Tag: Brooklyn

Posted on

Interview with Anka Lavriv

30-year-old Anka Lavriv owns and works out of Black Iris Tattoo in Brooklyn, New York, where she creates beautifully delicate illustrative style tattoos. We chatted to Anka about her style, inspirations and her distorted female figures… 

fullsizerender-10

How long have you been tattooing? I’ve been at it on and off since I was 15, but I have been tattooing full time for about three years. Opening our studio Black Iris Tattoo last December was so life changing and taught me so much, it still feels pretty unreal.

How did you start? What did you do before? I didn’t have a traditional apprenticeship, so it took me a while to get to the point where I was able to build a personally acceptable portfolio and feel confident enough to get into a shop. A friend of mine got a tattoo from John O’Hara (who is now my business partner at Black Iris) and that friend put us in touch. I interviewed at the shop he worked at and basically begged the owner to give me a chance! Before that interview I bartended in Manhattan and Brooklyn. I also did illustration work on the side. I still worked at the bar part time through my first year of tattooing as I was building a clientele but it took me a little while before I felt comfortable enough to go into tattooing full time.

fullsizerender-11

Do you have a background in art? I am originally from Ukraine and my mom was an artist and font developer in The Soviet Union, so we had a bunch of art supplies and books when I was growing up. I was always interested in drawing and drew obsessively at times, but I never imagined I’d be able to make a living out of it. I am self-taught and don’t have any formal art education.

What drew you to the tattoo world? I’ve always been drawn to mediums that are lasting and non-erasable – ink, ballpoint pen. Tattooing is the ultimate form of this idea of permanence for me. When I know I don’t get a chance to make a mistake and start over, I get into a hyper focused state – I love the feeling of it. Tattooing is a craft that needs constant practice. I’m really grateful for coming up through the industry in such an interesting time when tattooing is a lot more accessible and socially acceptable.

fullsizerender-12

How would you describe your style, has it changed? When I was starting out, I didn’t have the execution skills, but I did have great imaginative concepts that came to me very freely. As I got to practice more and more, I started catering to my clients and now I’m trying to find the balance between producing work that is relevant while staying true to my aesthetic.

What do you like to tattoo and draw? I mostly draw distorted female figures adorned with symbolic and natural elements. I use female characters to tell a particular story or to just to give the image a certain feel. I love to tattoo animals ( cats cats cats!), botanicals, anything organic. I’m always down for a good old 17th century type of etching design too.

fullsizerender-13

What inspires you? My emotional state plays a huge role in the creative process. I like to think of inspiration as a reaction to the outside world and my inner experiences, sort of a filtration system. It can be anything really, for the most part other people’s work in any medium that emotionally affects me. The sensation I get from a particularly effecting piece of art becomes a part of me. I think about how it makes me feel and then draw based on that feeling. It’s pretty different with tattooing cause I mostly do custom design work and it’s more of collaboration process. I take my clients’s idea and illustrate it in my style.

What would you love to tattoo? And what would you refuse to do? I love tattooing animals, anything that involves mashing concepts together and my own drawings. I usually refuse to do small symbols, lettering is definitely not my thing. I wouldn’t tattoo anything offensive.

fullsizerender-14

Do you have any guest spot or conventions planned? I am guesting in Denver CO October 4-6 at All Sacred Tattoo and Portland OR at Scapegoat Tattoo (November 4-6). Hoping to get to Europe soon. I will be posting my travelling plans for 2017 on my Instagram pretty soon.

Can you tell us about your own tattoos? Most of my tattoos are done by my friends and I pretty much always get their flash/available designs. I’m happy that I was a wuss in my early 20s and didn’t get a bunch of bad tattoos so now I still have some good space available to get work done from the artists I admire.

Posted on

Veganism and Ink

In this post our guest blogger Amber Bryce discusses how she thinks veganism and tattoos go perfectly together and she talks to two tattoo artists who also share her point of view…  

In many ways, I think that veganism and tattoos make a perfect pair. They’re  decisions that hold a lot of weight and impact, they can change your entire outlook on life and help to narrate a new kind of future for either yourself, or the world. To discuss the subject further I spoke with two lovely women in the tattoo industry: Avalon, a tattoo artist who works at The Grand Illusion Studio in Melbourne, Australia, and Dina, who owns Gristle Tattoo in Brooklyn, USA.

