Journey of a Tat-Witch
Just you and me, punk rock girl: the path to tattooing
I always wanted to be a tattooer, ever since I first saw Kat Von D star in the hit show, and first of its time, Miami Ink. Growing up as the only punk rock girl in a little hick town in Central Washington where a southern drawl mysteriously cropped up with a Confederate mentality (the south rises again in the pacific northwest, I guess), both too odd for the general population and other subcultures of outcasts at the highschool cafeteria, there was never any exposure to “my people”.
It wasn’t until I saw the foul mouthed, fully tattooed, rock goddess of a woman absolutely slaying in the male dominated culture of tattoo shops.
My opinions of this woman have since changed, as people change, but I’ll honor the time she was an absolute icon. I saw myself in her, and loved the way she was able to march into a man’s world and dominate due to her sheer talent and willpower. I saw how the experience of getting tattooed transformed not only the flesh of the people getting them, but alchemized the emotions tied to the often traumatic events that lead them to the chair. Already a staunch anti-capitalist, I saw the ability to take charge of your life and break out of a military-industrial complex I was actively protesting, and a chance to explore the world and it’s populace in a meaningful way.
I saw a Woman In Total Control of Herself.
Already I was spending my days drawing band logos and painting them onto patches of black cotton fabric, as very few punk bands tour through the smaller corners of Washington, draping it over the computer screen unknowingly creating a lightbox for tracing, as you would use in every shop of its time. It wasn’t a far leap to go out out and purchase any tattoo magazine I could get my hands on, since in the early 2000’s we were still at least a decade away from Pinterest and Instagram, and trace all the flash they would release in the back pages. Soon all of my class notes were covered in nautical stars, eyeballs with wings, and horrible ideas to commemorate the doomed “forever love” with the person I was certain would grow old with me. I already know you know it was Jack and Sally themed.
This quickly led to stick-and-pokes, meticulously placed with my favorite gel pen and one of the many safety pins that graced my handmade clothing, as Biology proved too complicated for me to comprehend. My best, and only, friend of the time was a girl who all the boys used and the girls abused, and she had it in her heart to be a piercer. Emo and second wave hardcore was making its rounds at the time, along with the trend to shove the largest, roundest things possible, into hastily created holes all over the body. Together we envisioned a female run shop, Skanadilly and Skankerella’s Tattoo and Piercing something-something, in an active campaign to reclaim the word for feminism and the love of ska. We even did our career class powerpoint presentation about it! How I would love to see that again…
Life, however, had other plans.
The next decade was spent barely surviving, as I barely kept my head above the waters of the Recession. A victim of predatory student loan lenders and for-profit art schools, a shiny new misdemeanor for squatting in another foreclosed house after my household got evicted (and what a story that is!), and an undiscovered love addiction for unhinged, dangerous men, that dream seemed increasingly more impossible. Oregon passed laws that required new artists to go to school, which started at $10K, and any new loans were long out of the question since I immediately defaulted on those loans as part time dishwashing wasn’t even enough to feed myself, so the only source of that freedom glimpsed in the tattoo world that I could find was that offered to bartenders. I would spend the next 9 years spending almost every day in bars, either working or “supporting the community”, with a few stints doing other things I thought were more meaningful. Teaching children.
At the age of 27 I remember being in shambles, thinking it was far too late to start a new career path, and that I was too old and too broken to ever get an apprenticeship (I moved to the Seattle area for a good chunk of time, so schools were out of the picture). Luckily, a wonderful perk of being a bartender of a small to mid-market music venue are the connections you get to make. One day I finally got the courage to ask one of the regulars, and now friend, “When the fuck are you going to take me on as an apprentice?” He was surprised that it was something that I’d even consider and I was even more surprised when he took it seriously and told me to start coming in to hang out and get a feel for what it’s like.
It was like a dream come true.
I couldn’t believe that this group of people got to show up at 11 am, a perfectly reasonable time to start a work day, and listen to music, binge watch Netflix, and draw or paint. They partied hard but took their work seriously, and were all devout in the work that they did. The timing still wasn’t right, however, and I would find that I would go through 2 potential mentors until I could find one with a good enough head on their shoulders to not get fired.
