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INKEDblog takes you beneath the skin of today's tattoo culture. Our mission is to celebrate tattooing as a modern art form which incorporates art, fashion, style, and pop culture. While paying homage and respect to the past, we look to present a contemporary take on the present and future of skin art.
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Friday Nov 11, 2005
INKEDblog Interviews Up-and-Coming Tattoo Artist Julie Bellew
The coolest perk of writing for INKEDblog is that I get paid in coffee. Coffee BEANS actually. Well…okay, that’s the second coolest perk. The first is this: I get to meet some pretty incredible people. And whether they’re artists or aficionados, I’m honored to be on the receiving end of their tat stories. Meeting Julie really drove that home for me. She’s been inking for a year.5, and I feel lucky to have caught up with her just as she’s taking her art to the next level. Her passion for, and commitment to, tattooing is awesomely contagious. She’s eager to learn; she’s dedicated to her current and future clients; and most of all, she’s totally completely rad. For all those reasons and more, Julie embodies what each and every one of us should hope for in a rising tattoo artist.
– Justin Pelegano
INKEDblog: Your love for tattooing -- where did it start? What was your first tat?
Julie: I have loved tattoos ever since I can remember. I've always been drawn to them and always thought they were attractive and beautiful and thought people with tattoos seemed way more interesting. I've always been an artist, and have also been drawing since I can remember. I really started getting into tattoos and noticing them and wanting them in middle school, at probably 12 or 13. I actually attempted to tattoo myself and my boyfriend by using a sewing needle and pen ink!!! I didn't understand anything about it then, or how dumb that was to do. I just really wanted to get tattoos and give tattoos. I actually used to draw on myself with Bic pens, trying to see what I'd look like with various tattoos in different spots, and I can remember actually going to school with those designs, wanting people to think I had tattoos because I thought they were so cool. I can remember doing a really complicated forearm piece that took me a good 2 hours or so the night before school, and it stayed so well I just went to school with it and fooled everyone. I didn't actually get my first real tattoo until I was 16. It was from a friend of mine, who apparently used to work at a real studio, but was tattooing out of someone's house. I saw him tattooing my friend there and begged him to tattoo me, and he did. I wanted a tattoo so bad that I didn't really even care what it was. He had just done a Celtic piece on my friend, and had a Celtic artwork book there, so I just flipped through it and chose an arm band, and had him put it on me. I really regret it now, because it's crooked and the lines suck and I don't particularly like arm band tattoos, so I'm going to get it covered as soon as possible. But at the time I thought it was awesome. I only paid him $10 for it!
INKEDblog: Is there a spiritual aspect to the tattoo process that resonates with you?
Julie: Oh yes...it's really intense at times, and I can only feel lucky and blessed to be able to share such an amazing experience with other people, and honored that they would choose me to alter their body in such a dramatic, permanent and painful way. I see it as a rite of passage for a lot of people, and it's amazing to see the process of them going through it, especially when it's particularly painful. It's a weird position to be in, trying to soothe and care for the client, yet at the same time inflicting pain on them, which sometimes is comparable to torture. I feel that tattooing can be a very Zen-like, out of body experience - both while getting tattooed and also for the person giving it. I zone out and completely lose myself to the process, and quite often won't be aware of anything around me. For the client, the intense pain and also the boredom of having to hold still for so long in uncomfortable positions leaves most people no other choice than to escape their body and mind and simply exist, because that's all they can do. A lot of people will space out and lose complete track of time - which is another thing - time seems quite warped when giving or receiving a tattoo. It can either go really, really fast, or very, very slow - never in between, it seems to me.
INKEDblog: You’re just starting to work with the tat gun. I've heard of beginning artists practicing on everything from their friends to melons. But you chose to ink yourself. Why? What does that particular piece mean to you?