Here’s what they had to say…

Avalon Westcott, 24, Melbourne

How long have you been tattooing for? I started apprenticing at The Grand Illusion (Melbourne) at the start of 2013 and did my first tattoo ever on myself by the end of 2013. Before tattooing I had been painting for a few years, doing custom pet portraits for people, which was so much fun.

photo3
When did you become vegan? I went vegan five years ago when my fiancé Josh and I moved to the states for a few months. A month into my veganism I realised how amazing I felt, like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. At that point I knew there was no turning back and that nothing, no peer pressure, no craving, no situation would ever make me eat animals again.

Is your veganism something that has always inspired your tattoo designs? I can’t count the amount of vegan inspired tattoos that I’ve done. Animals have become my speciality! I usually tattoo a combination of animals together, cows, lambs, chickens (lots of chickens) and piggies. Meeting like-minded people, chatting food, chatting animals and sharing a mutual lifestyle really brings me closer to the clients.

photo1

How do you think tattoos can help veganism? It’s no surprise that people with tattoos are often asked about why they have particular tattoos. My clients get tattooed for themselves, often to celebrate a milestone in their veganism or to commemorate animals, however, if anyone were to ask about why they have a love heart with animals in it tattooed on them I’m sure they’re proud to explain why. I believe that having a vegan tattoo is a very courageous and inspiring thing. To welcome people to question your lifestyle or even comment on it takes strength.

Do you have any personal vegan tattoos? If so, who are they by? I do have a few animal tattoos myself! My most recent is a girl dressed up as a chicken referenced from some vintage flash painted by Earl Brown, circa 1950, on the side of my thigh by the brilliant Becca Gené-Bacon from Hand of Glory in Brooklyn, NY.

photo2
What’s your favourite vegan tattoo that you’ve done? Every vegan tattoo that I have done holds its own meaning and its own memories. Really, they’re all as special as each other for the client, and myself.

Dina DiCenso, Brooklyn

When did you become vegan? I’ve been 100% vegan for six years and the two years prior to that I was 90% vegan (I ate cheese once every four months) and then I was vegetarian for about 15 years prior to that. So when I opened my own business it seemed natural for it to be vegan.

How has veganism informed your business? I use the shop to do a lot of fundraisers for animal rescues. We work with small, local rescues that are in desperate need of funds. We tailor each fundraiser flash to fit the organisation. For example, we do wolves when we work with Wolf Conservation Center, we do farm animals when we work with Skylands or Woodstock Farm Sanctuaries and we have a TnR event coming up so we’ll design cat related flash.

image2

How do you think tattoos can help the cause of veganism? I think tattoos can inspire veganism in a few ways. First, if people encounter enough people with vegan tattoos, they may stop and think about how many people are vegan and that it’s possible for them to change and be vegan too. And second, they may also see an image that inspires them to change their own lifestyle and habits.

Tell us about your tattoos? For me, it’s important to have my tattoos have meaning so I don’t get sick of them. Few things have more importance to me than the animals I’ve rescued, and animals in general, so I’ve tried to get a few of my favourites as tattoos.

-1

You convinced Reprofax to make the first vegan stencil paper! Tell me more about that. I had read online about the stencil paper possibly not being vegan. Rather than take the postings at face value, I tried to contact the company directly. After several contact attempts and no response I had my geneticist friend test it. He came back with lanolin as the offending ingredient and then about the same time I got his results, the company responded confirming it was indeed lanolin — it holds the ink onto the plastic sheet.

I then began harassing them until they agreed to make a vegan stencil paper. Their chemist had retired ten years prior, which is why they were reluctant to create any new versions of the paper. We helped test their early versions and when they had a solid final version, I was the first one to buy it. Many artists are unaware products in the tattoo process are not vegan – they think it’s limited to the ink and aftercare. But it’s the ointment, the soap and even the moisture strip on razors.

