Carina and I started working on a larger project last week.
Almost right as we started working together, she told me she used to tattoo.
I had so many questions but held them all so we could have that conversation on the record.
I love tattooing so much and am always curious about people's journeys in (and out) of this life. If you are also curious about why someone might start to tattoo and then stop, you will have to
listen. It's a straight forward, concise, smooth, lovely episode. This interview was one of the easiest to conduct.
Transcript from the episode:
Speaker 1:
Hello my darlings. This is Micah Riot recording here with one of my newer hopefully longer termer. Will you please introduce yourself?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, my name is Karina.
Speaker 1:
Is there anything else you want to say, adding to your name or pronouns Any kind of identity markers you want to share and like, maybe your favorite dessert?
Speaker 2:
Okay, yeah, my pronouns are she, her, though I'm fairly ambivalent about pronouns, so you can kind of refer to me as whatever you want. Let's see here my favorite dessert Anything with like dark chocolate and peanut butter, that like kind of bittersweet, with the like saltiness, mmm, perfect, it's my absolute favorite.
Speaker 1:
Amazing. Mine too. I love that. I mean, the primary reason I wanted to chat with you today is because I was so fascinated with your de-transitioning out of being a tattoo artist. I've heard of a few people in my life who went that route and then decided that wasn't for them, and it's not common. So can you tell me the story of like, how you became a tattoo artist?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, so ever since I was really young, even though I grew up in like a really religious and really conservative household, I was always obsessed with tattoos, much to the sugar in of my family, but I still loved them. I loved the art of them, I loved the ritual, the like marking, the body of memory and stuff like that. So I've always been very enamored.
Speaker 1:
Do you remember the first time you saw a tattoo or a very heavily tattooed person?
Speaker 2:
I don't really. I grew up in Orville and Sacramento, so I feel like there were oftentimes people around me who had tattoos. I think the first person that I knew that had like a full like cap and sleeve was actually my uncle, david, and he got a beautiful dragon tattoo on his arm and it was gorgeous and I yeah, it wasn't even so much that I liked the people with tattoos, though as I got into like my kind of more rebellious teenage years, that definitely became part of it for me. I think I've always just been fascinated by how humans choose to ornament themselves, and there's something about the permanence of tattoos that I just found really magical. There are so few things that people do to their bodies that like permanently alter them. It's not dyeing your hair, it's not like doing your makeup in a different way, but it's this like this mark that will stay with you unless you choose to go through another painful process right of like lasering or something like that. It was like it was something that I could give to myself, that nobody could take away from me, and I think that I really resonated with that feeling of something that I could actually be mine and not nobody could take that from me. It would be mine forever.
Speaker 1:
And I loved that. So did you start like poking yourself with like sewing needles? You know, I didn't.
Speaker 2:
I didn't. I did not get a tattoo until I left. So when I graduated high school, I like moved in with a friend and her parents and this friend I had made when I went to a Christian school and so her parents were very religious and their roles in their house when I lived with them was like you could get piercings. So you could get like cartilage piercings which is how I ended up with my tragus piercings but you were not allowed to get tattoos and I was like okay, fine. Eventually they ended up kicking me out for a whole different story of a reason. But when they kicked me out I was like great, I'm going to go get my very first tattoo. And I'd had a design in my head. I'd carried this, one of those like temporary tattoos that you get out of like a, like a gumball machine. Basically I carried around with me for probably a decade at that point and it was a cross with a rose vine and a butterfly and it had and I was very because I'd grown up religious and I was still working that out for myself the cross was still very resonant for me at that time. I loved the butterfly as a symbol of transformation and I loved the rose and all of the like poetry around roses and the thorns and all of that, and so it was an image that at that time in my life, was very resonant for me. And so I went online and I did research and I found a tattooer. His name was Eric Ross. Hold on online.
Speaker 1:
Like what year was this?
Speaker 2:
Let's hear I was 18. So that would have been 2003, 2004. Okay, yeah, yeah, and there was anybody online.
Speaker 1:
It was just trying to think of, like when I guess that was around the same time I would have been how old are you now? I'm 38 now, okay, so I'm like a little bit older than you. So I was like there was things online then like people with tattoo portfolios because, like when I started tattooing, we still had the books in the shop.
Speaker 2:
Right, right, well, and it was interesting for me, so I emailed him, right, I like reached out to him. I emailed him, was like, hey, this is the design I want to get and stuff like that. And it was funny because, even though these folks were kicking me out of their house, the dad still went with me to my tattoo appointment because he wanted to make sure that, like, I was safe. That's lovely and stuff, like it was. It was actually. It was really sweet, you know. And yeah, it was my very first tattoo and I, you know, I did. I did the thing that I have done pretty much my entire life, with the exception of very few tattoos in my body, which is I researched and I found somebody whose art I really liked and then I gave them what my concept was and then was like, okay, let's see what you come up with and let's go from there I, and I laugh about it now because it's very much so a tramp stamp, you know, and and the iconography of it for me is no longer as resonant as it once was. I'm not religious. The cross doesn't have any significance to me in the same way that it did when I was younger, and I choose to keep it. I don't think I'll ever have it covered or have it lasered off. It's a pretty perfect story. Yeah Well, and it's also. It's who I was at that time. It sits at the base of my spine in a way of like this is my roots, this is where I came from, and, regardless of where I've gone since then, a for me it's so important to remember those versions of myself and to honor them. Even if I can look at it and kind of laugh at myself now, there is still a lot of tenderness for for that girl who was 18 years old, who was like this is this is the symbol that I want right now and you literally got that design from like a gumball machine. And it was a different, like he did a different. He did something different. You know, I think the the one from the gumball machine, where it was in like gaudy, like yellows, and like there were two roses that that went up it and and Eric created something that was his own um uh, which I appreciated.
