Tag: Things and Ink magazine

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‘My studio is welcoming, but I make it clear who we don’t want here’ – Paula Castle, tattoo artist

We sat down to have a chat with tattoo artist Paula Castle, who owns Black Sheep Tattoo in Bristol. Paula is one of the most passionate and creative people in the tattoo world. And our chat covered everything from her fave subjects to tattoo to the deep-rooted misogyny in the tattoo world and the importance of safe spaces. Make yourself a cuppa and settle in for the ride… 

We absolutely adore your tattoos, tell us more about them, your style and any themes that people love coming to you for…

I did my version of a crying heart as a sticker in 2017. Then in 2020, one of my clients said to me, I want your sticker tattooed on me. I loved doing it. And if I really enjoy doing a tattoo, my favourite thing to do is come up with different themes for that design. It’s just a really fun and interesting way to work. When people give me challenging themes, it’s fun working out how to do it or how to represent something. The crying hearts are especially fun to theme.

Drag queen, Divine themed crying heart tattoo 

I’ve also done a few tickets, too. I’ve done a couple of those as memorial tattoos. It’s a nice design to incorporate dates into, without it being overtly memorial. I did one recently that was a ticket for a festival that my client had been to with her dad, and she lost her dad during Covid. I put a few important dates into the ticket. The problem with things that are obviously in memory of somebody is they lead to people asking questions. Sometimes that might be welcome, but for some people, they never feel comfortable sharing that stuff. Some people want something that doesn’t scream RIP.

Another fun design I’ve done recently is a rear view mirror tattoo – another design that’s good to add themes to.

Do you have a favourite tattoo that you’ve done? Or a favourite by someone else that you can’t stop thinking about?

There’s a tattooer called Josh Todaro who does traditional pieces. He did a portrait of Adam Sandler from The Wedding Singer – and Oh My God. “Somebody kill me please”. And it’s my most favourite tattoo I’ve ever seen. I just love it so much. One of those tattoos I wish was on me. I still look at it all the time.

As for me, it’s such a hard question to answer. But I just did my first ever Muppet tattoo – Miss Piggy from Treasure Island. I just kept giggling the whole way through tattooing it, because I absolutely love The Muppets. 

One of the reasons I love tattooing so much is because my favourite tattoo is always the most recent one I’ve done. It just feels like that’s constantly continuing forever – it doesn’t get old. 

Do you have lots of regular clients that always come back to you?

I love, love, love building relationships with clients. I enjoy time with people that I’ve tattooed before, because it’s like catching up with an old friend. I’ve got some people that I’ve been working with now for the best part of my career. I’ve seen people move through life in such positive ways – going through beautiful moments like marriages and buying houses and having children. Then likewise, I’ve had long-term clients who sadly lost parents or gone through other stuff and I’ve been able to offer them support. 

It’s been interesting, I was diagnosed with ADHD last year, and so many of my clients are also neurodivergent. I’d love to understand if there’s a correlation, whether neurodivergent people gravitate towards other neurodivergent people without really knowing that they’re doing it, you know.

Tell us about your shop, Black Sheep Tattoo in Bristol. We know tattoo shops can sometimes feel like intimidating places if you’ve never been in one before. 

I try my best to make the studio safe and welcoming for everybody, but also I’ve taken as many steps as possible to make it really clear who we don’t want here. I think that’s just as important. We’re trans friendly, queer-owned, female-owned – it says female-owned on my sign outside – like I’m very upfront about it. I don’t want people in my studio who are going to make not only my artists, but any other clients feel uncomfortable. And that’s always been of the utmost importance to me. The clients that we have here really reflect that.

We have eight artists and a studio manager and tattooers who do regular guest spots. Then we also have The Tooth Pixie, who does a couple of days a month offering tooth gems. And Amanda who comes one Saturday every month and does brow lamination and eyelash tinting. When it comes to body modification, it it isn’t just about permanence. I love integrating to offer more than one service. Which brings people into a tattoo studio who’ve never thought about tattooing before, and might have a preconceived notion of what a tattoo shop is like.

