April 5, 2024 • 19 mins
This episode is the result of my recent excitement about a few tattoos I've put my whole soul into.
I've been looking for my personal tattoo style for so long, and considering that maybe I never need to find a niche, that doing it all was my thing (not unlike Beyoncé), that I was a little astounded when I realized that doing "weird" detailed color work felt like the work was coming directly from my soul.
I don't have a word for this yet, but I do know the feeling. These are pieces that come without many or even any references from the client. These are pieces that come from great trust between us. From connection, and mutual holding.
This episode details my thoughts about personal tattoo style, and my ongoing process around this concept. There is more to say, perhaps another time. But I hope you do enjoy this one.
And please! Leave a rating and review. I would love that so hard.
You can connect with me, Micah Riot, as well as see my tattoo art on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/micahriot/
Micah's website is www.micahriot.com
The podcast is hosted on Buzzsprout but truly lives in the heart of Micah's website at:
https://www.micahriot.com/ink-medicine-podcast/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Micah Riot (00:32):
Hello, my darlings, micah Riott here, coming to you
with an early April episode ofInk Medicine Podcast.
Today I wanted to talk about mypersonal style in tattoo work
and how it has evolved over theyears and how I'm finally coming
to understand my personal styleas emerging Really 15 years
(00:57):
later.
I've been tattooing for 15years and it is really now that
I'm starting to feel like, andit is really now that I'm
starting to feel like I'm comingout with tattoos that really
feel like me, like they'recoming really from my whole soul
.
But before we go there, Iwanted to read the latest review
(01:18):
I received in early March fromsomebody who put their name as
EB Mud, and the review is lovethis intimate dot, dot, dot, I'm
assuming podcast.
And the review itself is.
It's so inspiring.
I love this review.
It's short, to the point.
(01:38):
It's perfect.
Thank you, eb Mud, and pleaseleave me a review.
I'll read it on the air.
I love reviews.
I love ratings.
We're at 43 ratings on ApplePodcasts and got five stars
right here, five out of five.
So please keep this beautifulrating going and write me a
(02:00):
review.
I would really love it.
This is truly like my lovechild, my love letter to my
community and the people that Iget tattoo and beginning tattoo
artists and whoever else isinterested People who are not
into tattoos at all might findthis inspiring and interesting.
This is really, you know, alabor of love.
I do it every week because Ilove it.
(02:21):
I get absolutely nothing for it.
You know it costs me money toput this out in the air and, you
know, sometimes money doesn'tmatter.
Like, you make things becauseyou want to make things.
You do a project because itmakes you happy, because it
brings joy to your life.
You know, it's also good for meas a practitioner, because
sometimes people come upon thepodcast who would like to be
(02:43):
worked on by me and they listenand then they feel like they
know me more and they can trustme more, and that is awesome.
These are all the reasons Ihave the podcast, but I would
really just, if you know, if youenjoy it, please write me a
review.
I would really just appreciatethat so much.
And now let's talk aboutpersonal style.
(03:05):
I would say that I've beenlooking for my specific niche
for a very long time.
When I started tattooing about15 years ago, I worked in a
walk-in shop and what that meansis that it was a shop known for
quick availability.
(03:25):
It was black and blue tattoo inSan Francisco.
It had gotten a lot of best ofthe Bay, like that was a I don't
know if you you know, if youknow, if you are in the Bay, if
you lived in the Bay, there wasthe best of the Bay, like awards
, right, like the best pizzaplace, the best theater to go to
(03:45):
see movies, whatever.
So they have also best of thebay tattoo, right.
So black and blue had gotten itbecause it was very popular,
very well known.
People would kind of like lookup the best tattoo shop in San
Francisco that come upon blackand blue, they'd call.
We had a lot of artists, a lotof stations, somebody was
usually available, and so youwere expected to do everything.
You were expected to dowalk-ins, and so a lot of it was
(04:08):
.
People will be like I wantthese little florals, I want a
name, I want a star, I want, youknow, fairly small, simple
things, and so I did all thatand you know, all of it was
custom, but they were all.
It was small, like that.
We didn't do a lot of flash.