Speaker 1:
I love that you still remember his name, I know.
Speaker 2:
It's so funny. Of all the names that I will never remember or can't remember in my life, I'm like, oh, I still remember the first guy who tattooed me.
Speaker 1:
Was it like a good experience where you felt, did you feel like he was respectful and kind?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, yeah, he really was. He was very sweet, he was very kind, he was very much like okay, this is your first tattoo, like, checked in on me, made sure that I was okay, you know, um, made sure that I was comfortable, uh, walked me through the whole process.
Speaker 1:
I'm so glad to hear that. So that's so like not most people's first experience.
Speaker 2:
I feel very lucky, uh, in that regard. I have never had anybody tattoo me where that that wasn't, um, somebody that I liked on some level or another, even some of my like small ones that I got, uh, like wandering into a tattoo shop and picking a piece of flash right, Um, I have a couple of those, and even those the folks that tattooed me were great humans, Um, they were kind, um, even though I was getting, like you know, the smallest thing and it was like a minimum and they were still like great, we're doing this, do the placement, make sure it's right, look in the mirror, look in the mirror again, like and we're still invested in making sure that. You know, I think, recognize the permanence of that decision and and wanted to make sure that I was happy with whatever I got.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I love that it's great, and so that those good experiences led you to trying it out for yourself.
Speaker 2:
I did. I made friends. I was living in Portland, um, I had moved there, uh, with my husband, and um he had a friend whose birthday party we were at, and in walked this woman, uh, dark hair, dark eyes, gorgeous woman, um, and I ended up talking with her and she ended up being another tattooer, uh, and so her and I, uh she was one of those people I occasionally meet people in my life where I'm like, oh, we're going to be friends now, like you may not know that yet, but like we're going to be friends now. And she was one of those people that I met and and based off of a conversation where we talked about um sort of what tattoos and tattooing meant to us as people, um, that I found a lot of of resonance there and I really enjoyed um that conversation and the fact that somebody else also felt, uh similarly, uh and had an aspect of um like magic and and ritual in the tattooing experience. Um that I absolutely love. And, uh, you know, I didn't realize that other folks, um, I never expected to meet somebody else who felt the same way about that as I did, uh, and so her and I became friends and she was like I'll teach you to tattoo Like you want to do. That. I will absolutely teach you, um. And so she at one point had set up a little shop, like in her basement, um, and she taught me there and I did, I, um, she had me like buy my own machines and stuff like that and I practiced on fruit, which is often the first thing, and she was like you can practice on fruit for a while and then also, but like nothing's going to replace like actually tattooing skin on a person, so like at some point you're like you're just going to have to make that jump. And I was like, okay, Um, so I did my very first tattoo on myself. Uh, classic, classic, classic. Uh, I learned in that moment Is it still there? Like on this thing. It's right, right, it's the one right above the knees, which is where that goes often. Um, and I still have it. Um, and I learned the importance of having a rubber band around, uh, your needle.
Speaker 1:
I know, sometimes you get tattooing and it's like a little wiggly and you're like what's going on and it's the rubber band missing.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, yeah. And so I look at you know, I still have it. I look at it and I'm like, oh yeah, no, we learned that lesson. We learned that lesson of like, oh right, the rubber band.
Speaker 1:
Then because such a simple trick, but it's so important to stabilize everything and make sure that it's a fucking rubber band Like we're in 2023.
Speaker 2:
It's a rubber band still, you know that that it's a very low tech solution here and yet Perfect Right, like you don't actually need a different solution than that. It's actually. It actually works really well. Um, and we had a lot of uh, we had a lot of fun in that space. Uh, we also. She also taught me how to do like play piercing and stuff like that and we um, uh had a really lovely time doing like setting up rituals, um, for other folks and also for ourselves and and stuff like that. And at some point no-transcript yeah, her name is Michelle Pacheco and she also no longer tattoos at this point but we had a really lovely experience just kind of like setting this space up in her basement and at some point we decided to actually set up like a shop and we had a friend who was willing to invest some money and stuff like that and help us do that. So we got a space in North Portland. It had like a little apartment upstairs and then a little studio space in the front and a little back area where we set up our clean room, and it also had another little studio apartment in the back and then a huge parking lot in the back area.
