Claire Louise Tarrant creates cute girly tattoos with a tough edge at Gravity Tattoo in Leighton Buzzard. We chatted to Claire about her tattooing style and inspiration...
I was first inspired to become a tattoo artist when I was at university studying fine art. My work has always been illustrative, but I never thought tattooing could be a “grown up” career. Nowadays, I think it’s the most intense job I’ve ever had! I was very lucky with finding a studio where I could learn to tattoo, but found the male dominated studio and industry difficult to navigate.
When I first started dating, before I met my partner Josh, I got the typical weird questions about my tattoos and if it meant I liked pain. Even now I often get the odd customer who says comments such as “women with tattoos are sooooo sexy”. It’s boring! People who have loads of tattoos or can easily get tattooed, honestly forget that they’re a big thing to other people.
I quit tattooing around three to four times due to anxiety and fear of what committing to tattooing meant. It’s such an amazing, insanely cool job, but it’s also overwhelming. It’s helped shape me as a person in more ways than I can count.
I’m now at a all female studio, Gravity, run by the fabulous Holly Astral. Having a female mentor who understands what being a woman in the industry means has given tattooing an entirely new light. It’s now fun and exciting! Tattooing makes me feel like my inner child is playing every single day; I get to be creative, I get to chat with exciting people all day and I get to travel around and discover new places all the time (well before lockdown I could).
I feel as though I’m doing what I was put on earth to do; I practice Reiki and I’m studying to become a counsellor as well. I get to use these tools I’ve learnt on clients too and I feel so connected to the people I tattoo and other tattoo artists. I hate getting tattooed as I’m a huge baby, but the powerful feeling of having another piece of art on me forever reminds me how clients must feel!
I would describe my style as traditional, playful, feminine and illustrative with a pastel and muted colour palette. In the future I’d love to concentrate on traditional style pieces covered in glitter effects, pink and gold!
I am massively inspired by history in my flash sheets and tattoo designs. I’m obsessed with the Tudor period; there’s something so magic about castles, weapons, royal flags and embroideries. I also love traditional styles of tattoo flash, but with the colour palette of mustard, gold, pink, mint and maroon.
I like the idea that something tough can be beautiful; women can soften anything!
I love tattooing flash sheet pieces; I only ever tattoo them once, so I like knowing that it’s been tailored colour wise to the client specifically. I do, however, love connecting with a client and understand them more to do a custom piece!
Heleena, a tattoo artist and owner of Francis Street Tattoo in Leicester specialises in traditional south Asian folky tattoos. A ‘Guji baby’, shes’s been speaking out about the inequalities and discrimination in the tattoo industry, here she talks about cultural appropriation within the tattoo world and why it’s problematic…
I only found out what cultural appropriation actually meant very, very recently. We all know the term and get the gist – it’s not yours and you’ve taken it, also don’t make money off it if it’s not yours. But, the definition is adopting something from a culture when you belong to a different culture, so it’s the adopting that’s the issue.
I feel like cultural appropriation is such a tough subject to speak about and I feel like a lot of people don’t speak about it. It’s difficult to talk about because it’s hard not to offend anyone, but it’s good to have uncomfortable conversations, it’s important.
In my point of view, I think it’s wrong to profit from someone else’s culture, especially if you’re profiting from something you don’t actually have much knowledge about. Profiting off a culture is bad. I’m not saying you should know everything about Indian culture, I’m not expecting someone to know a lifetime’s worth of culture. But if you’re going to use that art work, you should give back to the community that you’re taking from.
So if you wanted one of my ladies, you’ve come to me, you’re not appropriating. I’ve done it, I’ve designed it for you. You’ve come to a south Asian person to have south Asian art, I don’t think you can appropriate art it if this is the route you’ve taken. It’s like if you go to India and buy a piece of art. You’re giving back to that community, and to a person who has that culture. What would be an issue is if you went to a white artist and say; ‘I’ve found this on Pinterest, it’s so cute, I know nothing about it, please tattoo it on me.’ That’s a big issue. I’m genuinely hurt that people are making money off my culture and don’t understand basic facts about it.