We took the flash off the wallsearly on in my being there at
the shop and it was all simplework, but it was all custom work
(04:32):
, so you had to be able to drawa little bit at least, use
references etc.
And I don't have an art schooleducation.
I came to tattooing from adegree in women's studies, so
that's a little different, Iwould say, and I drew my whole
childhood, but I don't think Iwas particularly good at it.
And when I was coming intotattooing I was really insecure
(04:57):
about my art skills because Ididn't feel like I had any
formal art skills.
I had some imagination, but Ifelt like it was just so hard
for me to draw specific things.
You know, if somebody wanted aface, a body, an animal, I
really I struggled, it took me along time and I didn't feel
like I was good at it.
(05:17):
Clients were happy, so it'skind of what's important, but I
was very insecure.
And as I came with thetattooing, one of the people
that I saw being very successfulat it was Idexa Idexa Stern.
She still owns Black and Blueand you can look up her work and
her work has always lookeddifferent.
She works in more of anabstract style.
(05:39):
She did a lot of kind of likeflat geometric shapes or played
with, like color and line andtexture, and her work almost
looks like some of it, like it's.
It's different, um.
Some of it looks likechildren's drawings in like a
(05:59):
very clean, beautiful, preciseway, but very simplistic, and
some of it is kind of likegeometric shapes built upon one
itself, um themselves, like shehas this one piece that's so
beautiful.
It's wings in the back ofsomeone's calves.
It's years and years old andit's the wings are built out of
(06:19):
these sort of like squares andthey're different shades of gray
and black and they're verygraphic and very striking and I
love that gradation from blackto white, like the grays in
there.
They're absolutely gorgeous,these wings.
It's a beautiful piece.
But the point of that was thatI saw her doing interesting
different work.
(06:40):
She did not take on things thatpeople wanted.
She, you know, wanted ideas andkind of like seeds from where
people wanted to go, but howthey were going to get there and
the end result was very much upto her.
She designed her own work andshe didn't copy what people
brought her.
(07:00):
She didn't want references andit was cool.
It was inspiring to see that,because I didn't know 15 years
ago that tattooing could beartful in that way.
And when I started to work ablack and blue at the front
counter and like look ateverybody's work you know a lot
of people did things that lookedlike hard to draw right, like
(07:22):
again things I'm talking about,or maybe some traditional work
or lettering, but she was doingthis abstract stuff that I was
very intrigued by.
That I thought looked reallycool and one of my first big
pieces was done by her.
It's those shapes, it's likethat type of style.
I think back in the day some ofit was called also tribal we
(07:43):
don't call it that anymore, butyou kind of get the visual.
It's kind of like they'reshapes.
They're like flat shapes madeup of color, flat color, usually
not a lot of shading.
That was my first inspirationaround style and very soon after
I started tattooing up poppedup Tatrix and if you listened to
(08:08):
my episode with Morgan ofTatrix, who created Morgan, who
created Tatrix, then you know abit more about it.
But essentially it was a blogand it contained showcased the
work of artists from all overthe world that was interesting
and unique and innovative anddifferent and stuff you wouldn't
(08:28):
see a lot and I was obsessedwith it.
I would look at it daily, Iwould like wait for it to be
updated and I would just pourover the pages, the digital
pages.
I would scroll through thepages and obsess about every
piece and just be like, oh myGod, this texture and the shape
and like how this personcombined like the realistic sort
of like 3d effects with likevery flat areas and I just
(08:52):
thought it was so cool, likelarger scale or unusual it all
looked.
It looked different, right.
So, being on the West Coasthere, a lot of the work that was
happening around here was trad,so like thicker black lines,
bolder shading, bright colorflorals, banners, things like
(09:14):
that.
So I was super excited todiscover Tatrix and I was like
this is where I want to go, thisis the kind of work I want to
do, and I have submitted somework to Tatrix and they did post
it.
So that was cool.
I was really proud to be a partof that part of their lineup of
artists that they kept kind ofa catalog of.
(09:37):
But I still never felt like Ihad a niche, Like I would still
do kind of whatever peoplebrought to me, and part of it is
, I feel, like it's my job as aworking tattoo artist is to do
whatever people bring to me andI still say yes to things that
people bring to me is to dowhatever people bring to me and
I still say yes to things thatpeople bring to me If they're
not copies of custom work, ifthey're not ripping off of
(09:58):
modern artists that should begetting paid for their designs,
I will do.