Speaker 1:
Oh, that sounds so perfect, especially the apartment upstairs. How nice would that be to have a whole apartment above your shop.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, yeah, and we had a lot of stairs and, yeah, we did a lot of sweat equity so we like replaced the floor in there and put in vinyl flooring. We repainted everything yeah, very like bright, bold colors and stuff like that. We got an autoclave and a sonic cleaner and all of those things and set up a whole clean room and I wrote all of the clean room protocols and stuff like that. One of the things I really appreciated about Michelle was some of the folks that she had learned from took blood and blood-borne pathogens and the power of blood in general very seriously, and so it was of all the things that we would play around with and stuff like that. Like taking that aspect of it very seriously and being very strict about it was not one of them. We also ran. I had a dear friend, hilary, who did body modification. We put a suspension point in the ceiling so that we could actually learn to do suspension and stuff like that too, and Hilary is extremely allergic to latex. So we had a latex free shop as well for folks who were allergic to latex and we threw several events in that space, because all of the tattoo cabinets and stuff like that were all on casters so you could break the casters and push them out of the way and all of that kind of stuff, and so we ended up creating a really beautiful, very debauchery space and had a lot of fun with it. One issue with the location was that there wasn't a lot of walking traffic that went by at all, so you really kind of had to be on the lookout for the shop, which definitely made it more challenging to kind of drum up interest and stuff like that. But it was interesting. We hired some other tattooers as well to help kind of support the shop and stuff like that, and in that process I learned some stuff from them as well. We had a lot of various friends of the shop who came through.
Speaker 1:
What was it called the shop?
Speaker 2:
It was called Violet Star, okay, violet Star. And yeah, and I think what I learned about myself in some of that time was that I was very self-conscious about what I felt like was a lack of artistic skill. So I was very self-conscious about designing pieces, and it wasn't something that I felt I had the hand to do. So while if somebody gave me a design that they wanted I was very good at like, like, yep, I can do that and I can do very basic tattoos and feel pretty good about them. I have a fairly steady hand and stuff like that. I think some of my self-consciousness and some of my insecurities got in my own way around that and around trying to push myself to get better at it. And I think also during that time I had quit my job to kind of focus on this and stuff like that, and my husband at the time was, I think. When I first made that decision he was very supportive and then, as time went on and finances were tight and I was having a really good time and he was not having a very good time, but it started to create some resentment there in that relationship and made it harder, and so I ended up picking up side gigs and work on the side to try and make ends meet, because the only time that it felt like the shop was really that busy was when we would run like promos or specials or something like that, and at which point you're kind of doing quantity over quality in a lot of ways, which I didn't love that experience.
Speaker 1:
And I think so. You really weren't. Was the shop making ends meet like were you breaking even? It sounds like you're saying your husband was paying for more of your life and that he got resentful because he weren't contributing half financially.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I wasn't able to contribute half financially and we weren't getting enough business in that way to really contribute half. And because Michelle and I were close and she knew that I was starting out and stuff like that, we had a very fair kind of split where she took very minimal of any of the money that I made. And part of that was because I also did a lot of general labor for the shop of like making sure it was open on time every day and making sure the floors were mopped and making sure that the clean room protocols were happening and all of that was happening as it was supposed to. So her and I kind of worked that out, but I still was not making enough money to really share equitably with my husband at the time and it wasn't-.
Speaker 1:
How did you feel about just being in that place, how he felt, how did you feel about his resentment?
Speaker 2:
It was hard, it was really hard. There was a sense of betrayal there, of a bait and switch, of like oh, you were also behind this until it inconvenienced you. I kept trying to ask him to like come and like hang out in the shop because at this point like folks would come and hang out and stuff like that and it was part of like what added to the overall energy and he didn't enjoy hanging out there and didn't really like what was going on. I think I found more confidence in myself in a lot of ways during that time. I'd always been very shy and very much a wallflower and that had started to shift for me and I had started to become more outgoing and more extroverted in a lot of ways and some of that was like feeling as if, like marketing was a part of that and so like going to bars, going to the golf clubs, going out and actually getting cards and stickers and stuff like that out into the world was part of that, and I think he felt a little threatened as well and I think that the financial piece was very real, that it is really hard to. You know, he and I had various times in our relationship where like one was employed and the other was unemployed and what did that look like and how? You know, we carried one another through those various times and I think he had a little less resiliency to it than I did and I think he also sensed a feeling as if he was losing me in some ways and so it made it very hard to split my focus and split my attention in that way, to go and try and make money to make him happy, when really I think what he was really missing was genuine connection, but turned it into a conversation about money instead because that was easier to talk about, it was a more concrete thing to point towards than I feel disconnected and I don't feel like I can join you in this world that you're walking in. But he was also very excited to be tattooed by me right, and more than happy to get more tattoos because he really wanted to and stuff like that. So it was interesting to see where. If it benefited him, then he was all for it. But if he couldn't make the connection of how it directly benefited him, then that support kind of evaporated in some ways.
Speaker 1:
Well, I'm also curious to make the connection between, like your queer self right. So you were married to this man, living in kind of a straight life. Even if you weren't straight, you were living a straight life. And now you're very much committed living with a woman in a fully queer life, and so when you were doing this work, was there a part of you that was like more queer that was coming out, because I feel like tattooing is connected to our queer community right. So that sounds like maybe that was a way he was feeling he was losing you as well.
Speaker 2:
Also I had. Also I shaved my head at that time as well, and so that was a major shift for me in my life. It was part of the transition of going from being very much a wallflower and not having conversations with many people and then shaving my head and being kind of thrust into a social spotlight in a lot of ways, because then people came up and wanted to talk to me for another reason to be like oh my God, I love that you shave your head right, and I think that aspect was also part of it. But the queerness part also. I think he was really threatened by Angelus of Michelle and the relationship that her and I had, because while it wasn't sexual for her and I, it was very sensual, it was very romantic and still is Lest a clear friendship. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And I, yeah, he also knew that I was bi and I have known that for a long time, and so I think that he was also a little jealous of the closeness that I could have with women and genuinely sought out in my life. Regardless of whether or not there was a sexual component to it, there's an emotional component there for me that I don't find with men, especially cis men, that I'm like. You have no idea what it's like to walk through the world and be told consistently that your only value is as a fuckable object. And yeah, and he treated me the same way, regardless of whether he wanted to be so feminist and stuff like that, and yet you also still treat me as if my only value to you is as a fuckable object, and that's deeply unfortunate.