Things got much, much harder in life, and at the very moment I was certain it was all over for me (in the astrology community, I would later learn, it’s called Saturn Returns) having just been released from the Psych Ward of the hospital after a suicide gesture, I got a call from the Manager of the shop I had been apprenticing at. He asked me if I was still interested in an apprenticeship, and if so to contact the manager of the shop that he personally owned as a recommendation had already been given. He saw how badly I wanted it, how hard I had worked for it, and how other people’s decisions had affected that path forward.
He would never know it, since he passed away about 2 years later, but he gave me my life back.
This time, the timing was right. It was a new world than that one I had dreamed about in highschool, and gender equality is not the issue it once was in the industry. The old-timers who held grudges against female artists for the crime of their biology were dying off and in its place it turned into a meritocracy, where your work speaks for itself. The only person I came across was another woman who did not want any more women in the shop, and so went away that first apprenticeship. I initially thought that it was an excuse, that my friends were just blowing smoke up my ass to cushion the blow of a shattered dream as it just seemed too catty and petty to be real, but other people would later go on to confirm it outside of the circle. Occasionally there is the odd client who will try to pay me the money for the tattoo my male coworker just completed, assuming that I was the “desk girl”, but I’ll chalk that up to my big, youthful cheeks in close proximity to the front desk. The role of technology also revolutionized the tattoo industry, which is certainly a double edged sword, but is a conversation which deserves its own space.
“If you’re in it for the money, don’t even bother.”
During the interview, I was surprisingly taken aback when asked by my future Mentor, “why do you want to do this?”. Until that point I had never actually put it into words, the “why”, only knowing that on a soul level I absolutely yearned for it.
“Because I have to.
Because it’s the only place where you get to be in this free-spirited, artistic community where you create for a living and create a life.
That to be anywhere else would feel wrong in every fiber of my being.”
Or something to that effect.
“Good,” he smiled, recognizing the tune of a serious candidate, “because we get a lot of people in here who do this thinking they’ll make a bunch of money fast, want the accolades and the shoes and the social prestige that potentially come with it, and are not here for the actual hard work that it takes to be a good tattooer. You have to do this because you love it.”
I didn’t know it, but I would become the last of a generation of tattooers that actually had to go through these channels and learn from the people who knew the industry in and out, scrubbing tubes and learning the foundations of tattooing from the bottom up. I was taught how to solder needles to create liners and mags for practicing on grapefruit flesh to help me better understand where we came from and the lengths the OG’s had to go through, so as to not take pre packaged needles for granted. The industry has shifted even further since then, with disposable cartridges being the new standard, eliminating the need for cleanrooms and autoclaves. It wasn’t enough to just learn about this history, I was to experience it for myself, and for this I am eternally grateful. It instilled a respect for tattoo culture that seems to be fading in this current climate.
We were not in the business of selling tattoos…
…I was taught. We were in the business of doing good tattoos that last a lifetime. It was up to us, as professionals who saw how tattoos age over time and that outlived flashy trends long enough to see why they were a bad idea and how to incorporate modern methods to traditional foundations. If someone comes in with an idea that won’t work and they won’t listen to reason, then they can go to a shop up the street. We don’t want do deal with that kind of person, nor do we want our names attached to things that don’t measure up with our own standards. This is a man who loves to say no, although his was more of a “fuck you and fuck off.”
Being of gentler, kinder disposition, I prefer to at least discuss options and guide a client to make an informed decision, but also understand the power of a solid no, knowing full well that a tattooer could get a good picture of any tattoo fresh out of the chair, but to see how it heals and ages over time is what truly matters. I would show him a photo of what I considered to be a cool tattoo, and he would dissect it for me and show me the ways in which, technically speaking, it was shit. The foundations are everything, and as with all solid foundations take time to set up.
The Importance of 5 Years
“You may not technically be an apprentice,” he would say, “but it takes 5 years of tattooing until you leave that phase of your career. You’ll still be on the line, charging for your work, with the title “tattoo artist”, but you need 5 years of experience and seeing how they come back to truly call yourself a tattooer; so that you can experiment and course correct, and find your way there.”
Well, here we are, 5 years in, and finally feeling like I got this.
