to my little wooden hut to proudly show everyone. Turns out he spelt it wrong. It says Bill Mummy. F*cked it.
They aren’t all funny, some are cheesy. When I had a huge and very messy break-up just a few days before my and ex partner had booked to go travelling around Asia together, I was absolutely shattered – both because we’d broken up and because it meant the trip I’d planned for eight months was cancelled. I couldn’t bear to go alone so I said f*ck it and booked a one-way flight to New York and found an apartment to rent. While there I nursed myself back to full happiness and got a tattoo of a broken heart with the American flag in it to remind myself of how strong I am and how much fun I had.
What are your hopes for the future? My only personal goal is to be happy, I want to live a life that makes me happy almost every day. Too many people wish each day away, whether they are waiting for summer or counting down to a holiday or imagining how things will be better if only X thing changed. None of us know how long we’ve got (I have another tattoo that says life is short!) and when our time will be up. I want to enjoy whatever time the universe has planned for me.
The Coven is a whole other story, I’ve got targets and plans coming out of my ears. In 2020 we are expanding, we already have members in 16 countries around the world but we are planning to expand our events worldwide.
You can sign up to The Coven waitlist (which opens tomorrow, 1 October) at thecovengirlgang.com
Interview with tattoo artist, Cassandra Frances
The face issue Things & Ink was published in 2013, this is an interview with its cover star, tattoo artist Cassandra Frances.
I first met Cassandra in 2012 at End Times in Leeds where she used to work – I instantly fell in love with her warm nature and dedicated work ethic. She put me at ease while she tattooed me, chatting about life, music and magazines. We were like old friends, talking away, of course the conversation always returning to tattoos.
When the decision was made to make issue 2, ‘The Face Issue’, I knew I wanted Cassie on the cover. With her fiery red hair and delicate porcelain skin, you almost don’t notice that she has facial tattoos. Her tattoos are so delicate and feminine, and will certainly make people think twice about their preconceptions about women with facial tattoos. The image on the cover is very powerful in its beauty. I hope it will make a statement to anyone with preconceived notions about women who choose to tattoo their face. We chatted to Cassie about her life as a tattoo artist, her style and how she decided to get her first ever face tattoo…
Who did your face tattoos? Andrew Mirfin, who owns End Times in Leeds .
How did you decide to get your face tattooed? First one (now covered up) was to celebrate getting my tattoo license. It felt like it was all official and I wanted to mark it with something special.
Who did the first one? The first one is now covered up, and was done by my old boss
Don Richards, just a small outline of a heart. I decided to make it a bit bigger and bolder
after time. Andy has done all the others.
How did you feel when you were getting tattooed? I trust Andy, so I wasn’t really nervous and I knew I definitely wanted it. The tiny ones hardly registered, but the bigger heart was fairly painful and gave me a headache. It was over in 15 minutes or so, though.
What kind of reaction do you get to having tattoos on your face? None really. I very rarely get any kind of reaction from anyone, I’m never sure if I just don’t notice it, but even my mum was sitting looking me in the eye over lunch for an hour and didn’t notice the heart and flower, I had to point it out.
Do you feel any different about your face now? After getting my beauty spot on my cheek, I instantly felt a million times more confident. When I draw women I more often than not give them a beauty spot, just something about them really appeals to me. If I didn’t have tattoos I think I’d be pretty boring to look at. My face looks how I want it to look and that’s all that really matters.
Do you think there is a difference between men and women getting such visible tattoos? Never really thought about it. Not in my little world really. Whether people think it’s unfeminine, I really don’t care. I like myself and so do the people who matter. If a man judged my level of attractiveness on that, he wouldn’t be worth the time of day anyway
Would you ever tattoo a face? I am too scared to tattoo a face, it is such a huge responsibility.
Has anyone ever asked you to tattoo their face and what did you say? My best friend wants me to do her a beauty spot on her, but I just don’t feel comfortable with it.
How would you describe your style of tattooing? It’s pretty feminine. I think my work naturally comes out quite delicate. If left to my own devices, I like to use red, gold and green, and I’m happiest when working on smaller pieces. My favourite thing to tattoo is lady faces and wish I could do that all day every day.
How do you feel about the tattoo industry? Including tattoo magazines/media. I’m not sure I know enough of the industry yet to have a valid opinion, I’ve been working away in a little bubble really. I do feel excited to be a small part of something so amazing and exciting, though. Tattooing is the love of my life, and some days I kind of hate it, but even on those I know deep down I don’t want to do anything else.
How did you feel about doing the cover shoot? To be honest, not 100% comfortable. I’d rather people looked at my work than my face. Bit of a strange experience having a room of people focused on me for that long. I feel honoured to be asked to do the cover and said yes as I’m not sure anyone will ask me again!
Did you enjoy it? It was an interesting experience and a nice bunch of people. Spending a day with people telling you repeatedly how beautiful you look is good for the ego.
Would you do it again? I’m desperate to be photographed as a flame-haired Pre-Raphaelite.