‘Even now, you open a tattoo magazine and every advert has got a half naked woman in it’

Breaking down those kinds of social barriers is still something that’s really important. We have a responsibility to tattooing – and especially tattooing for women. It’s still an extremely male-dominated industry and it’s misogynistic, from a systemic point of view. Even now, you open a tattoo magazine and every supplier advert has got a half naked woman in it – it needs to stop.

We’re ready for change, why isn’t it happening quicker?

It’s those little micro aggressions of misogyny in advertising and in, you know, the percentage of sponsorships and things that go to men over women in the industry, that leads to inappropriate behaviour with clients in studios, and sexual assault and sexual violence against female clients and artists.

These things can’t be fixed by me opening a studio and not standing for that behaviour in my studio, the only way to fix the problem is to address the people doing the things in the first place. It’s not on us to fix it. But it is the responsibility of the suppliers and the media that work within tattooing to fix the systemic misogyny within tattooing, because it’s not acceptable anymore. And it needs to stop.

It’s been gorgeous to chat, and we loved you getting on your soapbox about the change that’s so needed. Anything else you want to share?

It’s my tenth year tattooing this year. It feels like such a milestone. It’s definitely been a roller coaster. But it’s so hard having your own studio. If I had been able to find a space to work in that was like mine, I would absolutely not choose to be a studio owner. If anybody’s really unhappy where they are, don’t think that the solution is to have your own place. It isn’t always the answer. But yeah, all I ever wanted was to have somewhere that I could truly be myself – like, you know, somewhere not to feel embarrassed all the time. That’s all I ever wanted was to not have that feeling anymore.

Follow Paula on Instagram @paulacastletattoos

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Plant-based living with Bettina

We absolutely adore Bettina Campolucci Bordi, she’s a plant-based/free-from chef who has a wonderful collection of tattoos. We sat down to have a chat with her about her fave meals, post-tattoo treats and the therapeutic buzz of the tattoo needle… 

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Bettina, we adore your Insta feed (check it out @bettinas_kitchen). It provides us with such gorgeous food inspo… What made you fall in love with food and decide to follow it as a career? Food has always been a lifelong passion of mine since I was little. Luckily, I stumbled across hosting retreats and found a way to make my dream of cooking as a career a reality. Everything kinda fell into place and the rest is history. I am very lucky that my passion is my actual job!

We love the little peeks of tattoos in your photos, can you tell us about the designs you have on your body?  I have my butterflies that were done by an artist in Malaga – my “believe” was done in Barcelona for my 27th birthday. I have a big arm tattoo by an amazing Icelandic artist based in Barcelona called Jonpall, and my latest big piece of the Goddess Kali on my left hand-side shoulder is by a Balinese artist! I also have some more smaller hidden ones…

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Are there any that have special significance? Any food related? All of them have significance and were done during transitional periods of my life. Rather than food related, I would say that they are life related

How do you find the tattoo process? I find it therapeutic and almost like going into a zone. I think anyone who gets them can relate. Some of my tattoos took me years to decide and design, and you get into a special head zone, when it comes to having them finally done. The design process, finding the artist, connecting with your piece and then the execution or the creation process is magical. I feel like I go into a trance during, then when it’s done you kind of come out of it. Once the piece is done I go through a bit of honeymoon period with my piece until it becomes part of you and your journey.

Do you have any special meals you eat before?  I wish I could say yes but I tend to eat less. Lots of water, no alcohol and good sleep beforehand.

Or any that aid in the recovery/healing process?  I love little chocolate treats! There are plenty of recipe ideas in my book [Happy Food], great to batch make before and pull out of the freezer when treats are needed!

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What’s your favourite meal? Why? A curry, there is something extremely comforting about a curry. It’s like a warm hug.

What have you got planned for the new year? I am in Costa Rica right now, and will be in Bali soon. I am contemplating getting another tattoo but I am not sure yet! And The 7 Day Vegan Challenge [published by Hardie Grant], my second book, is out now! Exciting.