Julie: I actually started tattooing grapefruits before anything else. Just to get used to the machine. I did that for a few weeks, working from just practicing lines and circles at first, to eventually free handing complicated pictures. Once I felt like I mastered that process, I moved on to my friends. I was doing on average 2 tattoos a day, getting me through my apprenticeship in 4 months. I had always wanted to tattoo myself, and was advised to from a lot of tattoo artists. I wanted to for a few different reasons. I wanted to feel what getting tattooed by myself felt like so I could understand what my clients were feeling. I also wanted to do it as sort of a spiritual type of experience, or rather a very intimate and unique experience with myself. Going through all that and overcoming all the obstacles was important to me. I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it, and overcome the pain and adrenaline and uncomfortable positions I had to get into to do it. So many people told me to at least try it, but said it was so hard that I probably would have to have someone else finish it. Well, I'm the type of person that likes to prove things to myself and others, and I knew that I'd be able to do it. And not only did I do it, but I chose an extremely large piece because I wanted it to be more difficult, to be more of a trial, and also just because I love big tattoos. The whole thing took me about 3 hours just for the outline, and I have at least 3 more sessions left before it's done. I will also be tattooing my toes, feet, and my other leg in the near future. I chose a flash design from an old tattoo magazine, done by an unknown artist. I just was flipping through it and saw the design and loved it so much, and it seemed to symbolize a lot that I was going through at the time. The girl's face has a look of confusion and even fear, and there's a spider web (symbolizing for me having been trapped for so long in a web of my own), and there's a knife stuck through her head, and she's decapitated, and immobilized. I was going through a separation from a 7 1/2 year marriage, and was paralyzed by fear and pain and uncertainty, and [I] saw a lot of symbolism in that particular design. I was just drawn to it, and had to get it.
INKEDblog: What has the self-tat process been like for ya?
Julie: I love tattooing myself. It's such a crazy experience. Unfortunately, due to the impossibility of getting a good solid stretch with only one hand, and lack of a stable base, I feel I can only tattoo my legs and feet properly. I chose my shin because there's not a lot of skin to stretch, and it would be a lot easier to get at then the back of my leg. The first 5 minutes of tattooing myself was very difficult, and I almost thought I couldn’t do it. I just sat there, with the machine in my hand, ready to go, and my heart was beating so fast, and my adrenaline was pumping and I kept hesitating. I would put the needle up to my skin and just felt that first initial “buzzy” vibration on my skin and just a prick of pain, and I pulled back like 2 or 3 times before I was actually able to go into myself. The pain was so much worse than having someone else tattoo me that I was actually surprised by it, and for the first few lines I was not going deep enough to make a good, dark line. The pain totally got in the way of the normal tattooing process, because when I'm tattooing someone, I've developed the knowledge to just "know" how deep to go in a particular area. But when tattooing yourself, the pain gets in the way and makes you not want to go deep enough. It took me about 5 minutes to get over that, and be able to go in deep enough. I had to go over my initial lines a couple of times, as well as a few others throughout the rest of the tattoo, especially in painful areas like the foot and ankles. I hadn't been taught how to tattoo properly yet, so I actually did the whole outline with a 14 round shader, and my machine wasn't properly tuned or set up. I have to go over the outline now with a smaller needle group to tighten it up, because you can't get very solid lines with shaders, especially big ones. I also ended up scarring myself slightly because I overcompensated for the pain and going in too shallow and actually overworked my skin in a few spots.
INKEDblog: What are your dream goals in terms of tattooing? Where, and how far, would you like to take it?
Julie: I want to make a career out of this and someday own my own studio. I want to take it as far as I can, and get as good as I can as quickly as possible. I try to be like a sponge, and just soak up as much knowledge I can, wherever I can, from whoever will teach me. I have only been tattooing for about a year and a half, and have so much to learn. Tattooing is a very complicated, detailed profession and you need to have a very patient, open mind and attitude. I feel that I will never stop learning and growing, and tattooing will be a lifetime commitment and learning experience for me. I'm very excited about my future and just want to try to stay in a good place and not ever get ahead of myself or egotistical, and never forget that ultimately the client is the most important thing to consider, and to not let my wants and needs get in the way of theirs. I'm not in it to hustle, I'm in it for the art, and to satisfy my passion for this art, and to make people happy with the way I've altered their body.
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