Speaker 1:
It was at the beginning of the end of your relationship.
Speaker 2:
It was. It was. We tried really hard, I tried really hard. We weren't married at that point. We got married shortly after he proposed to me at that tattoo shop, actually when we were in the middle of a pretty gnarly fight. Interesting it was. It was an interesting one.
Speaker 1:
Did you accept right away or I did?
Speaker 2:
I did, I think also, you know, because he and I had gotten together when I was 20, I was terrified of losing him and I also had had an unfortunately traumatizing experience a couple of years prior that really gave me a dialogue that, like I was some kind of monster and so I felt like I owed him something, that I owed him marriage and staying with him because, you know, he chose to love me even though I was some kind of monster and yeah. So we, we stuck it out and we got married and yeah, and then it took moving here to the Bay Area, re-categorizing some trauma for me before I looked around and was like, oh wait, oh, I was wrong. No, like you know, oh, this person in your life, I don't owe you anything. Um, yeah, oh wait, yeah, no, it was a wake-up call for me. Yeah, and I at that time in my life when I ultimately decided to walk away from tattooing, some of that decision was related to feeling like I didn't have enough support and that I couldn't actually make a living. And financial independence is one of those things for me, because I grew up in poverty and stuff like that is has a feeling of non-negotiable for me, of like I have to be able to be financially independent, because that is the only way that I can ensure my own safety and the only way that I can ensure my own freedom, and so I didn't have the patience at the time to ride that out right, to ask for more support, to ask for financial help from other people or to make a really solid plan for myself around how I was gonna turn this into something really viable for myself, and instead decided to pull up everything and move to Hawaii for two months.
Speaker 1:
So the shop space which sounds like it was community space right, it was owned by you and Michelle together, and this guy who would give money, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:
So it was really. It was more so Michelle, and this friend who had given some money and stuff like that, and I was sort of like shop manager in some ways, but very much so, michelle and I had the feeling that it was our space because it was something that we'd both invested in heavily.
Speaker 1:
Like envisioned and created, invested in energy and everything. So when you and you also said, you got a second job, at a certain point, what was the other job that you got House cleaning, Okay yeah, so you were doing that in daytime or something and tattooing at night. And so when you decided to stop tattooing, was it like a clean break? Did you phase out of it?
Speaker 2:
I kind of phased out of it it took. I came back from Burning man one year, because I'd been a burner for a long time, and Michelle had a friend who was like, hey, I need some help up on this farm. They were growing pot, and it was before it was legal, and stuff like that, but I was like, yeah, absolutely, I mean, or something it was. I was actually like you know, taking down water, water leaves, and making sure that plants were fertilized and watered, and stuff like that, and then I ended up staying for an entire month doing that and then also doing trimming and stuff like that. I have to say, though, I fucking hate trimming and it got me enough money that I was able to basically try and pivot my life a little bit, and, unfortunately, rather than being able to like take that money, be like great, now I can really focus on tattooing and try and make this come to life for myself. My family had a series of health problems, so I went and took care of my grandmother during, like her end of life transition, and then my dad had some major health stuff, and I ended up going and staying with him for two months to kind of help make sure that he got back up on his feet and help my stepmom and stuff like that. And so what I found at the end of it was like, oh, and that was the nest egg that I had built up and I had just the mouth, basically that. You know, at this point I was so tired of Portland, I was so tired of the rain, and so we decided to move to Hawaii. And it didn't take long after I moved to Hawaii, where Michelle was like I can't do this anymore, I don't wanna run this show Like run on space for herself, yeah, yeah, when you were leaving, were you like I'm not coming back, or were you like maybe I'll come back. You know, she always had a really open hand. So it was like when I moved to Hawaii, I thought I was moving there, so it was like I'm not gonna be back here in Portland and she was really still is right, she's just one of those people who's like great, that's okay, thank you for telling me Like I love you, thank you for creating this space with me. And she ultimately realized that, like managing other tattooers and all of that was a bit much to do on her own and had her own life transitions happen in the monks, that where she was like it's time for me to walk away from this as well.
Speaker 1:
How long did the space stay? Like what was the time?
Speaker 2:
It was probably about, I would say, about three years from beginning to end, and I was there for about two years of that. The last year Michelle did on her own and, yeah, she was like until she was like I don't. This is not the thing. And there's another interesting thing that I don't know if other tattooers talk about this, but one of the things I found was that meeting people became both easier and harder, because people were so excited that they'd met a tattooer and wanted nothing more than to tell you all about every tattoo fantasy they'd ever had. Yes, that's a thing that happens, but there was also this sense that, like people wanted to be friends with me not because of the person that I was, but because I had something to offer them, which I think is a very common experience. It's part of that being a fuckable object thing of like I'm only worth what I can give somebody, and I did not enjoy that aspect of it. I didn't enjoy meeting people and having people immediately be like oh great, so you're gonna give me a great rate on this right. Like you're gonna give me a discount on this right, or like you're gonna do this for free, or something like that. There was an element of it's like a close cousin to objectification, but not quite. That part made me a little sad. When I interacted with people, I was like dude, I am more than this and please don't treat me that way.