The line between appreciation and appropriation
There’s a very fine line and obviously it’s very hard to tell if someone is on that line without getting to know them or knowing the person who they are. It can be very disrespectful to want something cause it looks cool, rather than knowing about it. I wish more tattooists would question a person before they tattoo something religious on them, for example.
I feel like I might get criticism here, because I do tattoo religious iconography on people that aren’t brown, because Hinduism is more of a spiritual thing – you don’t have to convert to Hinduism, it’s more of a state of mind. So some of my clients and regular clients are white. Many of them get a lot of my work done, and they’ve been to India, they’ve prayed in temples, they’ve done everything to assimilate to the culture that they’re in while they’re in it. And I appreciate that, that is a form of appreciation, you didn’t go there just to take cute pictures and look cultured. You went there to actually learn about the culture and immerse yourself. It’s a huge difference.
This is the thing with appreciation and appropriation, because someone can seem very much like they’re appreciating. But if you appreciated properly, if you knew enough about something, then you wouldn’t adopt it for yourself. Like the cornrows and Bantu knots of African women – ‘oh I’m appreciating cause I’m wearing this’, but if you really knew the oppression black women have faced about their hair, why would you want to join in with that? It just shows when people adopt things they don’t actually know shit about them.
I don’t claim to know it all, but the things I do know about I’ve learnt through reading – we’ve all got the internet you know! Google it all! What’s that saying? In the age of the internet, ignorance is not an option. I think that’s very true, and I don’t think there’s any reason to be appropriating at this point.
Whitewashed your feed
There’s been an influx of artists that have been trying to compensate for the lack of colour in their posts. It’s really strange did you know that you were doing this? Was this unconscious or did you know and now you’ve been called out for it? Or did you not realise and you’ve come through to own up to your mistakes?
There were a lot of angry people around my post about desaturation and taking the colour out of tattoos, saying things like, “so what we can’t edit our photos, we’re just taking the redness out?” I don’t know if anybody knows this but tattoos get red. I don’t know where the obsession with taking the redness out of pictures has come from. That’s what they look like. Nobody actually knows what they really look like, for some reason when we post a picture of a new tattoo it looks like it’s already healed, there’s no redness or swelling, no blood.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CBTLultndIu/
I used the term ‘corpse like’ on Instagram, which somebody didn’t really like, but that’s how it feels when you see someone taking the colour out of your photo – you look cold, you don’t look yourself, it makes you question – why did they do that to me? Why did they take the colour out of my skin? That’s definitely why I think stop erasing our skin tones. There’s no need for it.
It’s nice to see brown bodies, that’s something I wanted to see when I first started getting tattooed. I only came across one Indian/south Asian tattoo artist after a lot of searching. I’m very appreciative that my feed is very brown, it’s orange and warm. I really wish I saw stuff like this when I was 18 and first wanted a tattoo and I wanted to know what it would look like on me. Google Indian/south Asian tattoo artist now and a whole bunch of stuff will come up and I’m a part of it!
The only brown person in the room
I asked my followers what it felt like to get tattooed as a POC and some of the answers were hard to read. Some of them were really heartbreaking. I asked because I didn’t know if it was a just a me thing, obviously me being a tattoo artist I’m usually in white spaces a lot, having white friends as well. I’m always the minority, it sounds terrible but I always feel uncomfortable, I sit with that discomfort a lot and I don’t say anything. When it comes to finding a tattoo artist, I’m heavily tattooed and like traditional work. Most traditional tattoo artists are white men. Whenever it comes to meeting a new artist, I’ll get scared and I’ll hesitate and think, I don’t want to go to this person in case they’re racist. It’s a genuine fear any time I meet somebody I’m terrified that I’m going to walk in and they’re going to look at me and think, ‘oh shit, she’s brown, I don’t want to tattoo her.’ I fear that they’re going to say something horrible to me and it’s happened before.