Bettina’s book is out now

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Modern Woman, Indigenous Spirit

The story behind Laurence Moniasse Sessou’s tattoos and scarification

Photography and Art Direction – Josh Brandao / Model – Laurence Moniasse Sessou / Words/Story – Laurence Moniasse Sessou and Alice Snape / Illustrations and Set Dressing – Katerina Samoilis / Styling – Olivia Snape / Make-up and Hair – Anna Wild using Nars / Septum Ring – Studio Lil Art and Design / Earrings – Manaka Handmade / Thanks to India Ame ‘Ye’

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From a very young age, I have always been fascinated by body art, everything that seemed a bit forbidden and weird, I pay attention to. I was always a dreamer and would often get in trouble for not conforming and being different (mainly from my peers in the neighbourhood). I grew up in a small town in France called Evreux. It wasn’t easy being a teenager, I’ve experienced a fair bit of bullying while growing up.

I have always been fascinated by body art, everything that seemed a bit forbidden and weird

I came to London for the first time in 1999, when I was 20 years old, to pay a visit to my sister. From that moment, I knew I had to come back to that sense of freedom. London was so big and messy, but I knew I could find myself in that mess. A year later, in 2000, I came back, supposedly, for one year to learn English – but I never looked back. I graduated in 2007 with a Bsc Natural Therapeutics (Bodywork and Neuromuscular therapy) from the University of Westminster. I have been practicing for over eight years now and hold two busy practices in London.

While I was at university, I started travelling, Thailand was my first big trip – I was amazed by the Thai culture and, of course, tattoo was part of it. One of my friends at the time had her full leg tattooed, I thought it was insane. I loved it, but never thought it would be my cup of tea. This idea of having something permanently on my body freaked me out. But as I travelled more through the world, I became more open to many things, including spirituality and body marking. My first tattoos were two little ankhs on my wrists. I was 21 and in London at the time. Then I went on another trip to Thailand and decided to get
a fairy on my right shoulder, it was an African fairy that looked nothing like a fairy after a few months. I had started losing a bit of weight and her face disappeared.

I love flowers. They are beautiful, feminine – I just love they way they always face towards the sun

I guess the big trigger to my transformation started in Mexico, when I went to Palenque for the first time. That’s where I met tattoo artist Sanya Youalli, and we had a chat. I was originally there just to view her work, but our conversation ended with starting to decorate my left arm with flowers and spirals. I love flowers. They are beautiful, feminine – I just love they way they always face towards the sun, I like to see myself as a flower and always look and walk towards the light. I love the warmth and the way the sun kisses my skin. Spirals symbolise infinity, this ocean of opportunity that never ends. I could have my body covered in them, I can’t see myself falling out of love with these symbols. Sanya and I became close friends, we’re like sisters, every time I go to Mexico, she continues work on my arm and when she came to London for the tattoo convention, last year, she stayed at my home and we carried on.

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Then I was looking for another artist to do a cover up of my right arm, Sanya had started doing some kind of removal work for the fairy, but we didn’t get a chance to cover it completely. I knew I wanted it to be covered as soon as possible, so I searched for another artist. I found Touka Voodoo at the Divine Canvas studio – again it was an instant connection. I loved his work, so Touka did the cover up of my right shoulder and we carried on the theme of flowers and spirals – I have a full sleeve now. I also met Iestyn at Divine Canvas, I knew the kind of work he specialised in: scarification and piercings. I remember thinking to myself, “Who on Earth in this age would want to go through this?’ He proposed to perform scarification on me as he’d never worked on black/African skin before. I told him, “No way! You will never cut my skin, never!’

About a year later, I was going through some changes in my life and my spiritual practice started to become more important. I initially wanted to tattoo my back with some symbols of my spiritual path, I spoke to my sister about it and she thought that my skin tone was so beautiful, if I did tattoo my back, my arm work would disappear. That is when the idea of the scarification came to me. I thought it would be a way to embrace my spiritual practice, as well as my tribal African roots. One day I went to see Iestyn, we discussed the design and we started. Iestyn knew me for about a year and he understood my journey and where I was coming from – I trusted him fully with it, he was absolutely amazing.

