When people comment on how many tattoos I have (which is not many btw) I think about my friend Sarah. She has to be among the most tattooed women I know.
When I met Sarah she was working as the receptionist at Tattooed Heart on K Road, surely a great way to yield many a free tattoo. This self-confessed bogan with an affinity for strip clubs has some epic pieces of ink, including a full sleeve dedicated to the master surrealist Dali. But she also has some cool 'mongrel tatts', for lack of a better phrase, like the 'WEST SIDE' lettering she tattooed on her own toes. After meeting for a beer it didn't take any convincing to get her to take her stockings off so I could take some snaps of said sweet tattoos.
We also got to talking about what it's like when people on the street comment on your "body art", but seriously, old dudes, please stop using that phrase it's kinda creepy.
“I went to Sydney about a year ago and I was with my Dad walking around the town, and because I’ve looked like this for awhile I don’t really pay attention, if someone looks at me I generally don’t notice. But my Dad was like, 'People are staring at you constantly.' He was like 'It's really weird, don't you find it annoying?' But it’s kind of fair enough, you can't really expect to get as many tattoos as that and not expect people to comment. Some people can be real dicks, but some people are lovely. I love it when old people say something, because you expect old people to be quite conservative, and generally disapproving. I kinda get the evil looks from old people, and then you get some really cool old people who will be like, 'Oh, don't you just look amazing,' and totally genuinely really impressed by you, and think you look really cool and go out of their way to tell you that.It's better than (does gruff voice) 'Hey girl nice tits'. Except for this one time this old woman was like, 'Oh, I hope you get a man looking like that'. And, well I haven't... (laughs)."
"I don’t really think of myself as having that many tattoos for a chick, which kinda sounds strange and stupid. I guess maybe because when I started getting tattooed I was working at Illicit and everyone there had lots of tattoos. Everyone had more tattoos than me, or the same amount. And then I kept getting more because I would talk to the tattooists. Like, this one on my thigh came about from having a conversation with Liesje (now at Tattooed Heart, K Road) where she was like, 'I haven't tattooed you, what should we do?'... I really love her style. She puts so much time into a piece, like really dedicates herself to it, and it really shows.”
"I try to base my tattoo ideas on an actual thing, I don’t like it when you watch LA Ink or one of those shows and it’s like, 'I got this tattoo to represent this time in my life’... but everything I've got has a reason for getting it, not really having like a deep meaning or anything like that. But this one is based on The Highwayman, the poem. I remember my Dad reading me that poem when I was a kid and just thinking it was really fucking cool, and it’s just always stuck in my head. So it’s something I can always have."
As well as being a talented artist and chef, Sarah is also writing a novel, some sort-of murder mystery deal as far as I could tell. You can check out some of her more auto-biographical work at notwhatwemeant.com
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