Tag: tattooed

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Interview with Karac Wilson

37-year-old Karac Wilson is a social care worker and tattoo collector from Sheffield. We caught up with Karac to chat all things tattoo…

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What inspired you to become heavily tattooed? Growing up my older brother was heavily tattooed when I was around 16 years old, he was tattooed before it was cool. I didn’t really give it much thought back then, but he definitely inspired me to get a tattoo. As I got older I remember watching guys like Lil Wayne and music videos of heavily tattooed guys and always loved the look. Allen Iverson the NBA player was my idol growing up he was heavily tattooed and had his own style that changed the NBA. He was seen as the badboy of the league due to his tattoos that’s why I have his portrait on my leg by (Gibbo0)

When did you get your first tattoo? What was it and do you still like it? My first tattoo I was 18 I was into Ja Rule. And he had a “pain is love” tattoo on his chest. I took a print out to a tattoo shop and had the exact tattoo on my chest. That tattoo later got lasered and covered. It was one of those tattoos you get when your young and I didn’t really think about it. Lesson learned.

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Has being tattooed ever helped you to get jobs or hindered you? My tattoos so far have not hindered me getting jobs, I currently work in social care with children with challenging behaviour and it’s a great ice breaker and a great talking point. On the negative side I worked in the probation service and they were not keen on all my tattoos and pretty much pushed me out because of it.

What kinds of reactions do your tattoos get? My tattoos get me plenty of attention wherever I go, even more so since my head was tattooed. I pretty much have people asking to take photos anywhere I go. Mostly positive reactions but you always get the odd negative one. But it does not bother me, each to their own and all that.

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Do you have any future tattoo plans? Are you working towards a body suit? I don’t have much space left for tattoos as my bodysuit is nearly complete. It’s a a case of being really picky about my last few spots. The last three months I’ve had my stomach, armpits and nipples tattooed and they were really painful areas. I’m working towards a bodysuit and I’m 90% there, I’ve got the majority of it done in the last three years. It’s been a fun journey where I’ve travelled to many artists and cities across Europe.

Did you make a conscious decision to only have black and grey work? What do you love about this style? I started with a black and grey sleeve and then that’s all I wanted. For me bodysuit work is better with one or the other in my opinion. I love colour tattoos but I think you have to look after them much more and have good skin. Black and grey is a solid heal every time, where colour can drop out depending on your skin and aftercare regime. I have seen some amazing bodysuits in colour but black and grey works better for me.

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If you could tattoo your body all over again would you go for colour or the same? If I could start again I think I would still go with black and grey I’ve been lucky to have work from Niorkz, Ben Kaye, Gibb0o, Matt Pettis, Dom Brown and Liv Frost. One black and grey artist id like a piece from would be Little Nick his work is unreal. If I could get a colour bodysuit it would have to be by Alex Wright and Ben Kaye, those guys are doing some unreal work.

All photos taken by Brendan Clayton

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Careers: Tattooed Social Media Representative

25-year-old Mikaela is a Social Media Representative at LUSH in London. We caught up with her to chat work, her tattoo collection and being vegan…

How long have you been working for Lush? How did you get your current role? I’ve been working at Lush for about three years now. I started on the shop floor at the flagship Oxford Street store, then joined the in store events and branding team. I’ve always wanted to bring my love of photography into my everyday job, so jumped at the chance at joining the social media team. I’m now a social media rep, and support events and branding when needed!

What do you love about your job? I love working for a company that’s so accepting of everyone, and encourages individuality. It’s a company that cares about their products, what goes into them, where ingredients are sourced and of course is fighting animal testing which is incredibly important to me. Lush also creates and supports a number of campaigns each year and isn’t afraid to use its voice as a popular brand to make people think, and I think that’s great. It’s also quite a tongue-in-cheek company at times so there’s always an element of fun involved.

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What sorts of stuff do you do? What projects do you get involved with? On a day-to-day basis at Lush, I do a lot of community management on the store’s social media pages, shoot photo and video content etc. Outside of work I try to do as much photography as I can, the majority of which is portrait work and it’s something I’d eventually love to be able to do full time.

I’ve also been vegan for two years now, so that’s a big part of my life. I’ve been trying to get fitter and healthier so spend a lot of time at the gym with my badass female, tattooed, vegan trainer @princessoftheunicorns!

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Can you tell us about your tattoos? Do you have any future plans? I’ve been getting tattooed since I was 19, my first one was a tiny heart on my wrist. I then ventured into getting bigger and more colourful pieces. My first ones being by Gemma, Amy Savage and Adam Ruff. They’re mostly quite traditional, lots of hearts and a few lady heads! I also have portraits of my dogs on my calves and two Fall Out Boy inspired tattoos. I also have a dotwork Maltese Cross on my ankle that I got in Malta, which is quite sentimental.

I think my favourite is still the first colour tattoo I got by Gemma, it’s a locket with my mum’s initials either side that I later had a key added to underneath. I have so many ideas for tattoos that I still want to get. I want to finish my sleeve and get my knees tattooed next, but I definitely know why I’m maybe putting that off a little bit!