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The meaning of the symbols – the cross in the middle is ‘the Chakana’ sacred cross where the fire of life burns, the four arrows around it represent the four nations and four directions, flowers symbolise beauty and femininity, spirals symbolise infinity, and dots for their simplicity – and how lovely they look. To me, it is like carrying my dream in my back: the four nations enjoying the fire of life together in the four corners of the globe, in beauty and harmony with each other and nature… It sounds a bit dreamy, but that is the truth. I live to see a better world and become a better person.

Having the scarification done was very challenging, particularly the healing – it is a long and painful process. I was not been able to sleep on my back for over seven months. When the keloids form, it is very itchy. Receiving the scar wasn’t as bad as people may think, of course, you feel it as the first cut is done without anaesthetic, but there is no other way to go through it, you must feel and transcend the pain – and it is a beautiful feeling. I was very high at the end of it, feeling super-human.

I didn’t think the scar was going to raise that much, I thought I would have a very discreet design on my back, but my body decided how it was going to turn out and I love it! It is quite bold and shocking for some people, but I don’t really care, the journey and the story behind this back is worth it.

The chest scarification was also performed by Iestyn and filmed live by Nick Knight back in May 2013, it was supposed to be used for a music video, but it wasn’t in the end. But, hey, I got paid to have a beautiful piece of body art work on my chest and got the amazing opportunity to work with a genius like Nick Knight. It was a dream come true.

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I didn’t realise how emotional I was going to feel about doing this photo shoot for The Modification Issue using pictures of my family, including my mother and grandmothers. I started to have tears in my eyes, because I know how powerful and brave these women are and I know the struggle they have been through in life and in labour. They respectively brought my mother and my father, and my mum brought me into this world. I feel deeply grateful and proud to be a fruit of their lives, I feel they are still living through me, and my nephews and nieces, they are eternal. And I hope that from wherever they are, they are watching over with pride, their lives will always be celebrated.

 Laurence’s story was first published in Things & Ink magazine, when we were in print.

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Tattoo Street Style by Alice Snape

Our editor Alice Snape’s Tattoo Street Style book came out last year. It features more than 400 original portraits in cities from London and Brighton to LA and NYC, and a directory of studios in each city, a guide to tattoo styles and a personal foreword from tattoo artist Cally-Jo. Here’s a peek inside, and the reasons why Alice wrote the book.

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Derryth Ridge, spotted in Brighton. Photo by Heather Shuker

I’ve always been fascinated by people and enjoyed glimpsing them from afar, and spying what they’re up to. When I travel to a new city, my favourite thing to do is find a little café and sit sipping a cup of coffee, watching the world go by. I love looking what someone has chosen to wear or their hair colour, wondering why I might be drawn to that person’s particular style, the way they walk or hold themselves. I make up little stories about them in my mind – perhaps they are on their way to a meeting, to call on a friend, to hang out at the park or to go to work? This fascination is why I fell in love with street style photography. I love that it captures a moment, a city, a person at that exact point in time. Street-style photos tell a story – tiny but complete – of a place and the people in it.

Manni Kalsi, spotted in London. Photo by Heather Shuker
Manni Kalsi, spotted in London.
Photo by Heather Shuker

What I have loved about writing this book is not only capturing a sense of each city, but working with different photographers in each location, whom we briefed to capture their city through their own lens. The result doesn’t just provide a snapshot, it communicates a particular vision, with each photographer contributing his or her own unique style and interpretation of what ‘street style’ looks like.

