I started drawing for my friend’s hardcore bands. At the time I wasn’t looking for a job or anything, I was just creating for fun. For art’s sake. I remember at a Sound and Fury around 2013, I noticed a kid wearing a shirt I drew a few years back… I told him, “Hey, I drew that.” And he said, “No you didn’t.” And because I didn’t sign my art, I couldn’t say anything. I didn’t put my name on it, so it wasn’t real. And then he walked away. That was the first time I thought, ‘Okay, not only can I do this and have my work out there, I could potentially put my name on it.’
It took me another five years before I first put my name on a piece of art. Tim Butcher is the reason I did that first shirt and all the earlier hardcore pieces I did back then, starting with his band Hell in the Cell. We were all friends. He told me I should put all of my sadness for losing Sammy into my artwork. So I owe everything to Butcher, and almost to Sammy for losing him. That was when I decided to put all my pebbles on that beach and create until I couldn’t hold a pen anymore. And I have ever since.
I was one of the only girls in the Bay Area hardcore scene at that time. I grew up down the street from the drummer of Steel Trap – this was pre-Ceremony, pre-Lifelong Tragedy, before the whole wave of northern California hardcore bands. As a kid I’d bike or skate down to the neighbor’s house and sit on the curb, listening to the band scream and make noise in their garage. I always wondered what was going on in there. Pretty soon they started playing shows at the Phoenix Theater among other smaller venues, every gig I’d take the bus to wherever they were playing and convince the drummer to give me a ride home. Going to hardcore shows, no one wanted a 12, 13 year old girl around – even outside of misogyny, no one wants that <haha>. I was too young to be hanging out. But I kept present & became obsessed with exploring what punk & hardcore had to offer.
This was also the time when hazing was happening; people would basically quiz you every time you went to a show. If you didn’t know what you were talking about, people would literally point & laugh. That was part of the culture. So you had to make sure, especially as a girl, that you were on top of your sh*t. My iTunes had everything <hahaha>. I was on top of every album, every release. And that’s how I kept my foot in the door.
Eventually, all of those kids I made friends with ended up getting signed to Death Wish, touring… I was probably 15 or 16 getting to travel the country, running merch for up & coming hardcore bands. I actually stopped drawing for about ten years – between Tim Butcher and that time period, I spent my time on the road, sleeping in the back of a van with all my friends. That was invaluable, just so many priceless experiences.
Ceremony ended up being a pretty big deal. It was interesting growing up with them and seeing their process first-hand, how they came into being career musicians and all of that, and supporting their journey, because they were my friends. But I had nothing of my own. I was so dedicated to stage diving that I literally could not keep a job <haha>. At some point I realized I’d been fired from every job I’d ever had because I would randomly leave to hop on a tour or pursue art. I decided if I made art my job, then I would never get fired again. So that’s what I’ve done.
Words are hard for me. I didn’t graduate high school and I wasn’t raised with much, so my vocabulary’s kind of small. I’m not stupid, but it takes time for me to find the right way to say things. And I like to be very precise, so it’s always been an inner struggle of mine. Sometimes I feel kind of slow. My art’s become the most natural way for me to express myself.
I feel like I’m searching for myself when I draw. A lot of my content is subjective, plays off the other pieces I’ve done as part of a whole. I’d say what I create consists of mostly lived experiences, so sometimes people who have similar stories can connect with it. When people explain and interact with my work, it’s sort of like world building for me.
I’m directly inspired by a few artists, one being Alberto Vargas/Vargas Girls, but very much so by Olivia de Berardinis. She was pretty popular in the eighties, did a lot of work for Playboy – Bettie Page, Marilyn Monroe… All of those drawings were hers. Those pieces were pretty instrumental to the magazine and her career.
I have a very specific color palette. Lots of cool tones, but also really hot colors… Light blues and reds, then heavy blacks, light golds… I’m not very educated on color theory. I’ve never taken a college art class, I really don’t know much about how colors should work theoretically. But I do see patterns within what looks good to me, and it’s pretty consistent. Overall I would say the coloring I choose is intentional and what I create is genuinely what I like.