Kelly Smith did my back and she’s the loveliest person I’ve met in my life, but before I met her I was thinking, I’m going to be sitting day sessions with this woman, never met her, she could look at me and be like ‘omg she’s brown I can’t tattoo her.’ It’s a genuine thing, are they going to be racist, are they going to like the fact that I’m Indian? It’s like those fears you feel when you meet a new artist for the first time, I’ve never met this person before. Are they going to be a complete dick? We’ve heard all the horror stories of the victims of sexual assault in the tattoo industry, they should never feel that way. Then the added fear of being a POC and a woman, and being in that situation. You’ve got double the fear, are they going to be racist, are they going to sexually harass me? It’s horrible.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CBQ7CuvnsWk/
Those were the things I was expecting when I asked the question to my followers but the things I heard were far worse. People had paid someone to scar them and then weren’t given the satisfaction of seeing that post on Instagram or if it was posted, the artist had edited away that person’s skin tone. People told me that tattooers had outright refused to tattoo people them or people’s skin had been ruined. It’s horrible, it’s so sad, and it breaks my heart that people have to deal with this. And I’m glad I asked that question because it opened up so many people’s eyes, it opened up my own eyes to the extent of how bad it was – as I haven’t gone through all of it. As a tattoo artist I am privileged as I know my clients will never have to deal with that. I think it was an eye opener for everyone!
It’s when people don’t see it as an issue, obviously I am a POC, I am very aware when I’m the only brown person in the room, but when you’re the majority in the room, you wouldn’t notice. In some sense I don’t blame people for not seeing something that doesn’t affect them, but when people are listening to you and they say, ‘I don’t feel like that, I’ve not noticed that’, you have to continue to say I’m telling you this has happened to me.
Everything I drew was black and white
I’ve told people about the struggle I felt getting into this industry and they were like, well I didn’t do that to you, that’s not me. I’m not telling you that you did it I’m just telling you that’s what happened. When I got my first apprenticeship the artist actually said to me, ‘I hired you because Indian people work hard’. And I thought, ‘omg sick, being Indian got me a job’. Now I’m like he thought I was going to be an obedient little stereotypical Indian girl. And obviously I wasn’t that so I got fired very quickly.
I thought that in order for me to get a job in this industry I had to whitewash myself into very Eurocentric drawings in order to fit in. So I did a lot of neo-traditional work, but I still gave things a sort of Indian-y flair because that’s what I’ve always been drawn to. It’s interesting cause I feel like my work hasn’t really changed but then when I look at it, there’s new things.
When I moved back to Leicester, obviously there’s a huge asian population. Embracing the Indian side of my work would be liked here – people would like it more. Funnily enough I don’t really have a lot of clients from Leicester. Most of my clients travel from different parts of the country, which is amazing. Obviously it’s mad cause no one knows there is a little brown girl in Leicester that does tattoos, when I meet people they can’t believe it.
No two skin tones or skin types are the same
I think if you are a colour work artist, it is important that you figure out how to adapt your colour palette to other people’s skin tones. Something I saw a lot from my questioning and the POC experience of getting tattooed, a lot of people got turned down or were told colour wouldn’t work.
I’ve seen colour tattoos on black and brown people, and they look amazing, they’re gorgeous. They don’t look the same as they would on white people, that’s not the point and it doesn’t need to look the same. It’s beautiful in its own right.
No two skin tones or skin types are the same. You have to be able to adapt no matter what. Cause you don’t know what the person’s skin is going to be like if you’ve never tattooed them before. Everyone’s skin is different, so I don’t understand why if your skin is visibily different people would refuse to tattoo you – that’s a huge issue.
