Cutting my Teeth in Columbus, Ohio
I should’ve anticipated the entrance I’d be making when I turned my power supply on in the untroubled tattoo quad… WRRRRRRRRRRR! The buzzing of my coil machine quickly took the progressive shop atmosphere back in time 30 years. Woof! Though no one gave any glances to investigate, I can’t say that my cheeks didn’t immediately turn bright red as I prepared to push the first lines of ink into my friend, Jon’s skin.
Ravyn, one of the tattoo apprentices trained me on the shop’s tattoo set up and breakdown procedures. These procedures were to ensure absolutely no cross contamination could happen at any point during the tattoo application. Rigorous, but so necessary, I took everything at an absolute glacial pace to ensure that any eyes that would find themselves on me were validating.
This was part of the jump into my first guest spot, right? The discomfort of learning a completely new environment and taking the changes in stride. Despite the discomfort, I was reminding myself to breathe through the process, one step at a time, one tattoo at a time, and all would come with practice.
About 45 minutes later, I finished Jon’s tattoo, silenced my hurricane of a machine and took a big sigh of relief. The tattoo I gave him was cool and he was stoked on it. Perfect, first win in the new shop!
The tattoos that would follow would all have their own unique challenge to them. Majority of the clients I tattooed would be ones that I booked myself. I did this because I wanted to be conscientious of the leap I was taking given my time tattooing and the shop’s standard of quality. With 4.9 stars average reviews on Google, and four locations, Evolved is known for their excellence. Tattooing friends and client’s that I booked myself ensured that expectations were reasonable and I wasn’t going to be in over my head.
My intention from the get-go was honesty, transparency, and professionalism. The shop staff was absolutely incredible supporting me in this because they too, valued these qualities. The owner, Andy ensured me that I was in a safe space to learn and it was an ideal one for my first guest spot experience as well.
I was given all of the signs that I was in good hands to catch me and I’d be okay. All there was to do, was to show up, do my best, learn along the way and be myself.
Before driving back to my parent’s place, I’d clean up and disinfect the station that I was using for the day, take out the trash, say my ‘good evenings’ to the artists and front desk staff and be on my merry way back to New Albany where my mom would have some Puerto Rican dishes prepared for dinner.
More recently (in the past three years) I’ve reconnected to and embraced my Puerto Rican heritage. Unfortunately I never grew up learning how to speak Spanish, but Puerto Rican food was something that was always a treat to indulge in when my mother had the capacity to go to the international grocery store and whip something up.
In September of 2023 I actually got a tattoo of a girl soaking in a bowl of Mofongo from Krystel, a friend, Puerto Rican tattooer and encouraging guide.
If I had the next day off, I found myself sleeping in until 10:00am or so. I’d grab a coffee with my dad and ideate on how I’d make the most of the day— Whether it was preparing for my next tattoo appointments, booking for when I got back on island in March, spending time connecting with friends and family, or getting to the gym to pick heavy things up just to put them back down.
All in all, everything came back to tattooing. The much needed rest and recovery, the risks taken to jump into the unknown, the fitness, the new connections. None of my trip would’ve been possible without the people who have lifted me up and given to me to experience these adventures.
With that said, I owe a big thank you to Jillian for all of the love and support she’s provided and inspired me with from the get-go. For the shop connection to have my first guest spot at such a safe and reputable place and just continuing to be the best person she can be for herself.
I’m getting to the point where I’ve still got so much to say, but I think it’ll be too much detail haha.
What I want to finish this post off with is saying that I am entirely grateful for the experience to go back to my home in Columbus and have the wonderful time that I did while making money. I can’t say that anticipated all of it, but I’ve got a hunch that I know what made it a good one.
In total, I got to do more tattoos than I expected, learned a lot from the experience and ultimately grew and a person and tattooer. There were definitely challenges I faced and stumbles I tripped over, but nothing we couldn’t brush off and get back up again from. That’s the goal of it all, right?
Until the next adventure,
Dani