Speaker 1:
How could you tell? I feel like I have a hard time telling because I feel like when I work with I mean as much as it's possible with each person, right, and that everybody has a capacity for depth but or wants that right. But if people are willing, open, whatever, like tend to go pretty deep and if it's like a long enough relationship, then it builds and sometimes it gets burned, but mostly it's fine. But how could you tell whether because I can't always tell if people, because of course sometimes you're like oh yeah, you like the things you're saying and the way you put him in a pedestal is clear, like it's not me you're actually talking about. But I also have a compassion in that space too, right, and I'm like you don't, you think you know me? Like it's okay, like we'll get there. Yeah, I don't know. How could you tell right away? It was just an intuition.
Speaker 2:
Some of it's an intuitive hit, some of it is the way that somebody would interact with me. It's like when you're talking to them and you can tell that they're not really listening to the words coming out of your mouth, that they're kind of just waiting for you to stop talking so that they can go on with whatever it is that, whatever their kind of agenda was. There's a distance that happens there. There's a lack of feeling scene, a lack of feeling that connect, like genuine connection, with another human, and instead what it feels like to me is somebody's unchecked need or want. Oh yeah, that's a big turn off right away. I'm just like ew, I did not, I didn't sign up for that. It's almost like being catcull on the street sometimes.
Speaker 1:
You're just like well, it's just like from here to do this thing for you that we agreed on, that was consensual. Like you wanna tattoo up tattooing you, I'm being a human being with you, but then you have this other thing happening and that's not consensual.
Speaker 2:
And that's not the thing. And even just meeting like random people at a bar or at a social gathering or something like that, where, and they're like, oh, oh, you tattoo, oh cool. And all of a sudden I'm like, okay, sure, like you have an idealized version of what that means in your head, but that doesn't necessarily line up with, like the reality of me as a human. So could we maybe connect as like two humans? And no, no, you only wanna talk to me about all the tattoos that you wanna have.
Speaker 1:
But you're like I do this at work all day, like I'm not at work right now, like you don't understand that I don't wanna talk about my work when I'm on my time off.
Speaker 2:
I'm like you're not paying me for a consultation right now. I'm not Please to fuck off unless you have a different interesting topic that you would like to discuss with me. Like I, yeah, yeah, I. It was a hard one for me to deal with and I think at that time I was also dealing with, you know, having shaved my head and feeling so much more exposed to people in a lot of ways that I there was something in all of it. I wrote a poem at one point that was like nobody wanted to fucking talk to me when I had long hair and was a fat kid. And now all of a sudden, like I have a shaved head and I've lost weight and I'm a tattooer, and now you wanna fucking talk to me? Absolutely not.
Speaker 1:
No how about that? That's the poem, yeah.
Speaker 2:
I'm sure it was longer and probably more complex because it's a poem, but the general gist was like, absolutely not. And I have a lot of like rage and anger about it because it felt so superficial to me and was kind of insulting in some ways, where it was like I am when I was really young, just wanting so badly to be accepted by people and stuff like that, and feeling like, oh, it was the fat phobia.
Speaker 1:
Cool. Okay, Good to know it's always the fat phobia. But also difference is not celebrated by children, right? And then you grow up and find other weirdos and then you're being different as cool.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, and so there was some discovery in that for me as well. Right, and also in the midst of this, genuinely finding people that I did like, that, I did genuinely connect, that could listen to me and be like, yeah, you're a tattooer and you're also a person and I'm interested in you as a person and not just as the service that you provide, which I really appreciated. And I also got to learn how to hang people from hocks and I got to hang from hocks, that's pretty cool yeah.
Speaker 1:
It was fun.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, it was really fun. Yeah, I really enjoyed it and I look back on it and I don't have any regrets for doing it and I don't even really have regrets about leaving when I did. I think that there's something there as well, about sometimes when you make something that you love, you take it and you try and smash it into capitalism that it broke my heart a little. I didn't want to have to make the choice of like somebody's my little pony on their ass and like making dinner. You know, like I didn't. I didn't want to have to make those choices around like no, I won't do that because I don't want to, or like that's a shitty idea and I don't want to do that. And but I still have to like feed myself or contribute to rent or pay bills or something like that.
Speaker 1:
So you basically have to take whoever walked in.
Speaker 2:
Yeah.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, but my little pony on someone's ass is cute.
Speaker 2:
Absolutely it is adorable. But, like, when somebody comes in and they're like I want my girlfriend's name on my neck, I'm like, oh, could we not like let's pick a flower that maybe she likes, that she likes, and we'll tattoo that on you somewhere. That way we need to break up in some fiery disaster. You just have a flower and not somebody's fucking name. Those kinds of choices, yeah, I found that in taking something that I really loved and trying to make it make money for me, that I never found how that worked for me. I never, I couldn't do that. And it's funny now because, like I do, I can do like business operations and stuff like that. Now, right, so if somebody looks at me, I'm like, oh, this is how you like built a spreadsheet to understand what you're like profit and losses, and like blah, blah, blah, I'm like I can do all of these things. And yet, you know, even back then, I understood those concepts but could never, never wanted to apply them to something that I still had a lot of really like tender baby feels around. Yeah, Well.