You know very much likeinspired pieces by like classic
art or modern kind of references.
You know there's some imagerythat's just sort of like generic
in a way.
I'll still take it on.
It's money, right.
Like I need to live, I need tomake a living.
(10:25):
But I'm starting to emerge withwork that feels like it's coming
deep from my soul and I used todo those pieces like once in a
blue moon where I'd be like, wow, I got to do this piece and I
drew it from the the ground upand I tattooed it from the
ground up and it's gorgeous andit's one of a kind and it fits
this person perfectly.
And now the opportunities thatI have to tattoo work that comes
(10:57):
from my soul are more common.
More of my clients want thatfrom me.
More of my clients trust me andcome to me specifically for
this type of work, and so Ireally have a chance to let my
creative mind run wild.
And also, up until now Iprobably wasn't ready, because
(11:21):
early on I remember peopleasking me what would happen if
they just let me have completefreedom, and it scared me.
I would have said no, I cannotdo that.
I can't just do whatever I wanton you Like what if you don't
like it.
And now, because I work withpeople who already know me and
know my work and have seen mywork, because I have a body of
work built up, I feel like Itrust their trust in me and so I
(11:48):
can go there.
And I did this, this piece,recently.
I posted it this week, so thisis early April and I just posted
it.
And it's this flower um, it's abig flower, it's on this
person's side.
It's got like an orangey,golden kind of a head, and the
(12:10):
petals are.
I don't know if they're petals,but they're like kind of petals
.
They are white and gray andteal and they're different
shapes.
And then the leaves kind offrame the butt, the side of the
butt, and they're black and tealand they have spots on them,
different shades of teal andthen there's kind of like a
(12:31):
smokiness up at the top thattraces the person's like a curve
around their rib cage and uparound their breast.
The whole point of this piecewas to enhance this person's
natural curves and to sort of,you know, highlight the
femininity and the beauty oftheir body, and it does that.
(12:53):
But this piece in and of itselfis very ethereal.
It's beautiful, but it's notcloyingly so.
It's complicated, it's unique.
There's death and decay as wellas life and brightness.
It's more dusk than it ismorning, although it's probably
(13:18):
early morning as well, but it'snot daytime and it's more rain
than it is sunshine.
It's moody, it stands out, it'sgorgeous, but there's a
darkness to it and a moodinessto it and a folding in of it
that is interesting to me.
It was interesting to me tocreate with that tension across
(13:43):
those things and then who it'son.
Each person is very complex andcomplicated and I wanted to
give this person the first thingthat they asked for is to
enhance their curves, andcomplicated and I wanted to give
this person the first thingthat they asked for is to
enhance their curves.
But then you know what happenedis we created this piece that's
got layers of complexity andthis person loved all of it and
that's super cool.
(14:03):
It was really cool.
It was really cool to besomebody this person trusted
enough to blindly.
Let me just create a piece thatcame directly from my soul.
There was another piecerecently that I did that felt
similarly to me, although Ithink that I channeled the
(14:24):
client's soul more than my own.
But in making it happen it feltlike that too to me, like I
really let, I was really allowedto run wild and to create it's
um, also on the hip.
Um, well, down lower on the hip, and visually it looks like a.
There's a moon around the sideof the butt, cheek, and then
(14:46):
there's a braid, messy braid ofhair curves around the, the back
of the kind of side butt, andthen around the hip and the
thigh and it kind of comes downthrough honeycombs and there's a
red string running through thehair and then there's this like
egg that's broken and mendedwith gold and has some color in
(15:08):
it and all the whole thing kindof emerges from this egg.
And so that piece was also likethat, like it came together
piece by piece, puzzle, piece bypuzzle piece, and it came from
like an allowance and a trustand like a growing connection
with the person that I put it onand it really felt like my
(15:29):
style right.
So this is what we're talkingabout.
My personal style is emergingand it's hard to put it into
words, but I'm like feeling it,like really feeling it for the
first time.
Of course, I would love to justput out work online that I feel
that close to because it feelsso good to do it, but I'm still
(15:52):
doing a lot of all kinds of workand every single you know,
every single new piece I do.