I do a lot of personal commissions for friends and family. I don’t do a lot for straight up strangers or faceless profiles approaching me. I love to focus on bands from my area or brands that align with me or the people I know. I also somewhat adjust my prices accordingly. I mean, everyone pays the same rate – it all costs the same for the amount of time I have to put in, but I let whoever know that I’m gonna adjust the price for x or y reason, depending. I understand what it’s like to be a struggling musician and how much work it takes to scrape together $50, even for a logo. So me asking $200-250 for something is a big deal, that takes four guys to make happen at least. I try to be pretty realistic and accessible, I don’t think inaccessible things are cool. And I give my best to make it fair. But if a commission’s not right in my heart, if the vibe feels weird or something’s off, no matter how big the project, I will not do it.
Understand that every artist who’s creating full-time – all of us, and I mean all of us – are struggling. I have been f*cking through it and back, me and my best friend survived all last year basically passing the same $20 back and forth. I’m a lifetime punk, committed to the point where I sacrificed my future to support a lot of these bands and a lot of my friends, And I happily, happily did that, you know what I mean? But you can never expect the same in return because that’s just not guaranteed, especially artistically. Bitter pill. But you keep moving and pay your bills.
I’ve never had safety or comforts or stability or things of my own. It’s always been the generosity of others that’s gotten me through life, so I try to be just as generous. I’ve had many times where I wouldn’t have eaten that month, or I wouldn’t have had a roof over my head, if it weren’t for the people around me.
How did I move into tattooing? Well, I saw a girl at Suerte tattoos get my art tattooed over her whole stomach. I remember I got a text from Rooster; “Can I tat this on my client?” I said, “The whole f*cking stomache? Okay, if she wants it.” He asked me what I wanted for the artwork and I told him to just give me a free tattoo or something, call it easy peasy. They did it in one session that day, the whole stomach, including the belly button blacked out. And it looked so good that I had to sit back to say, “Man. I think that’s the most gratifying thing I’ve ever seen.” I ended up chasing that feeling, seeing how I could translate all of my art through this sort of mechanism that could give a whole new life to what I draw on a different canvas.
I haven’t had too much experience. I’ve probably done somewhere around 30 tattoos in a shop so far, but I do respect and study the art form a lot. Tattoos empower. It can be really affirming for people who need gender affirmation, or even just for making someone more comfortable in their skin. You can tattoo over scars with water and it’ll loosen the scar up, dissolving it over time. Healing self-harm scars is a service I intend to offer in the future.
You also have to understand that there’s certain rules in tattooing, that the tattoo gods make sure happens. For starters, you get the tattoo you deserve. And if you don’t belong, don’t be long. There’s lots of rules that are inherent with tattoo culture, and all tattooers come to know them eventually. It’s a magic ritual, an intimate experience. Some people negate those aspects, but you’re literally bloodletting. It’s an energetic transfer of not only money, time, and art, which is energy, but the process is measurable scientifically. There’s a before and after where someone has changed both mentally and physically.
A lot of the old tattoo flash that you see on shop walls is actually that Playboy artist Olivia’s artwork she sold to Cherry Creek to make into flash. She wasn’t a tattooer, but her art is iconic in the pantheon of tattoos. I would like to do something similar with my art, and I hope that I can get there one day. The technical skill to be able to pull that off is a lot, but I’m aiming for it.
Still, just like in hardcore, a lot of people in tattooing gatekeep and talk down on new faces. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard tattooers start a sentence no one asked to hear with, “In my day…” In my day? What about f*cking today? I think for the industry, if you’re scared of the ball moving forward, that’s on you. I subscribe to the idea that all competition is healthy. And I get it, I’ve had cool times too, but I’m going to have as much fun as I can today and tomorrow and the next day while making sure I have enough to feed my daughter.
I would like to contribute as much as I can to tattooing. It’s really important for me not just to take from an industry that could end up supporting me and my family in an alternative lifestyle, but to give back to it. Especially an industry that feeds and has taken care of so many disenfranchised people for so long. It’s very important to keep communities like this alive and growing.
I have heard and believe the first ten years are the most difficult. But I also feel like if you put in that much time into anything and you’re worth your salt, it’ll pay off. So that’s what I’m hoping for. I do believe that I’m just gonna keep going, I don’t think I’ll ever stop.