Speaker 1:
So another question I was thinking about, when you were all talking with people and connecting with people and also you were having issues with your husband that I assume left various kinds of reprimands for you as well and like something I recently was talking about in the podcast, is how intimate tattooing is and how there's potential in that space to connect with people in different ways. Whether or not you choose to do that, to go there, there is potential there. So when you were coming out of a childhood where you didn't feel like like to appreciate it or admired or sexualized in the ways that you want it to be, was it different? Did you feel tempted? Did you create connections of that sort with people you were working on, especially because you see it as a deep spiritual entanglement or like not entanglement but like a sharing?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, yeah, I did right. I found those deeper connections with folks and there are very sweet moments. I am somebody who, like reaching sexual spaces is very challenging for me in a lot of ways, but reaching like central and connected spaces is significantly easier, and so I could absolutely remember so many people were like you have such a light touch while you're tattooing. And I'm like, yeah, I do, I have a very soft touch in general when it comes to things like that and I'm like, and I'm touching your body and so you know the tattoo machine is going to create enough pain for anybody. I don't need to like handle you right and like sometimes like, yeah, you have to get a good stretch on the skin and stuff like that, but like you know, I don't need to like dig into somebody while I'm doing that and finding those sweet moments of like tattooing somebody's one guy came in and he wanted his kid's footprints on his forearm right and like those small moments that are just lovely and like, absolutely, I want to tattoo your kid's footprints on your arm for you, like that's beautiful. I had a woman come in and she wanted like a flower piece across her chest and it was lovely and it was one of the best pieces I feel like I ever did and she was so sweet through the whole thing and I'm like all up in, like all up on her right, because you're doing those like big chest pieces. You're like, okay, I'm gonna have to like press down on your breast a little bit to like get this and do this, and like I'm gonna be up towards your neck a little bit to get this piece and you're really in their breath and you're in the way their skin smells like it's all really close, especially here. Yeah, yeah, and you know we did. We ended up doing two or three sessions for her and she was just so sweet. She was one of those people who came in and just would like lay back and close her eyes and, and you know, I would chat with her a little bit and for the most part she was like you know, we could chat or not, but like I'm just, I'm just here vibing, basically.
Speaker 1:
It was like that's great. Do you still have photos of some of those pieces?
Speaker 2:
I do, I do yeah, at some point I will delete my Facebook page, but before I do so I will pull all of my old photos and stuff like that off. Please do, yeah, yeah, because, yeah, I, yeah, and some of them I look back at I'm like, oh, that was a choice. Hopefully you, hopefully you found somebody to fix that for you.
Speaker 1:
I mean, honestly, you know in like I think about my first three years of tattooing, because that sounds like how long you tattooed you know there were some pieces that I love and the connections, but there are definitely pieces that I'm like oh yeah, that person never came back for their like second or third session, like probably. I'm assuming I know why. You know, yeah, we've all been there.
Speaker 2:
Yeah right, you look at those people. You're like that line got a little wobble, didn't it?
Speaker 1:
Oh well, you just really were like this idea is so cool and then just like went off on a totally it just didn't cost him quite make that circle.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, yeah, I feel like I don't think I stuck with it long enough to really get into like more interesting depth with it, which I recognize. But I but I deeply, deeply appreciated having those moments with people who were, would come in and would be so delighted about what they were doing and you know, for them it was, you know their own ritual and their own right and I'd be like you know, is there special music you want to listen to? Is there special incense you want to burn? Like if there's nobody else here in the shop, like the world's our oyster. Like you want some like candles, you need some mood lighting. Like tell me what you need, tell me what would be nice for you. And having those moments to like drop in and connect with people. And you, when you're tattooing somebody, like you feel them in interesting ways. You feel when they tense and you feel when they relax and you feel their breath and stuff like that, and you're like, oh, you can tell sometimes even before they say like, oh, do you need a break, buddy, right? Like you're starting to like breathe a little shallow and like, oh, you, you need a minute. Like you need to go smoke a cigarette. You need to go, like get drink of water, have a snack, like what you know. What do you need in that moment?
Speaker 1:
Not a way of men tattoo. Even the nicest of men that I've been tattooed by would be happy if I said I need to go to the bathroom stretch. Yeah, they would never offer it, you know, but it's totally the way that we're like so sensitive to clients, bodies and right, so you would notice that. I would notice that we were like taught to notice those things.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, absolutely Absolutely Men. It's funny I've had several men tattoo me and I creep them out a little bit, so they end up checking in on me a lot because I get really still and I don't move a lot and it kind of looks like I'm taking a nap 100%. They're like are you, are you okay? And I'm like oh yeah, I'm fine. I go off into my own little world, I have my own meditative practice around that and I'm like I'm good, buddy, you're fine, like I'm over here, just like I'm very high on endorphins, which is part of the reason that I love this. It's one of my favorite high. It's like I'm fucking great and I've so, yeah, I've had a couple of men who were just like and they would do it again. They'd be like are you okay, are you? Are you sleeping? I'm like I'm not like sleeping, but I'm kind of in a little like, a little bit of like a trance state here right now, like I just, you know, I'm just having my own little. Stop fucking talking to me, bro, like I'm doing something.