I’m guilty of it too, I used to tell people that I didn’t do colour because I didn’t know how it was going to work on POC. I didn’t think it would work because during apprenticeships, that’s what anybody is told – tattoo a POC and the colour turns out like this, the tattoo does this and this. Then you believe it, but seeing other artists be like no it actually does work. I feel like an idiot, why did I just take somebody’s else word for it instead of learning about it and implementing it in my own art work?
By colouring a different coloured piece of paper or just turn the screen brown on your iPad, then add the colour to find what colours work. I see a lot of tattoo artists do that as well with their flash sheets, instead of having it just on white paper they use brown paper. That’s so cool, they’re so smart! Obviously tattoos won’t look like how they do on pen and paper but you get the gist. The contrast more than anything seems to be what everyone has the issue with. The lighter you are the more contrast black has one white, the darker you are the less contrast, it doesn’t mean that you can’t see it – it’s not invisible.
The patch test thing has been controversial too, because if you wouldn’t do a patch test on a white person, why would you do it on a black person? It kinda make sense but I guess we’re not at the stage yet where we know enough about doing colour tattoos on POC. We need to build that skill set and can look at a POC and know exactly what colours will work with their skin. Since we’re not at that stage the best way to do it is to just put pretty little coloured dots on people, obviously it’s not going to look terrible but it’s like a little rainbow. I think the patch test should be a free service though, I don’t think you should be paying for it. It’s not your fault that you need a patch test, it’s that artist’s lack of experience.
One last thing I would like to say to anyone who reads this, stop getting Buddha heads tattooed. It’s very offensive. In Thailand they have signs everywhere saying do not get a Buddha tattooed on you. I don’t know the ins and outs of it but the fact they have to have signs up telling people to stop getting them tattooed on you kind of says it all, doesn’t it? So now whenever I see a Buddha tattoo I’m like NO. You don’t understand, if you really knew about Buddha you wouldn’t have got that tattoo. If you really cared that much about Buddhism you would have known it offends them – so shame on you.
Heleena is continuing to speak out and challenge the tattoo industry, make sure to follow her Instagram and why not join in the conversation yourself?
Chelsie Harrison co-owns Sweet Peach Tattoo with @emgormleytattoo in St. Helens, Merseyside, where she creates sweet, girly and cute tattoos. We love Chel’s work and so we had to find out more about the artist behind the tattoos…
We love your girly cute style, would you describe it like this? Yes I describe it as a girly take on traditional style tattooing. I draw things I would like to have on my own body and I think traditional never goes out of fashion!
What inspires and influences your tattoos? To be honest almost everything inspires me, from watching the telly to going on walks. I have to jot ideas down before I forget them, my phone is backed up with screenshots of stuff that gives me ideas on what to draw – flowers, cartoons, patterns and colours.
What do you love to tattoo and draw and what would you like to do more of? I’m a big Moomins fan, I love tattooing anything Moomin related, me and @emgormleytattoo (who I work with) are both dinosaur obsessed and the studio is filled with lots of dinosaur stuff, we both love drawing them and have dinosaur offs!
I’d love to tattoo more traditional lady head designs, I think they are so pretty and I have a few tattooed on myself! Cute animals are something I enjoy too and of course always love flowers! I get excited when a customer completely trusts my judgement and just wants my style and designs on their body.
How long have you been tattooing? I’ve been tattooing nearly six years and I’ve loved every second of it. I got into it by getting tattooed by local artists and always talking about how much I’d love to tattoo, until one day my favourite artist that I was getting tattooed by at the time asked me out on a date! (@pau1terry_) We have been together ever since and he has been the best partner in crime. He encouraged me to find an apprenticeship because he knew how much of an awesome job it is, he is so supportive and I love the fact that we are both tattoo artists. We can just talk about the industry together and ask each others advice and opinions on designs and tattoos we’ve done. He gives a lot of constructive criticism which has helped me get better at tattooing over the years.
If you weren’t a tattooer what would you be? I’ve always set my sights on tattooing so I haven’t really gave it much thought, tattooing is my dream job and I’m so lucky to a lifelong hobby as a job. If tattooing was out of the picture I think I would like to work with children in a nursery as me and Paul have a little boy together and he brings us so much joy and laughter.