I do put more and more and moreof me in it, because my trust
in myself grows, my trust in theclient grows more, like my
trust in the fact that theytrust me grows, and it's really
(16:13):
cool, it's really beautiful, um,to feel that way.
Um, and you know, what's funnyis I'm getting um a lot less
requests for tattoos, but Ithink that's due to the economy
and not so much due to what I'mdoing, what kind of work I'm
working on, and also, like thekind of work I'm doing is not
for everybody by far.
(16:33):
It's, um, it's a rare andspecial human that would want
the type of work that I'm doing,but it doesn't matter to me
because it's my deep soul, workLike what I consider to be my
own art, and those connectionsare very special, those people
are very special and to me, um,and if a person comes to me with
(16:55):
a want for something like that,then you know that's what
they're getting and if we're nota match, we're not a match,
that's okay.
But yeah, I mean, I'm stilldoing all kinds of stuff I'm
imagining as I keep growing inthis style that feels like my
style.
I will continue to lean moreand more towards these elements
(17:17):
and ask for more and morefreedom from the people that I'm
working on, and it willcontinue to happen.
So that's where I'm at withthis conversation.
I continue to feel so inspiredby so many people online.
I think that I would like to putout an episode where I talk
(17:40):
about the work of a bunch oftattoo artists that I follow and
that I love.
That feels very individual tome, very unique.
Unique individual in a sense oflike, unique stylistically and
something you don't find whenyou just like scroll through any
old, you know, tattoo blog.
I would like to put together alist of people like that, talk
(18:04):
about them and then offer thelinks to their socials and their
websites, et cetera, on in theshow notes, et cetera in the
show notes.
I don't know if that's going tobe a successful episode,
because I don't know iflistening to somebody describe
somebody else's tattoo style isinteresting or annoying.
(18:26):
And you know, podcasts are kindof a passive way to spend time,
Like you're walking your dog andyou're listening to a podcast,
you're not watching something,you're not looking at something,
but maybe, if it soundsinteresting enough, you'll go
and look at the person's work.
Anyway, you know, regardless,it's up to you if you do or not.
(18:46):
Perhaps you just listen to thispodcast because you like to
hear my voice, which I alsoheard people say, and I'm down
with that.
All right, my darlings, I hopethis ramble was interesting to
you.
I hope you're having a goodweek and enjoying the blossoms
that are coming out all over,I'm assuming, the country, many
(19:09):
countries, because it'sspringtime for many of us in the
world not all of us, but manyof us and I wish you a good week
and I love you.
Hello, my darlings, micah Riott here, coming to you
with an early April episode ofInk Medicine Podcast.
Today I wanted to talk about mypersonal style in tattoo work
and how it has evolved over theyears and how I'm finally coming
to understand my personal styleas emerging Really 15 years
(00:57):
later.
I've been tattooing for 15years and it is really now that
I'm starting to feel like, andit is really now that I'm
starting to feel like I'm comingout with tattoos that really
feel like me, like they'recoming really from my whole soul
.
But before we go there, Iwanted to read the latest review
(01:18):
I received in early March fromsomebody who put their name as
EB Mud, and the review is lovethis intimate dot, dot, dot, I'm
assuming podcast.
And the review itself is.
It's so inspiring.
I love this review.
It's short, to the point.
(01:38):
It's perfect.
Thank you, eb Mud, and pleaseleave me a review.
I'll read it on the air.
I love reviews.
I love ratings.
We're at 43 ratings on ApplePodcasts and got five stars
right here, five out of five.
So please keep this beautifulrating going and write me a
(02:00):
review.
I would really love it.
This is truly like my lovechild, my love letter to my
community and the people that Iget tattoo and beginning tattoo
artists and whoever else isinterested People who are not
into tattoos at all might findthis inspiring and interesting.
This is really, you know, alabor of love.
I do it every week because Ilove it.
(02:21):
I get absolutely nothing for it.
You know it costs me money toput this out in the air and, you
know, sometimes money doesn'tmatter.
Like, you make things becauseyou want to make things.
You do a project because itmakes you happy, because it
brings joy to your life.