Speaker 1:
So it sounds like for you, tattooing was about people first. Art was sort of the consequence of the rest of it. Yeah, and for me it was also like that you know pretty much my entire career Like art wasn't. It wasn't art forward. Although like people think they come to you for art.
Speaker 2:
Yeah. That's not actually what they come to you for no, no, it's such a small portion of it. It really is. It really is. I'm a project manager by trade now, and what I end up telling people often is, like 80% of project management is people, the other 20% is spreadsheets, but 80% of it is people and your ability to like interact with people and get what you need from them and stuff like that, and how to communicate with them so that they are upset about it. And tattooing was very much, though the same way that, like, so much of it was about the people and making a connection with a human and that the art that can then come out of that is the art that comes out of that. But the taking care of the human in front of you, I think, is so important, because if you take care of that human, then the art on their body is that much more meaningful for them. If they have a bad experience, they're going to look at that tattoo on their body and it's just going to remind them of that bad experience that they had. But if you give them a good experience, even if the art is kind of like, maybe it's a little mediocre or maybe it's a little just like boring, whatever, but the way that they see it, because of the experience that they had, will be very different. They'll be like this is the best.
Speaker 1:
This is the best I love this, or you have a mediocre experience, but the art is great, it's a mediocre tattoo. You have that experience plenty of times. Yeah, this is a beautiful piece, but I just don't feel that connected to it. Yeah.
Speaker 2:
I feel very fortunate that the folks who have tattooed me, yeah, that they've always spent plenty of time doing it the women on my hips I don't remember his name, oddly enough, even though I went to him a couple of times, but he tattooed in Sacramento and Simon's tattoo, simon's something, and he's been probably two or three hours designing each one of those of going through various reference images and stuff like that and combining a few different elements and bringing it out and being like is this set? And I'd be like not quite, we're going to go this way or this way, and coming out and being like, ok, this, I'm like, ok, that's the thing. And the reference images that I brought in myself was art that one of my best friends had done and he completely transformed it into something. That was his art and what he did and I appreciated that about him and he did a great job and he was very patient through the entire process and I appreciate when folks do that and I'm like, yeah, it's hard work. To really get to know somebody and get into their head and get into what they're describing, to understand what it is they're looking for, is a really special talent that not everybody has.
Speaker 1:
Did you see that? It was like a meme about AI art and it was like AI won't replace our art, part of our jobs, because then the clients would have to be able to describe what they want accurately.
Speaker 2:
That 100%. Yeah, yeah, no, it's that right. Yeah, and it's funny because now I work in interior design and architecture and it's the same thing all over again of trying to get clients to describe what they actually want Using you know they're like I want it to feel open. You give them an open floor, then they're like it's too open. You're like OK, so you?
Speaker 1:
didn't want. You thought you wanted to open, but actually you want Not so open.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, yeah, you get into those faces with folks and it's funny.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, so what do you miss the most? Ok, a slightly different question Did you when you stopped right away? There was like the two months in Hawaii and then I assume you came to California? What did you miss the most when you first stopped and then, what do you miss the most now? Those things different.
Speaker 2:
So I think when I first stopped, I think I really missed, honestly, some of the clout that came along with it. There was a part of me that missed some of the clout. I think I also missed just that. There is a sensation of tattooing. There's like the full body experience of it being so present in that moment Because you can't really think about anything else or at least I couldn't. It was like there was music happening. I could hear my tattoo machine. I was listening to what it was sounding like to make sure that it was running correctly, and stuff like that. I was paying attention to my client. I was very focused on this blind tattooing that ends up happening right when you're like. I don't think people understand that as soon as you touch your needle down, that some of that ink bleeds out and you're basically like and. I remember where that line is. So here we go. Oh, oh, ok. So yeah, I missed the like, the full, like being that present in a process, right Of like not having the space to like think about the like laundry, or how upset I was at my husband or whatever it was that I was thinking about at the time. I think now I don't really miss the cloud anymore. I think I reached a point in my life where I'm like I don't.
Speaker 1:
I don't care. You have other kinds of cloud now, I'm sure.
Speaker 2:
Well, they just. I think I and I also went back towards being an introvert more so, right, I think I was like, oh, being out in the world and being like in front of people and feeling that exposed and being all up in everything everywhere was interesting and it was also kind of a trauma response for me. And as I did more and more of my own healing, I found more and more comfort in my own skin and more and more comfort in the fact that, like, yeah, I am actually a pretty hardcore introvert, that being in large social situations fucking exhausts me and that I prefer smaller, intimate settings, I prefer one-on-ones with people. I prefer a small group of people, no more than five, right, like, because otherwise it becomes really like the other fortunate, unfortunate thing of healing is that my sensory sensitivities have are a lot more than they used to be. All of a sudden I'm like this, like delicate fucking flower, when it used to feel like I was so like indestructible and could do anything and always like. And now I'm like I don't know, eating meat is sometimes hard for me because the texture is weird, like.
Speaker 1:
I'm like God damn it Getting like more ADHD as you get older or something no.
Speaker 2:
I feel like that.
Speaker 1:
I get like more overwhelmed or stimulated, for sure. Uh-huh, uh-huh. Maybe it's hormones.