Can you tell us about your own tattoo collection. I’ve got a mix of different styles, I like both blackwork and colour. I have a lot of tattoos from my boyfriend Paul Terry I’m in love with his work and i just let him have free rain and he can tattoo whatever on me! Some of my favourites are from a Leeds based artist called Lucy O’Connell, she has done my chest, neck and forearm and I absolutely adore them, her work is just amazing! I have already booked in with her for more!
We travelled to Madrid last year as Paul was invited to do a guestspot at La Mujer Barbuda, I got tattooed by one of my favourite artists Derbora Cherrys while I was there, she tattooed a shattered lady face with a peach on me and it’s just perfection!
How does tattooing and tattoos make you feel? I love making people’s ideas come to life, it’s mad to think that my artwork is on them forever! (if they don’t get it removed that is). I also love how you meet so many nice individuals, the people I work with are like my family and a lot of clients I would call my friends.
As we scrolled through Instagram looking for new artists, budding tattoo apprentice Jade’s four-eyed women drew us in. We were captivated by bedroom scenes, bright pops of colour and striking murals – we had to find out more about this tattoo apprentice, who works at the all-female Heartless Tattoo in Los Angeles…
How long have you been a tattoo apprentice, and how did you get your apprenticeship? I started my journey back in November. I was apprenticing at a shop in Beverly Hills that was black owned, which was really dope. I was there for a few months but unfortunately that opportunity was cut short. Even though I wasn’t there long, I was able to absorb a lot of important information about what it is like to tattoo darker skin, which is very important for me as an artist.
Honestly, I got my first apprenticeship just being at the right place and right time. After leaving my first apprenticeship, I was offered another opportunity to continue my journey at an all Woman of Color shop located in Los Angeles, Heartless Tattoo. The owner of Heartless, Yher, has been a long time inspiration of mine and friend and she told me when I was ready, she had a home for me. I couldn’t be more grateful for my Heartless family!
What advice would you give to anyone wanting to get started in the tattoo industry? I would tell them to put themselves out there as an artist, make connections, continue to practice your craft. Nothing is just handed to you. Living out your dream consists of hard work, dedication, and practice. Also, I would tell them to make sure that this industry is something that you’re genuinely passionate about and that you’re ready to sacrifice for it. Pay respect to those who did it before you and the history behind it as well.
Can you share with us your experience as a woman in the tattoo world, and your experience as a black woman in this industry? So far so good. The shop that I’m at is an all female shop so it’s really nice to be around feminine energy, especially in such a male-dominated industry. As I get further into the industry, I know that there will of course be some hardships for not only being a woman but also a black woman, but I am here for the fight and representation.
What’s the tattoo scene like in LA? LA has so much history and has played a HUGE part in the tattoo culture and history. From Ed Hardy to GoodTime Charlie, to Freddy Negrete and Mister Cartoon, they paved the way for us artists and put LA/SoCal tattooing on the map. It’s crazy I can call this place my home and just be surrounded by so much history. It’s very normal to see people blasted in tattoos in LA, it’s very accessible to get tattooed out here. It’s very normal. You will drive down Melrose Ave, and pass like 10 shops within a two mile radius. It’s quite interesting!
We love your double-eyed girls, what inspires your illustrations? I’ve always been inspired by black women and women of color. The four-eyed girl is how I add a little me into every painting. I’ve been wearing glasses since third grade and being called four-eyes has always been a thing, so I just re-channelled it into my world. When I got serious about my art, I wanted to create something that looked like me and the people who also look like me. I realized that a lot of the artists I looked up to weren’t depicting black women (up until recently honestly). And I wanted to create something that I would’ve loved to see when I was a kid.