Posted on

Tattoo Artist Eva Jean’s Response to the Personal Tattoo Machine

Our guest blogger is Eva Jean a 31-year-old tattoo artist who works at 8 Of Swords Tattoo in Brooklyn, NYC. Our editorial assistant Rosie had noticed Eva’s Instagram post where she ranted in response to Jakub Pollág’s, a Royal College of Art graduate, who has developed the Personal Tattoo Machine. We chatted to Eva to find out more…  

The reason I’m expressing my opinion on this new ‘DIY’ “tattoo kit” created by Jakub Pollág was because I was asked to.  Let me preface this also by making it clear that I am not the be all-end-all of tattooing standards- BUT I have been in business for 12 years adhering to a strict set of health codes and laws.

At home tattooing kits that involve breaking your own skin or another’s, is just not satisfactory.

Regardless of provided provisions (the gloves, the sterile needle,the instruction manual included [I have not read it]).  I can not sit by in passivity and say that this seems like a decent idea. There are professionals for a reason.  Dentists, mechanics, salon stylists, etc. they have all attended the appropriate tutelage and exist under an umbrella of certain (professional and legal) standards.

A large portion of why tattoo parlours exist is for hygienic purposes.  The few excuses that Jakub has listed as a selling point (making the tattoo meaning more personal and bringing democracy into the hands of enthusiasts) is quite sad. To me it seems that this reasoning is an offensive ploy,  an attempt to further encourage the idea that this home-kit is something that should be available to the true adventurer.

Not so. Would you like to create some physical damage and potential serious harm to your own body?  How about your friend?  Better yet- if significant and ugly scarring isn’t enough of a risk factor for the adrenaline junky- how about we bring the light of potentially spreading infectious disease to one another? Sounds like a party now, doesn’t it? No!  It does not!

Whether the tattoo-desiring individual craves something of a high detailed creative project (like the cat portrait suggested by Jakub) or a singular dot.  The bottom line is this:  you get what you pay for. This especially for clients to be.  If you’re so concerned with making your tattoo personal and individual…put some thought into it. Do your research.  Allow yourself time, do not rush into buyer’s remorse, but ensure that you will get what you want, and nothing more.

 

Read Eva’s original Instagram rant below: 

Okay. I do not often “rant” on social media, but this particular article (featured on deezen.com) does make me raise my eyebrows big time. Okay deep breath. For a while now I have been grappling with the over popularization of tattoo-inspiration stemming off from websites much like Pinterest. I have just over 16K followers on my account here, which I am blown away by and flattered over. I would like to think that this has something to do with the fact that I sincerely do help try to push people and encourage their taste in a one of a kind, original tattoo.

That is done in a PROFESSIONAL, clean, and safe environment. That doesn’t make me an elitist or a tyrant. The attempted selling point of “bringing democracy” into the hands of tattoo-enthusiasts is pitiful and really just a far and sad reach to hopefully sway ignorant (look up the definition it’s not meant to be a slam it is a literal term) hopeful and excited individuals into believing that they have the right to poke themselves. They absolutely do. But wouldn’t you rather go to someone with 1. Years of experience who will safely and happily deliver your tattoo idea; who can make it look “jailhouse” if you so please? 2. Your original idea that is not a direct, carbon-copy of someone else’s already in existence tattoo?

Tattooers like myself are so happy to help you guys take your idea and make it into something that is not only just your own, but also you’re helping to keep a true art form and craft alive. I am worried that this public kit for sale will end up at drunk enough parties and where ever else one feels like whipping a needle out. This screams danger and cross contamination. I am maddened over this company’s audacity to speak out against tattooers in a voice which alludes to us keeping things out of the “well deserving hands of the public” You know what? Unless you study and in some states take a safety course, you’re not allowed to drive a car. So just because you are a car enthusiast you should be able to drive without a license? There is nothing wrong with a tattooer not wanting to hand over their machine to just anyone for good reason. The end.

Email Tattoosbyeva@gmail.com for appointments and follow her on Instagram for more tattoos