Speaker 2:
It might be, I don't know right. I'm like I blame it on my, on my somatic therapist, where I'm like get embodied. They said It'll be great. They said In fact, though, in fact, in fact though I mean I'm probably less of a raging comfort than I was, you know, when I was younger, that unrecognized trauma will play out in weird ways, but I'm sure it wasn't undeserved.
Speaker 1:
Also part of those other people you were cut to also happens.
Speaker 2:
Um, I uh yeah, I think now I do I still miss that sense of being so consumed by a process there was no space for anything else. Um, and I get close to that, like throwing ceramics on the wheel and stuff like that, like there are other types of um sort of sensory engagement or artistic processes that I can engage in now that like um that help that. That aspect of it, um, I do miss. Like setting ritual spaces for people and setting those intentions and helping to like carry those with the person, because I feel like for some of those tattoos, a person would come in with a very clear intention and and I got to help them cast that for them, and that is a really honoring place, um, and, I think, a really beautiful place as well.
Speaker 1:
Um, yeah, it's. I mean, it's powerful. You're in service in this very specific, special way. Mm-hmm, yeah, that was going to be my next question about art is have you continued an art practice? Sounds like you have.
Speaker 2:
Mm-hmm. Yeah, it comes and goes. For me, I, uh, it's a phasic Um so um, but I also, yeah, I find ways to express creativity, um, as much as I can. So sometimes, even like, creating a home is a very creative process. Um, I agree, yeah, right, and that like collaboration, uh, of creating a home is, is a creative process Making a salad, you know Right, Cooking can be a creative process. Um, yeah, I still write a lot. I think writing is my first passion and continues to be a mainstay for me. Um, writing is one of those things for me that is, um, uh, sort of intrinsic to my process. So I write when I'm upset, I write when I'm overwrought. Uh, it is a way to clear my mind and clear space, um, and it is also a way to keep records, because my memory is not that good, um, and so when I'm trying to remember what, how old I was or how long that actually was, or any of those questions, or even who I was back, then I can go back and read old journals, old poetry and stuff like that and be like oh yeah, I do remember that.
Speaker 1:
So you do it by hand? Yeah, all your writing is by hand.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, not all of it, I. I also write on my computer sometimes, um, it depends on how angry I am. If I'm very angry and I need to write very quickly, I will pull out my computer because banging on the keyboards is very satisfying. Much faster and much faster If I'm in more of a like relaxed, more laxadaisical place or um grief spaces or another one um, there are certain spaces where the handwriting is um part of that process, that the, because it is slower, because it requires, like my hand to paper. There's something about the tactile aspect to it, um, that I really love. And I have different pens. Of course I'm pen obsessed and different pens for different moods and different journals for different.
Speaker 1:
Lovely, it's a whole. I'm like I love to know about pens and ink, and that's so great, it's a whole thing.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I still have all of my painting supplies. I haven't picked up a paintbrush in a while, um, but it's on my list. My partner and I uh, we both love art, and so her and I have started trying to like set aside our Tuesday evenings for like Tuesday evenings or the art night.
Speaker 1:
So this is a newly instituted thing.
Speaker 2:
This is great. So like, okay, tuesday evenings, like, pick your fucking art. It doesn't have to be good art, it can be shitty art. Oh, that's such a great idea. But like it's the night, so like we can co-play. Like we're currently trying to think about how to make a like jellyfish lamp out of seed beads. Um, cool, great Um. Or like, yeah, when we were in Montreal we picked up some really cool like art magazines and stuff like that, and some of them have like prompts in the back. So like we're like okay, so one week we can like go through the prompts and like pick a prompt to go through and like bust out our painting supplies and like we'll try some painting and stuff like that. So, um, yeah, I I love art. My grandmother was an artist and it is, um, I think it's absolutely essential. I am not a happy person if I'm not creating something somewhere in my life.
Speaker 1:
I agree, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, and I I think it's an important mode of expression and also, just um, it's a way to slow down for me and and genuinely connect sometimes with myself, sometimes with a feeling or a concept or a vision or an idea, right Like, but it is a pathway into connection, Um, and I love that.
Speaker 1:
Connection that's like the juice of life. Right, that's, that's what it is. Um, I'm like this is so perfect that I just want to end it right there, but I have one final question that I ask all of my guests what is a very small, tiny thing that's been making you happy lately?
Speaker 2:
Um, my very small, tiny thing that is making me unreasonably happy these days. Um, we got a new cookbook and it's called Salad for Dinner and all of the recipes are very like veggie forward and stuff like that, which has been great for me because meat has been weird for me recently and uh, but like they're so flavorful, they're like she adds a ton of different spices and a ton of different just stuff to it. So, like today, it was like couscous and chickpeas cooked in turmeric with like spiced carrots that had cumin and fennel seeds on it, with arugula and a dressing that was like lemons and shallot and garlic, all with like a garlicky yogurt on top, and it was just delicious. That sounds really good and it makes it such a small thing. I'm like it's a new cookbook and I'm like, oh, every recipe I've had of this has been You're like going through it.
Speaker 1:
Basically, that's been like your mission to go through the.
Speaker 2:
We're just like go through and we're like and I want this one this week and we'll take that one next week and we'll do that one the weekend.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, yeah, so good, yeah, thank you. Thank you for coming over and making this podcast episode with me on like short notice. I really appreciate you and I'm really excited about our journey together. Me too, thank you.
Speaker 2:
This is really fun, thank you.
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