30-year-old Kirsten Holliday tattoos out of Wonderland Tattoo in Portland, Oregon and creates beautiful botanical tattoos with a muted colour pallet. We chat to Kirsten about the things and people that inspire her…
Photo taken by Adrian Whipp of Lumiere Tintype in Austin
How long have you been tattooing? Five years, not including my apprenticeship!
How did you get started? I’ve wanted to tattoo since I was 16! I finished college and was studying for the GREs to try to get into a PhD track program in rhetoric and writing and realized I was chasing my second choice profession in which there were no jobs. I packed up my car and moved to Portland without really looking at the insane licensing process here, but I lucked into an apprenticeship at a shop rather than one of Oregon’s infamous schools. I learned from Melanie Nead, who used to own Icon Tattoo here in Portland. I just showed up with an armload of framed work and threw myself upon her mercy! I’m super grateful to have learned there.
What drew you to the tattoo world? I started getting tattooed by Scott Ellis, who now owns Triple Crown Tattoo Parlour in Austin, Texas. I think that cemented my feelings that tattoo shops were places I wanted to be; I loved being in the middle of a shop where people were talking and joking and having conversations about art. It had (and still has) such a feeling of community. I get to work there when I go home now, which is such an honor and still kind of intimidating in the best possible way.
What did you do before? The usual mishmash of college jobs. I worked at Starbucks, I worked at a law office as a legal assistant and a runner, I worked at a gelato shop.
Do you have a background in art? My grandmother Betty Jo was a watercolour artist and started me drawing from still life when I was two, and I took high school art. I was fortunate to have an incredible art teacher in high school. Other than that, not really!
What do you like to draw and tattoo? I think my portfolio speaks to that – botanical and naturalistic work, animals, lady heads. I love doing American traditional tattoos, too, though I haven’t been doing as much of that in the last few years.
How would you describe your style? Illustrative, with roots in American traditional
What inspires you? Vintage science and botanical illustrations, vintage postcards, traditional tattoos, the world around me. The Pacific Northwest is such a beautiful, ecologically diverse place and that certainly influences all the work that comes out of Wonderland.
Are there any artists you admire, do they influence your work? I’m super lucky to work with really talented artists at Wonderland – Alice Kendall (who has been making incredible botanical tattoos for years in this town), Sean Wright, and Alice Carrier. I think we all influence each other a lot. Joey Ortega at Triple Crown has been a friend and mentor for years and his work is a huge influence on me. Josh Stephens in Richmond does such unique, strong floral work. I’d love to do more large work, so right now I’ve been specifically looking at a lot of large work compositions, too.
Can you tell us about your own tattoos? I have mostly piecework. I have one large piece from knee to armpit on my right side by Joey Ortega and the rest is mostly pieced together. The most recent tattoo I got was from my friend Alena Chun at Icon, who is amazing. It’s a cat and a skull on my kneecap inspired by a Kuniyoshi print – we saw an exhibit together in Paris in October and it was so inspirational. We traded Kuniyoshi tattoos afterward; I did the samurai frog I included in my photos on her. I have a lot of tattoos from Silje Hagland at Scapegoat (we used to be room mates!), a couple from Atlas here in Portland, four or so from Sean Lanusse at Blacklist. I have a ton of small to medium sized tattoos from a ton of people. I did get tattooed by Eckel last year, which was such a dream!