You know, it's also good for meas a practitioner, because
sometimes people come upon thepodcast who would like to be
(02:43):
worked on by me and they listenand then they feel like they
know me more and they can trustme more, and that is awesome.
These are all the reasons Ihave the podcast, but I would
really just, if you know, if youenjoy it, please write me a
review.
I would really just appreciatethat so much.
And now let's talk aboutpersonal style.
(03:05):
I would say that I've beenlooking for my specific niche
for a very long time.
When I started tattooing about15 years ago, I worked in a
walk-in shop and what that meansis that it was a shop known for
quick availability.
(03:25):
It was black and blue tattoo inSan Francisco.
It had gotten a lot of best ofthe Bay, like that was a I don't
know if you you know, if youknow, if you are in the Bay, if
you lived in the Bay, there wasthe best of the Bay, like awards
, right, like the best pizzaplace, the best theater to go to
(03:45):
see movies, whatever.
So they have also best of thebay tattoo, right.
So black and blue had gotten itbecause it was very popular,
very well known.
People would kind of like lookup the best tattoo shop in San
Francisco that come upon blackand blue, they'd call.
We had a lot of artists, a lotof stations, somebody was
usually available, and so youwere expected to do everything.
You were expected to dowalk-ins, and so a lot of it was
(04:08):
.
People will be like I wantthese little florals, I want a
name, I want a star, I want, youknow, fairly small, simple
things, and so I did all thatand you know, all of it was
custom, but they were all.
It was small, like that.
We didn't do a lot of flash.
We took the flash off the wallsearly on in my being there at
the shop and it was all simplework, but it was all custom work
(04:32):
, so you had to be able to drawa little bit at least, use
references etc.
And I don't have an art schooleducation.
I came to tattooing from adegree in women's studies, so
that's a little different, Iwould say, and I drew my whole
childhood, but I don't think Iwas particularly good at it.
And when I was coming intotattooing I was really insecure
(04:57):
about my art skills because Ididn't feel like I had any
formal art skills.
I had some imagination, but Ifelt like it was just so hard
for me to draw specific things.
You know, if somebody wanted aface, a body, an animal, I
really I struggled, it took me along time and I didn't feel
like I was good at it.
(05:17):
Clients were happy, so it'skind of what's important, but I
was very insecure.
And as I came with thetattooing, one of the people
that I saw being very successfulat it was Idexa Idexa Stern.
She still owns Black and Blueand you can look up her work and
her work has always lookeddifferent.
She works in more of anabstract style.
(05:39):
She did a lot of kind of likeflat geometric shapes or played
with, like color and line andtexture, and her work almost
looks like some of it, like it's.
It's different, um.
Some of it looks likechildren's drawings in like a
(05:59):
very clean, beautiful, preciseway, but very simplistic, and
some of it is kind of likegeometric shapes built upon one
itself, um themselves, like shehas this one piece that's so
beautiful.
It's wings in the back ofsomeone's calves.
It's years and years old andit's the wings are built out of
(06:19):
these sort of like squares andthey're different shades of gray
and black and they're verygraphic and very striking and I
love that gradation from blackto white, like the grays in
there.
They're absolutely gorgeous,these wings.
It's a beautiful piece.
But the point of that was thatI saw her doing interesting
different work.
(06:40):
She did not take on things thatpeople wanted.
She, you know, wanted ideas andkind of like seeds from where
people wanted to go, but howthey were going to get there and
the end result was very much upto her.
She designed her own work andshe didn't copy what people
brought her.
(07:00):
She didn't want references andit was cool.
It was inspiring to see that,because I didn't know 15 years
ago that tattooing could beartful in that way.
And when I started to work ablack and blue at the front
counter and like look ateverybody's work you know a lot
of people did things that lookedlike hard to draw right, like
(07:22):
again things I'm talking about,or maybe some traditional work
or lettering, but she was doingthis abstract stuff that I was
very intrigued by.
That I thought looked reallycool and one of my first big
pieces was done by her.
It's those shapes, it's likethat type of style.
I think back in the day some ofit was called also tribal we
(07:43):
don't call it that anymore, butyou kind of get the visual.
It's kind of like they'reshapes.
