When I was a child, maybe 5 or 6, I remember my granny showed me pictures my dad had drawn when he was a child, and I was amazed! They were so pretty and unique – and I wanted to do it too!
So I begun my journey to becoming an artist.
Through out my childhood and teenage years I was drawing on and off, with periods where I didn’t even want to see a pencil. Later in life I saw that it was a way for me to express myself. It was vital for me, I wanted to be better at it also. I used art to cope with depression and anxiety, to express myself somehow, cause I didn’t have words for the way I felt.
For a while I only drew pencil portraits, even making some money with that in high school.
After finishing high school, I fell into depression again which resulted in me dropping out of beauty school and I had to get a job. Since my father was in sales, I wanted to be in sales, completely ignoring my passion for drawing. After all it never seemed like an actual profession or something I could do. So I was in sales for 6 years until I got burnt out. By that time creating art had creeped it’s way back to my life.
I discovered acrylic paint. That discovery changed my life, it brought color back into my life. I had also seen a TV show called “LA Ink” which was very popular back then. My mind was blown – this is a profession, you can actually live off of making art. Crazy. I kinda want to try this. Suddenly I had my first machine and made some first very very bad tattoos. But the feeling it gave me, the joy, the adrenaline. Just wow.
My road to tattooing wasn’t very easy. Yes i got my first machine basically unintentionally cause a friend was talking to another friend who happened to have two machines just laying around. But everything after that was testing my commitment to it.
At first I tried to do it all on my own, but quickly realized that tattooing is a lot harder than it looks on TV.
I had quit my sales job, cause I burned out and hated it with every inch of my body. Don’t get me wrong, it was very useful for me for a while (about that in some other post), but it was eating my soul. So I quit and commited myself on becoming a tattoo artist.
For years I tried to find a teacher or an apprentice spot in a studio, but without any luck. I now see that this was never my path, I was meant to learn it all by my self, and so I did. I refused to give up, even when it seemed hopeless, even when I got great job offers, nothing could stop me. I kept practicing and finally when I found a possible teacher it turned out that I didn’t need him anymore.
And so I found my passion and path finally. Everything after that just aligned and happened at the best time possible. And by now I have been a tattoo artist for over three years, I have designed album covers and merch, I am working on my shop and t-shirt collection, I am working on creating my first solo exhibition and I am so excited for what more is to come on this journey.
I guess the moral of the story is to never give up of your passions and dreams! Hold your vision, don’t take no for an answer and do the work!