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Can you show them off at work? How would you describe your fashion style? Not having to cover up my tattoos at work is another thing that I love about working at Lush. Everyone is encouraged to express their individuality and tattoos are no exception. I’m around so many tattooed people at work that I sometimes forget that they can still be a problem at other workplaces. Everyone loves seeing each other’s work as well and discovering new styles and artists as a result!

I don’t really follow any kind of fashion in particular, I mostly wear black, occasionally dipping into a little Bettie Page 50s feel when I have time to put the effort in – but mostly keep it a little bit dressed down “goth” I guess.

What kind of reception do your tattoos get? Most of the time I get a really positive reaction, people love how colourful they are and finding out why I got certain pieces. I do get the occasional negative comment or dirty look but I’m pretty used to it now, and nothing will ever make me feel bad about them when I know how happy they make me!

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Has being vegan influence your tattoos or job? Does it influence the company you work for?  I would probably say that I became vegan as a result of working at Lush. I’d always had a bit of a guilty conscience when I used to eat meat but once I started working at Lush with lots of vegans, I learned so much more about the meat and dairy industries that I couldn’t ignore it anymore.

In terms of tattoos it means that I have to think about whether tattoo ink being used is vegan and aftercare, which hasn’t been too difficult so far. I don’t have any vegan-related tattoos yet, but I’m sure I will end up getting one eventually. I’ll definitely be getting more animal tattoos!

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James Streeter: Ink Series

James Streeter, a photographer from Sussex UK is creating a Ink Series of work where plumes of billowing ink collide with tattooed models. The tattoos on their skin merge into colourful clouds of ink to create a beautiful effect…

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Fashion Pearls of Wisdom: Got Sleeves

Our columnist Natalie McCreesh aka Pearl, is a fashion lecturer, freelance writer and creator of Fashion Pearls of Wisdom. In this post she’ll be talking about how getting her arms tattooed was a big deal…

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I never thought I’d get my arms tattooed. It had never been in my plan. But then again when I first started getting tattooed I never thought I’d be even close to heavily tattooed, even when I started to get large scale pieces I never foresaw the next. For me getting tattooed has been a process, my tattoos are something which evolve- a collaboration between my own ideas and those of the artists I work with. Even now I don’t have a final vision in mind, I still don’t know if I will end up with a full body suit or not. I have a very wait-and-see attitude I guess. I know I will get two half sleeves and my sides tattooed to connect my back piece into more of a traditional style Japanese half-body suit. But my legs are a random mix of different styles, do I keep them looking separate or do I sleeve them?  I’m going off the point; the point of having my arms tattooed being a big deal for me.

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I think it’s a huge deal as even though over half my body is tattooed I still don’t feel that I look that heavily tattooed, not from the front anyway. Clothed most people wouldn’t even know I was tattooed. The arms are so visible though, there is no hiding. I have over thought my arms a lot, possibly too much which is why it took me until the age of 34 to have them done. I had also decided that I wanted them to stop at the top of the arm and not go over onto the shoulder and certainly not the chest. So now I have the outline down of my first sleeve, it stops at the elbow and creeps over my shoulder onto my chest. Yeah about that, once my artist had drawn it on, we tried a few different ways of laying it out; it’s just what looked best. I didn’t give it a second thought. Now it’s done it just feels right and I’ve no idea why I was stressing out about it so much in the first place. When I first started to get large tattoos it would take me a while to get used to them, suddenly having something alien on my skin. Now with each tattoo I feel a little bit more like myself with each addition. My sleeve is only half done but it feels like it has always been there.

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Fashion Pearls of Wisdom: Completion

Our guest blogger is Natalie McCreesh aka Pearl, a fashion lecturer, freelance writer and creator of Fashion Pearls of Wisdom. In this post she’ll be talking about her tattooed body being complete… 

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‘It’s the end of an era!’ My artist exclaimed as we completed the final session on my back piece. Over 18 months we had put in 30 hours to completely cover my back and thighs in ink. That’s a lot of blood, sweat and tears – literally and on numerous occasions. It didn’t feel like the end of anything though, months of eagerly awaiting to be finished and… And well nothing really.

I don’t feel any different. I don’t know if I expected to really? Perhaps I expected to feel more complete in some way. I am extremely happy it’s finished, it looks beautiful and I can’t wait for summer to show it off. The thing is it’s not really finished-finished. Next we will add sleeves, after that extend around my ribs. Will it be finished then? Is there ever a finite finishing point when we begin to get tattooed?

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For me I don’t think there will be. There may come a time when I no longer feel like getting tattooed any more but I expect that to be because I’ve found something else to become obsessed with rather than ever feeling ‘finished’. I don’t have an idealised image of my tattooed body that I am on a mission to achieve. I do have a small list of artists I would like to tattoo me and an idea of what and where the tattoos would be.

I think the biggest question I have for myself is whether I want to achieve a full body suit or just continue with some more large pieces and keep those empty spaces. If I get one leg finished into a sleeve then I’ve really got to do the other, one Japanese style and one traditional, would that work? I feel a body suit, for myself at least, would need to have a coherent design – but then I look at where my two different styles meet and for some reason it just works. Perhaps it’s like fashion, how we string together old jeans and beaten up trainers, those well worn and much loved items that when combined are ‘just us’. For no other reason that that simply we like them and choose to live our lives in them.