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Simone Thompson, spotted in New York. Photo by Elena Mudd

Alongside the imagery, I have loved delving further into what motivates each of those people and gathering snippets of their life stories. This volume of Tattoo Street Style allows me to introduce you to some prominent figures in the tattoo world, such as Wendy Pham in Berlin and Angelique Houtkamp in Amsterdam. But we’ve also spoken with random inhabitants of the eight cities we have featured – people I never would have discovered if I hadn’t written this book. In my everyday life, I often wish I could stop someone in the street and find out more about them – this book has given me the chance to do just that. In London, businesswoman Sian Rusu shared that her tattoos make her feel “different – and difference is what makes us unique”. In contrast, Berlin’s stylist Flora Amelie talks honestly about sometimes questioning her decision to become heavily tattooed, a revelation you wouldn’t expect from someone who portrays such confidence.

Flora Amalie Pedersen spotted in Berlin. Photo by Lisa Jane
Flora Amalie Pedersen spotted in Berlin.
Photo by Lisa Jane

It has been a joy to curate this compendium of tattoos and fashion in eight of my favourite places around the world, cities I have lived in, loved spending time in and dream of returning to. I love that it will immortalise this period in time. I love that one day, someone will look at it as a historical document, in the way that I have looked at old photos of tattooed women from the 1940s. What feels so thoughtfully current now as you flick through the pages will one day be but a memory of our own moment in time.

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Cally-Jo, spotted in Brighton. Photo by Heather Shuker

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In all good bookshops and available to order online here

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For Identity // Against Stereotypes

A couple of months ago, lingerie brand The Underargument asked our editor Alice to model for their new campaign: For Identity // Against Stereotypes. This inspiring lingerie brand is a wearable reminder to embrace individuality and argue against the norm.

The For Identity // Against Stereotypes collection illustrates that we are more than the boxes that we are sometimes put in. Your identity does not start or stop with your gender, your religion, your abilities, your cultural, occupational or social background. This underargument will remind you that you don’t have to be the product of your environment and predispositions or let stereotypes define you.

Here is Alice’s story for the collection. 

 

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“One of my favourite things about my tattoos is that they challenge traditional stereotypes of beauty, that a woman’s skin should be pure or unmarked. It still shocks me that, in 2019, some magazines and mainstream media push the idea that we should look a certain way, by losing weight or using make-up to conceal our so called imperfections. It is so damaging.”

“Perceptions of tattooed women have always suggested sexual promiscuity and over-confidence. And I think that society still views female confidence with an irrational disdain. Perhaps that is why tattoos on a woman are so provocative. I don’t often wear shorts in the summer now for fear of #tatcalling. As dependable as clockwork – when you’re a tattooed woman in public, some guy will eventually shout, “I like your tattoos!” My tattoos aren’t an invitation to leer at me. My tattoo on my back is certainly not permission to run your hands down my spine or pull my top down to “get a better look” or ask me “how far does that go down love?”; I am not public property. Tattoos don’t make me “easy”, they are not any reflection of my morals and they don’t mean I am seeking attention.

I bumped into an ex a few years ago who was like “what are you, good girl gone bad? “

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“Whenever I go back to my hometown, it’s a small place in the midlands, people are always shocked that I have tattoos. I bumped into an ex a few years ago who was like “what are you, good girl gone bad? “. My uncle has a few tattoos and even he is surprised that I am the one in the family who is heavily tattooed. Women with tattoos are never portrayed as the “girl next door”, they are never the nerdy girl, they are the bad girl, and they are sexualised. Women with tattoos have been painted that way for years. The Tattooed Lady in the circus, for example, was literally a freak, a strange creature to be objectified.

“Tattoos have always been for “tough guys”, and men with tattoos aren’t sexualised in the same way that women are. I was a studious girl at school, quiet, shy, forever with my head in a book. The fact that I have ink on my skin apparently doesn’t fit into mould. But I am still that person. In fact, tattoos have given me confidence. I used to hate the way I looked and adorning my body with beautiful artwork has been empowering – and I can’t wait to see how my collection grows. I would love to fill all the gaps. It will be my life’s work. It is funny. People often ask if I worry about what I will look like when I am older, but, really, why would I? I don’t plan on fitting into another stereotype about what I should or shouldn’t look like in my seventies, eighties, nineties…”

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View more at theunderargument.com