They're like flat shapes madeup of color, flat color, usually
not a lot of shading.
That was my first inspirationaround style and very soon after
I started tattooing up poppedup Tatrix and if you listened to
(08:08):
my episode with Morgan ofTatrix, who created Morgan, who
created Tatrix, then you know abit more about it.
But essentially it was a blogand it contained showcased the
work of artists from all overthe world that was interesting
and unique and innovative anddifferent and stuff you wouldn't
(08:28):
see a lot and I was obsessedwith it.
I would look at it daily, Iwould like wait for it to be
updated and I would just pourover the pages, the digital
pages.
I would scroll through thepages and obsess about every
piece and just be like, oh myGod, this texture and the shape
and like how this personcombined like the realistic sort
of like 3d effects with likevery flat areas and I just
(08:52):
thought it was so cool, likelarger scale or unusual it all
looked.
It looked different, right.
So, being on the West Coasthere, a lot of the work that was
happening around here was trad,so like thicker black lines,
bolder shading, bright colorflorals, banners, things like
(09:14):
that.
So I was super excited todiscover Tatrix and I was like
this is where I want to go, thisis the kind of work I want to
do, and I have submitted somework to Tatrix and they did post
it.
So that was cool.
I was really proud to be a partof that part of their lineup of
artists that they kept kind ofa catalog of.
(09:37):
But I still never felt like Ihad a niche, Like I would still
do kind of whatever peoplebrought to me, and part of it is
, I feel, like it's my job as aworking tattoo artist is to do
whatever people bring to me andI still say yes to things that
people bring to me is to dowhatever people bring to me and
I still say yes to things thatpeople bring to me If they're
not copies of custom work, ifthey're not ripping off of
(09:58):
modern artists that should begetting paid for their designs,
I will do.
You know very much likeinspired pieces by like classic
art or modern kind of references.
You know there's some imagerythat's just sort of like generic
in a way.
I'll still take it on.
It's money, right.
Like I need to live, I need tomake a living.
(10:25):
But I'm starting to emerge withwork that feels like it's coming
deep from my soul and I used todo those pieces like once in a
blue moon where I'd be like, wow, I got to do this piece and I
drew it from the the ground upand I tattooed it from the
ground up and it's gorgeous andit's one of a kind and it fits
this person perfectly.
And now the opportunities thatI have to tattoo work that comes
(10:57):
from my soul are more common.
More of my clients want thatfrom me.
More of my clients trust me andcome to me specifically for
this type of work, and so Ireally have a chance to let my
creative mind run wild.
And also, up until now Iprobably wasn't ready, because
(11:21):
early on I remember peopleasking me what would happen if
they just let me have completefreedom, and it scared me.
I would have said no, I cannotdo that.
I can't just do whatever I wanton you Like what if you don't
like it.
And now, because I work withpeople who already know me and
know my work and have seen mywork, because I have a body of
work built up, I feel like Itrust their trust in me and so I
(11:48):
can go there.
And I did this, this piece,recently.
I posted it this week, so thisis early April and I just posted
it.
And it's this flower um, it's abig flower, it's on this
person's side.
It's got like an orangey,golden kind of a head, and the
(12:10):
petals are.
I don't know if they're petals,but they're like kind of petals
.
They are white and gray andteal and they're different
shapes.
And then the leaves kind offrame the butt, the side of the
butt, and they're black and tealand they have spots on them,
different shades of teal andthen there's kind of like a
(12:31):
smokiness up at the top thattraces the person's like a curve
around their rib cage and uparound their breast.
The whole point of this piecewas to enhance this person's
natural curves and to sort of,you know, highlight the
femininity and the beauty oftheir body, and it does that.
(12:53):
But this piece in and of itselfis very ethereal.
It's beautiful, but it's notcloyingly so.
It's complicated, it's unique.
There's death and decay as wellas life and brightness.
It's more dusk than it ismorning, although it's probably
(13:18):
early morning as well, but it'snot daytime and it's more rain
than it is sunshine.
It's moody, it stands out, it'sgorgeous, but there's a
darkness to it and a moodinessto it and a folding in of it
that is interesting to me.
It was interesting to me tocreate with that tension across
(13:43):
those things and then who it'son.