Are there any artists or tattooers you look up to or influence your work? There is a list of people who I look up to and influence my work. I can talk about them all day honestly. Tattoo wise, my Heartless family inspires me every single day, I can’t believe I’m surrounded by such talented, cool ass people. I’m also inspired by Doreen Garner (@flesh_and_fluid), Brittany Randell (@humblebeetattoo), K. Wong (@kwongtattoo), and Lydia Madrid (@lydiamadriid). My art influences are Christina Martinez (@sew_trill), @reesabobeesa, Natasha Lillipore (@lillipore), Hailey Losselyongs (@hai_ey), and Tamia Blue (@tamiablue).
What do you like to draw/tattoo and what do you want to do more of? I love drawing my girls and I want to be able to tattoo them as well as my original art.
How would you describe your style? Where do you want to take your tattoos in the future? I would describe my art style as illustrative for sure. But as far as my tattoo style I want to push my work as neo-traditional and show black art in the neo world.
Can you tell us about your own tattoo collection, what was your first, which is your favourite? I’ve been collecting tattoos since my eighteenth birthday. Both my mom and step dad are heavily tattooed so my mom literally dropped me off at the tattoo shop on my birthday. My first tattoo is a hamsa with a Ganesha inside on my rib. That’ll forever hold a special place in my heart since it was my first, however I don’t have any favorites. I think for the most part my tattoos are badass! There’s a couple that I definitely wish were different but I still love them and it’s funny to look back at.
Have your tattoos changed how you feel about yourself and your body? DEFINITELY! I couldn’t imagine myself without my tattoos and I am planning on covering the majority of my body. It’s so fun to look at the pieces and be like holy shit that’s my arm.
I feel like they make me, me. It sets me apart from the rest and at the same time I’m a part of a sick ass community.
We love how open and honest you are about your mental health on Instagram, can you say a bit more about why this is so important to share. I felt like at this time, It was time to share where I am and how I feel. I never liked talking about my mental health because it made me feel like a burden to others, but this time I knew that I wasn’t being open for me but for those who feel the same way and feel alone. I felt like it was important to let people to know that it is okay to be not okay.
Liam Blvck (@theblvckmambatattoo) crafts contemporary blackwork tattoos at Bebop Ink in Vancouver, Canada. Liam combinestheir heritage of Chinese and European culture into dark, fantastical artworkswhich straddle the line between the above and the below, much like the lines Liam tells us they have existed between throughout their career and life…
What inspired you to become a tattoo artist? Did you complete an apprenticeship, if so what was this like? I’ve been fascinated by tattoos since I was young when I saw all of my favourite band members covered in tattoos, it really intrigued me. I remember thinking “can I just wear my favourite art on my skin forever?”
I was the only arty child in my family, and my family thought I would pass that phase as I got older, but I didn’t. I didn’t really think about being a tattooer until I was 16. When it really struck me how I was extremely into body modification and that I would love to do anything related to art, but at the same time I’m wasn’t interested in just painting on a canvas and selling my art in a gallery. After high school, I ended up going to art school which really reinforced the idea of becoming a tattooer. It took me years to find a proper apprenticeship, but I managed to find one at a street shop.
Luckily my mentor was willing to guide me through the process, even though it was a learning curve for both of us. I was his first apprentice ever. Most of the people who worked there were apprenticed under another boss, and I was the exception which kind of made me the black sheep. I was taken through extreme ups and downs when it came to my learning, because I wasn’t taught the way my boss was as an apprentice. I felt like I needed to learn faster and work harder to prove myself.
Can you tell us about your own tattoos, and the process behind these – how do you settle on a design or choose an artist? I’ve collected a handful of tattoos from different artists around the world; each of the pieces represent my growth as a person, and what I was going through at that time. Most of the tattooers I find are from tattoo magazines I’ve purchase, word of mouth, tattoo conventions and artists of the late 90s/early 2000-esque from a website hosted on Angelfire. I was on more of a scavenger hunt for tattoos back then, instead of just going on Instagram like you do now.