Now that the foundations are in place, I finally feel ready to go forth and make my mark, no pun intended, in the tattoo world. I now see a crossroads in the distance where I can take what I've learned so far and personalize this experience to mold it into something that really resonates. I now have to integrate my weaknesses and shine some love on them- namely social media.
Death of the street shop in the new age of tattooing
Chances are you are reading these words by way of a redirect from social media. It’s an undeniable fact that this is the new future that we live in, where instagram and social networking is the new advertising forefront for tattooers, but unlike the shops of olde (you know… like 3 years ago?) that were self regulating entities, the power is now in the hands of the undiscerning consumers. The very same people that brought about such labels as “do not drink the bleach” and “lightbulbs for external use only.” They used to be called “scratchers”, the folks who whip out their “guns” in a kitchen somewhere, often fueled by generic lite beers and don’t bat an eyelash at giving a 16 year old a backpiece. We do not like scratchers, and we don’t let them in shops out of respect for the clients and the industry itself. It’s not fucking easy.
It’s blood, sweat, and tears, failing upwards on living people until maybe someday you produce something that meets your own ridiculous expectations. It’s knowing you aren’t a world class tattooer at year 1 and still deciding to take the leap and try anyway even when it turns your stomach into knots. Apprenticeships and the early years of tattooing are impossibly humbling. Paper and people are very different mediums.
Now I see tattooers coming up with hacks to generate followers, faking enthusiasm for peoples work only for the “follow” (because apparently it looks “bad” if you have more accounts that you follow than ones that follow you?) and considering learning code to generate more followers through bots. I asked why they wouldn’t just spend that time drawing and learning how to be a better tattooer, but it fell upon a group of deaf ears. There are printers now give photo realistic stencils and they copy and paste the pinterest design and print with no consideration of plagiarism, placement, or size. You can leave with perfectly acceptable chicken scratch that inevitably falls out and the get blamed for doing something incorrectly during the healing process. Yes, people heal out their tattoos shitily all of the time. As a Tattooer myself I am amongst the worst of the culprits, but getting a tattoo that stands the test of time takes hard work and dedication, not just a copy, paste, print.
The Algorithm has changed all of that, favoring active, often attractive, social media participants who know all of the peak times, video features, and trends of a rapidly changing, faceless mass. People fresh out of “tattoo school” or apprenticeships are able to promote their brand new shops and muddy the gene pool with their inexperience. Clearly I have very strong opinions about this and the result is absolute resistance, but I’m learning that I need to be the change that I want to see. Being very comfortable in the waters of duality I understand that this is not an “evil” or “awful” thing, it just is, and there is a lot that can be gained by surrendering to the flow and adapting.
Pretending doesn’t make it go away
Collectively we have learned that in the face of a threat humans result to fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. Intense social phobias showed me that freeze is the neural pathway that has been paved, and consequently, as soon as social media became a mandatory expectation and not the dissociative tool of a bartender not wanting to be at work, I did what I’ve come to call “ostritching” and buckled down to buried my head in the sand. Animal Planet and casual conversation have gone on to call this a myth, but I love myths and prefer to go on pretending that they do this anyway.
I can’t, I won’t, this isn’t happening, lalalallala I can’t hear you.
As an ace bullshitter to my own self, that was an okay bandaid, but has morphed into a big ol’ shadow. There is work and alchemy to be done in this forefront, but I’ve come to realize I just want more genuine connections.
I know there are people out there that want the kind of services that I offer, people battling their own demons and transforming their own lives, that seek adornment and empowerment through this process. There are suffering hearts on their last thread of hope, and this is a place I know all too well, and perhaps I can be of service by sharing my experience. Not only so people understand that they are not alone, but to provide a light in the dark when all other lights go out. I can share the tools that have helped me, and share the stories of others who have done the same. I can be a Friend to the Friendless as has been in my nature from the very beginning.
More than anything I want to integrate my funky woo-woo ways into this very serious business of tattooing. It is a calling and an ever expansive, changing entity. It is soul work, and it is my contribution to society to help the bleeding hearts stand in their power and remember their worth. If you are reading this, thank you for hearing my words and allowing me the space to speak from the heart.
Thank you
Thank you
Thank you.