REST IN PEACE TATTOOS SKIN
"I wondered, wait, where are all the other tatted-up people my skin color? I don't see that," they recall. However, it could be difficult to find artists who worked on darker skin tones. "It reconnects me to my body to celebrate, decorate it, and affirm parts that I was ashamed of," they share. To Parker, the experience of getting tattooed is nothing short of euphoric. They wouldn't become a tattoo artist until 2020 but had been collecting them ever since that first, Steve Madden-themed appointment in 2009. After graduating college and realizing they wouldn't be pursuing fashion design after all, Parker needed something into which they could channel their creativity. They describe their younger self as a "daydreaming type of kid" with a big imagination and plenty of creativity. The idea for Ink the Diaspora came from a night of brainstorming in Parker's bedroom. Sometimes the submitted posts include a few words from the submitter about their relationship with tattoos and tattooing. Typically, each post will include the tattooist's name or Instagram handle. The rest are submissions from other tattoo collectors or artists. Of all the tattoos you'll see on the Instagram page, just a few belong to Parker and even fewer were done by Parker on their clients. Through the page, I've discovered so many dope artists, some of whom have ended up actually tattooing me. The platform is immensely helpful for navigating the frankly racist and exclusionary tattoo industry that passively (and sometimes actively) perpetuates the idea that brown or dark skin cannot or should not be tattooed. It's also a directory of tattoo artists who were comfortable and capable of tattooing medium and dark skin tones, who, for those of you that don't know, are harder to find than you might think.
REST IN PEACE TATTOOS FULL
When I first discovered the Ink the Diaspora Instagram account, which Parker launched in 2017, it was exciting seeing an Instagram page full of tatted-up folks with melanin, unlike the Instagram pages of many tattooists that are overwhelmingly dominated by clients with white or light skin.
0 kommentar(er)