I used to believe every tattoo had to have a meaning in order to get it permanently on my body, and I was told if they didn’t I’d regret it for the rest of my life. Surprisingly, some of my most meaningful tattoos have now been covered. The older we are, it seems that we look back on things and the feelings we had have changed. Nothing stays the same forever, every day we grow as a person. I came to the realisation that it’s okay to just simply appreciate something in the moment, overthinking it would make things complicated.
Most of my tattoos at this point don’t have any meaning, rather I loved the work the tattooer had put out. I simply want what they’re good at, not just the styles, but the subject matters they’re interested in too.
Do you have a favourite tattoo either on your own body or one you have created? Every tattoo I’ve created I’ve loved in different ways, that’s pretty much asking someone to pick their favourite children!
But I would say my favourite tattoo on my own body would be my black-out arm. It was a cover up of a sleeve I’ve got when I was between 18 and 20. It showed how much I had changed as a person, and I realise back then I was still exploring my self identity, as a woman at that time, and as a non-white. Underneath layers and layers of black is a super colourful sleeve that even had an owl with neon pink wings! The black-out took me two to two and a half years to finish, each layer was done by a different coworker that I trusted. The experience of a black-out arm is so different than that of getting a design, it’s a different level of commitment, and it’s something that’s hard to describe until you’ve experienced it on your own.
How would you describe your work? Do you think your experiences have shaped the tattoos you create? Although I was born in Canada, the majority of my childhood was spent in Hong Kong. Hong Kong was colonised by the UK at that time and so I was exposed to European culture along with my own people’s culture. European art was always my favourite because I’m obsessed with how humans can achieve such levels of details in their craft or artwork. Also I was into heavier music and often old European art would be featured on album art and merch.
My work is a fine line between European-esque art, and my life experiences of living on the line between Western and Chinese culture – my identity, my skin, gender, mental health collides with European occult imagery. It’s abstract and complicated.
What kinds of tattoos do you love to do, what designs get you excited? Is there anything you’d like to create or a particular concept you’d like to explore? I would like to continue with the occult aesthetic in my work, but take it more into a surrealism direction. Loving what you do and taking it to another level is the truest growth of oneself.
How would you describe your experience as a queer tattooer in the tattoo industry? Does this influence the spaces you tattoo in? I started out as a cis woman in the industry and I experienced the struggle of being part of the boy’s club. I still notice how I get treated differently compared to white colleagues, and often I get the harsh end of it all. Even the clientele at the beginning of my career treated me poorly because most of the folks that came to me did so because I’m not white, they assumed that they could get a deal on the tattoo they wanted.
I also have experienced male tattooers putting me into uncomfortable situations, such as commenting on women’s appearances, wanting to meet me outside of the workspace for a “consultation” and when I’ve gotten a tattoo from them their arm is positioned in a questionable area.
When I realised that I’m non-binary, and started to dress more queer it was another segregation on top of what I had already experienced. I feel sometimes that the community itself questions my queerness and my right to the space because I’m married to a cis man and therefore I’m not queer and non-binary enough. I was still treated as a cis woman, and my chosen name threw people off and some of them got a bit uncomfortable when they had shown up to their consultation and were expecting to get tattooed by a male tattooer.
All of these experiences, have shaped me. I want to tattoo in a queer friendly safe space where all bodies, race, genders are welcome. Both tattooers and clients give so much trust to each other and vulnerability, in this space judgement and hate is not tolerated. Getting a tattoo shouldn’t be scary and you shouldn’t leave with a traumatic experience.
I’ve read that you’ve explored your craft in a lot of different countries is there a place or moment that stood out for you? I’ve travelled to a few places throughout my tattoo career, I always get inspired by my experiences. Also seeing how other tattooers that I admire love and perfect their craft, gives me the motivation and validation to know that you create your own journey within this craft. There’s no such thing as one art being superior to others, your craft is created by a collection of experiences. The people who come to you do so because they connect with your creation, and that’s how magic happens.