Each person is very complex andcomplicated and I wanted to
give this person the first thingthat they asked for is to
enhance their curves, andcomplicated and I wanted to give
this person the first thingthat they asked for is to
enhance their curves.
But then you know what happenedis we created this piece that's
got layers of complexity andthis person loved all of it and
that's super cool.
(14:03):
It was really cool.
It was really cool to besomebody this person trusted
enough to blindly.
Let me just create a piece thatcame directly from my soul.
There was another piecerecently that I did that felt
similarly to me, although Ithink that I channeled the
(14:24):
client's soul more than my own.
But in making it happen it feltlike that too to me, like I
really let, I was really allowedto run wild and to create it's
um, also on the hip.
Um, well, down lower on the hip, and visually it looks like a.
There's a moon around the sideof the butt, cheek, and then
(14:46):
there's a braid, messy braid ofhair curves around the, the back
of the kind of side butt, andthen around the hip and the
thigh and it kind of comes downthrough honeycombs and there's a
red string running through thehair and then there's this like
egg that's broken and mendedwith gold and has some color in
(15:08):
it and all the whole thing kindof emerges from this egg.
And so that piece was also likethat, like it came together
piece by piece, puzzle, piece bypuzzle piece, and it came from
like an allowance and a trustand like a growing connection
with the person that I put it onand it really felt like my
(15:29):
style right.
So this is what we're talkingabout.
My personal style is emergingand it's hard to put it into
words, but I'm like feeling it,like really feeling it for the
first time.
Of course, I would love to justput out work online that I feel
that close to because it feelsso good to do it, but I'm still
(15:52):
doing a lot of all kinds of workand every single you know,
every single new piece I do.
I do put more and more and moreof me in it, because my trust
in myself grows, my trust in theclient grows more, like my
trust in the fact that theytrust me grows, and it's really
(16:13):
cool, it's really beautiful, um,to feel that way.
Um, and you know, what's funnyis I'm getting um a lot less
requests for tattoos, but Ithink that's due to the economy
and not so much due to what I'mdoing, what kind of work I'm
working on, and also, like thekind of work I'm doing is not
for everybody by far.
(16:33):
It's, um, it's a rare andspecial human that would want
the type of work that I'm doing,but it doesn't matter to me
because it's my deep soul, workLike what I consider to be my
own art, and those connectionsare very special, those people
are very special and to me, um,and if a person comes to me with
(16:55):
a want for something like that,then you know that's what
they're getting and if we're nota match, we're not a match,
that's okay.
But yeah, I mean, I'm stilldoing all kinds of stuff I'm
imagining as I keep growing inthis style that feels like my
style.
I will continue to lean moreand more towards these elements
(17:17):
and ask for more and morefreedom from the people that I'm
working on, and it willcontinue to happen.
So that's where I'm at withthis conversation.
I continue to feel so inspiredby so many people online.
I think that I would like to putout an episode where I talk
(17:40):
about the work of a bunch oftattoo artists that I follow and
that I love.
That feels very individual tome, very unique.
Unique individual in a sense oflike, unique stylistically and
something you don't find whenyou just like scroll through any
old, you know, tattoo blog.
I would like to put together alist of people like that, talk
(18:04):
about them and then offer thelinks to their socials and their
websites, et cetera, on in theshow notes, et cetera in the
show notes.
I don't know if that's going tobe a successful episode,
because I don't know iflistening to somebody describe
somebody else's tattoo style isinteresting or annoying.
(18:26):
And you know, podcasts are kindof a passive way to spend time,
Like you're walking your dog andyou're listening to a podcast,
you're not watching something,you're not looking at something,
but maybe, if it soundsinteresting enough, you'll go
and look at the person's work.
Anyway, you know, regardless,it's up to you if you do or not.
(18:46):
Perhaps you just listen to thispodcast because you like to
hear my voice, which I alsoheard people say, and I'm down
with that.
All right, my darlings, I hopethis ramble was interesting to
you.
I hope you're having a goodweek and enjoying the blossoms
that are coming out all over,I'm assuming, the country, many
(19:09):
countries, because it'sspringtime for many of us in the
world not all of us, but manyof us and I wish you a good week
and I love you.
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