Today we’d like to introduce you to Sara Bowyer.
Hi Sara, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I started tattooing in my hometown of Melbourne, Australia, back around 1994 after getting my own first tattoos. After drawing up some tattoo designs for some friends, one of the tattoo artists that I got a couple of pieces from saw my drawings and thought that I had a good design eye for tattooing. He asked if I was interested in learning it from him and offered me a month trial as an apprentice.
I hadn’t really considered it as an option at the time, as I had just finished college and was still working out what my next step would be as far as a future in the arts. I took him up on the offer, and after a year of learning how to work in a busy street shop, I began tattooing. It was great place and time to learn the trade and art form, as the 90’s involved such a huge explosion of body art – tattooing and other forms of body modification became incredibly more popular. At the time, Melbourne’s thriving music and arts community allowed subcultures of that era to really develop, and I’m so proud of my roots and the experiences I had there. Fast forward 26 years, and I still tattoo – but now in Los Angeles. I have been here ten years, and after some ups and downs that are standard for moving your life to another country and culture, I really can’t imagine being anywhere else at the moment. The first five years here I tattooed right on Melrose Ave in Hollywood at “Forgotten Saints”, so I got to experience the last gasp of the “rock and roll” days and met a lot of the old characters while I acclimatized to LA culture.
But things change and after that shop closed, I moved to a tattoo studio in Los Feliz called “Incognito Tattoo”. I am really interested in the history of Los Angeles and how it’s really made up of different pockets or bubbles, so I feel grateful that I’ve been able to experience two completely different spaces and neighborhoods, each with a rich history and unique personalities. I also became a US citizen in 2016 and that was a huge moment in my journey here. I surprised myself when I teared up a little bit with pride that day, sitting in a big hall with other immigrants from around the world, sharing our stories of how we got to the ceremony day. That’s why I still love tattooing, as I get to meet and spend time with so many different people from many different cultures. Everyone’s life is so rich with history, no matter how they got to this point in life – or to their tattoo appointment.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Well, there is no life without challenges! There were certainly nerves to conquer when it came to learning to tattoo, like the anxiety of breaking someone else’s skin and leaving a permanent mark on their body. Accepting that mistakes cannot be erased so easily and that you do need nerves of steel some days – that’s a big lesson to learn if you are going to stay in the trade. When I started tattooing, there weren’t many women in the industry at all, and most of the tattooers and clients were men. In the beginning, there was a period where people were shocked to see a woman tattooing, and they would assume that I was a shop assistant at first. Being in a minority back then meant that you were labeled a “Female tattoo artist” like it was a separate category, which was really annoying because I am just me – Sara, a woman who happens to be a tattoo artist.
As more women around the world wanted to be tattooed, the economic reality was that a huge part of the population couldn’t be ignored. Some tattoo shop owners realized the societal shift that was occurring in the 1990’s and 2000’s, and old biases gradually changed for good, and part of that shift was realizing the value that women can bring to the art form. I am fortunate to have worked with some really forward-thinking artists. Now we are in the 2020’s and the barriers to accessing the tattoo world have definitely been removed somewhat, although it’s still a work in progress. I would say more than half of my clients now are women, and the field is much more diverse compared to when I started. I’m glad to be part of a movement that’s tried to make the tattoo space a more comfortable place to visit for a while.
Artistically as well, the broad talent that is now flourishing in this world is mind-blowing. And it’s all available to witness on social media, at the touch of your screen. That’s been a huge part of the increased visibility and acceptance of tattooing, and the body art world is a much less “hidden” subculture than before. That’s been one of the hurdles that I have had to overcome, adjusting to the need to promote yourself on digital platforms. I come from a pre-internet world, where we only knew about what other tattoo artists around the world were doing from the tattoo magazines that we used to have imported into Australia! So for me, the dominance of social media as a now compulsory tool to promote yourself has taken a little time to get used to. It took several years to build up a local clientele here in Los Angeles. Even newcomers from other industries will say the same thing, it doesn’t matter what success you had in your hometown, when you arrive in Los Angeles you start again from scratch. It’s a very transient place, and people come and go all the time, so it takes two years before people will start to take you seriously. You just have to prove yourself, tattoo after tattoo, and show up.
It’s humbling, but eventually you find your place and your people. The COVID-19 crisis of the last 12 months has, of course, been a different struggle all together. Having to close the shop for so long over the last year was understandable but difficult. When the first closure happened, like everyone else, it was “ok, we’ll see you in a few weeks!” But very quickly as this awful disease took hold of the world and we learnt more about how it operates, I just knew we weren’t going to be able to tattoo again for quite a while. I try not to be a “my work is my identity” person, but even still, I struggled with the loss of what I’d done for so long, and I definitely felt a strong sense of grief for the city and for the thousands of families who were losing loved ones. The way out of this is definitely going to bring a lot of change to tattooing – some of it is overdue change, and we are going to have to step-up for our neighbors. We will be doing a lot of healing through our work, I think, as we move into the year and rebuild.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
Because I spent a lot of my early tattooing years working in street shops, I had to learn to tattoo in different styles, so my specialty has fluctuated over the years. I definitely seem to have a very detailed style and used to do a lot of “realism” such as portraits. Nowadays, most of my work involves tattooing anything in the “botanical” theme – which I love! I’ve always had a passion for animals and plants of all shapes and sizes – first the ones from my birth country, and now for the ones from here. It’s almost as if my clients have given me an education on the different species of things – I love collaborating with them about particular flowers or birds that they want me to include in their tattoo, and I get to research and find information for them. And then, we work out which species will work the best together as a tattoo, considering shape, texture and color. I find more and more that people are looking to tell their tattoo stories through the imagery of nature as a living record of their own journey through life. Plus, organic tattoos suit the shape of the body so well and have a timeless quality.
Are there any books, apps, podcasts or blogs that help you do your best?
One of the things that has got me through not tattooing this past year has been finally learning to draw using Procreate. I was one of the last holdouts in tattooing, refusing to even try drawing digitally on a tablet! But I’m so glad I finally tried it, it’s reignited my love of drawing and makes a lot of the planning and design process so much easier. I can’t imagine life without Procreate now. I still love to draw with paper and pencil/pen and still love to flick through my art books. I have a small collection of books that are like handbooks full of scientific illustrations, forms in nature, organic ornament, pattern books, so if I feel a bit blocked I will just have a break and look through them. I also have books on printmaking and architecture, as I love to look at how other art forms rely on line work. Sometimes I completely forget that I have a particular book because I haven’t looked at it in a while, and it’s like rediscovering it all over again! I still think that there is no better source for reference material than the outside world, so I walk a lot and observe the gardens and wild spaces around me. When I’ve only seen a plant or animal in a photo, it’s difficult to get a true sense of size or movement.
When I first saw my first California poppy in real life, growing on the side of the road in Venice, I was surprised at how small and delicate they were! I do walk around with my binoculars a lot and take a million photos of flowers for my own library. Huntington Gardens is amazing for a reference excursion. I finally went to the Arboretum for the first time, which is also great. I also support a lot of conservation or science organizations, like Audobon Los Angeles, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, American Bird Conservancy, and they all have fantastic websites and magazines that help with research. Local organizations like Friends of Griffith Park, The Autry Museum are also good resources for local study. Before covid shutdown, architecture tours were a bit of a hobby of mine too, and an amazing source of inspiration when it comes to observing materials, color and texture in design. I think the biggest relief will be when our art museums can open again, I am so looking forward to seeing art in the flesh again.
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Website: http://www.saraloutattoo.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/saraloutattoo/
