Most visual and creative industries are like this. It’s hard to really show the hours, days, years of practicing, drawing, making etc that goes into life as a working artist or creative. I think there’s an even bigger disconnect when you flatten all that into seconds worth of consumable and disposable content.

Especially in tattooing, you may look at the photo of a cool tattoo or sleeve and keep scrolling. But let me just take a moment to revel in the beauty of the process. From consultation to finished tattoo, the magic is in the hours it took to get there. The exchange of ideas, the drawing and planing, to the hours of working, and spending time with someone. All that culminates into a piece that goes on to live a live of its own.

On a complete tangent, this is why I never like it when clients get referred to as “canvases”. A canvas is inanimate and has no thoughts or opinions, and you tuck away when you’re not working on it. I think its weirdly smug and de-centers the collaborative energy and effort that goes into every piece. Anyways that’s my mini rant.

I’m not saying the casual viewer has to be awe struck by every tattoo they see, but I do hope you as a person who has or may someday get a tattoo get to revel in the experience. Whether you’ve been tattooed by me personally or another artist I hope you’ve experienced the joy that can come with a new tattoo drawn just for you, or getting a piece of flash you resonate with, or marking a moment in time. Maybe take this as a reminder to bask in the little details once in a while.

So what have I been working on since we last checked in?

Flash! That’s right, physical flash. I’ve been drawing, sketching, painting and finally working on a little book or reusable flash that will live in the shop to be updated regularly! Are there things that you’d like to see more of? Never hesitate to let me know!

Before I go

Let me take a moment to appreciate all the fun projects big and small I got to work on with you guys! And for all the moments away from the shop spend with family and friends. I’m so excited to get into fall, as a little scorpio babe, I feel it’s the time I truly thrive! What are you guys looking forward to? Do you have any fall activities that you can’t wait to tuck into? Maybe coming in to visit me ;)

-Cara

P.S. I know its still hot as hell outside but I’m steadily manifesting that fall feeling by slipping into my Cocteau Twins era 🍂

Hello and welcome!

First, a little rant

While clearly I’m not completely escaping the digital realm, this blog is here to help me occupy a more intentional corner of it. It’ll be a place for more in-depth updates both personal and professional. If you’ve been in the shop in the last few months I’m sure you’ve heard me talk all about my instagram burnout. This is just my personal take, and not at all to hate on anyone using it!

Maybe it goes without saying the social aspect has gone out of social media for me. And what used to be a sharing of life and ideas became an uphill battle through a sea of endless content, ads and AI slop. The engagement is low, the enshit-tification is high, and I don’t know about you, but my mental health and my attention span has taken a toll because if it.

So here I am blogging like it’s 2010 all over again.

Side note here are a couple of good podcast episodes I’ll link for those who also feeling dragged by the socials and AI.

Factually! with Adam Conover - a conversation with reporter Julia Angwin about Meta’s recent failings

Today, Explained - A conversation about everything being reduced to clips, the compression of long form content and corporate psyops

The Gray Area with Sean Illing - Conversation with author of Enshit-tification about how business models like Google and Meta are built to get worse.

That being said,

for me the antithesis to all the digital doom and gloom has been being in the shop and tattooing. The tactile nature of the job, the conversations, the person to person experience. Its helped me remember just how much I love creating and conversation. I mean, it’s referred to as the second oldest profession for a reason right? I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, you guys keep me grounded, and your time and tattoos are worth more than just IG content to me!

Rant over, thank you for taking the time to read!

With Love -Cara

Instagram is fast, Tattoos take time