Disruptive Ink is Disrupting the Status Quo Among Tattoo Shops in the Best Way
Tattoos are a beautiful form of self-expression and healing that can create confidence in one’s appearance as well as be wearable reminders of important things from person to person. They provide an incredible and endearing sense of identity that can change and grow over time.
OFM caught up with Sandra and Holly, co-owners of Disruptive Ink, a queer and female-owned tattoo shop located in Lakewood to hear a little bit about the inspiration behind the shop from the artists and how they incorporate their queer identities into their artistic styles while creating a safe, affirming space for artists and clients alike.
What was the inspiration for Disruptive Ink, and how did you all get started?
Sandra: So I’ll start with that. Disruptive Ink has been around now for a little over five years. We started as this very small private studio, just me, and then three years ago, we actually opened the shop. The whole point of it was to create a safe place. No matter your gender, your sexuality, race, or any of that you can come and have a safe experience, whether you are a client or an artist. We really wanted to create a space for artists to come and not have to worry about sexual harassment. You know, the toxicity that’s in the industry now and just have a creative space. So it’s really what this thing’s about.
What has it been like in the tattoo industry as queer and woman artists?
Melissa: It was pretty horrible starting out to be honest. It’s a very male-dominated industry. So it’s hard enough being a female, but on top of it, being a queer female.
Sandra: I feel the same way. Being a female, just trying to find an apprenticeship at the time was very difficult. You know, they see you, and they just want you to do paperwork, or they just want somebody to hit on the entire time. And you don’t feel safe. You don’t feel like you’re gonna get feedback. You don’t feel like you have anywhere to grow, you know, and then also being queer.
Sabrina: I’ve been in the field for about 16 years now, and I can tell you that it has gotten a lot more progressive. I want to say when I first started, it was a lot harder. I started in a family-run shop, and it was still the judgment you get from clients, like, “Oh, you’re just a secretary. Where’s the real tattoo artists?” Like, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard just stupid shit like that. Yeah, so being in a space where you’re seen as a human and not just someone to ogle at or someone to talk shit to is really affirming.
Can you each tell me a little bit about your artistic styles and how they vary?
Haley: Well, I feel like my tattoo style varies. I love very sentimental stuff. I got into the industry as a permanent makeup artist, so helping someone feel beautiful in their body with a set of eyebrows was the most rewarding thing I could ever experience. It’s the same with tattoos. Whether it’s a scar cover-up or someone who’s getting the trans flag on their body, or anything like that. Just making people feel beautiful is my style of tattooing. Just don’t bring me someone’s portrait because I won’t do that.
Sabrina: I especially like watercolor. So I think I’m pretty versatile and can do a lot of different styles. I worked down south, so really, if you wanted to pay rent, you kind of have to know a little bit about everything. Again, I don’t do portrait work, but everything is awesome.
Melissa: My style is moreso along the lines of black and gray. I also love doing cartoon work. My biggest inspiration is that I’m a very nostalgic person, so it just reminds me of being a kid. That’s why I kind of started a little more toward animated tattoos. But other than that, yeah, I don’t do portraits.
Paige: My style, I think, leans a lot more towards black work. Darker imagery, black work illustration, and starting to venture into neo-traditional and use a lot more color. I’ve been in the industry for about 10 years working in office shops and tattooing consistently for the last two and a half years. Inspiration, I think, just comes from always being, like, a dark and weird person. So just, you know, integrating that into my artistic style.
Bri: I would say that, if I had to define my style, it’s more along the lines of illustration and botanical illustration. I guess anatomical illustration as well. I get really inspired by Victorian anatomical artwork, I guess I could say. I do like to do portraits. I’ve only really done characters and celebrities, I guess, so no one’s grandma or grandpa yet, but we’re working up to that. But I was always very into portraiture and charcoal work before I was into tattooing. So it’s kind of translated well, but yeah, and then I’ve been tattooing for about three years and I actually started as Sandra’s apprentice here.
Sandra: I specialize in fine line work. A lot of my work is like female empowerment, and I want to give all of my clients that confidence when they come in. The other day I actually had the most amazing compliment; I can genuinely, like, retire at this point. Someone compared me to Lizzo, saying that I’m empowering all these big girls to get out there and show their bodies and be proud of them.
You mentioned that in the shop, there is also a Reiki Master and interpreter for the deaf community. Can you tell me a little about that and how it makes Disruptive Ink unique?
Matteo: Yeah, it’s Reiki. I started two weeks after they opened Disruptive Ink, and Sandra and I and other tattoo artists that have come through, but especially everybody at the shop has helped me to really cultivate and create an entire process called Reiki. So Reiki itself is an energy-healing modality that comes from Japan. And what I’ve done with everyone here is create an entire healing process that happens using Reiki during the tattooing process. And more often than not, you see, tattoos have a physical reason, but there’s also an emotional reason; there’s a mental reason, and there’s a spiritual reason. And so by holding the space and just acknowledging that the tattoo has a sacred intention, we create that sacred intent in the tattooing process.
How do y’all incorporate your different queer identities into the art that you do?
Sandra: I would say for me, like I said, I do a lot of empowerment tattoos. I think when I finally was brave enough to come out and be who I was, like, that was very, very empowering to me and very freeing. And so I put a lot of that passion into my work for others.
Melissa: I guess freedom of expression is a good way I like to incorporate myself into my work. Just something could be so simple, but also so outrageously weird. So I just enjoyed seeing people express themselves, I think.
Sabrina: In my case, I’ve worked with a lot of people that necessarily don’t feel safe going to other artists; they might be part of the queer community, and they don’t really have somebody that they can go to and actually, like, talk about like, “Oh, my partner and I want to do this coloring ceremony.” And if you go into a shop that doesn’t know about, you know, that kind of lifestyle, they kind of judge you, and I think giving them a space where they have the opportunity and safety to do stuff like that without judgment is so important.
Haley: One of the best rewards is right there having someone come in, and before you do the tattoo, they’re ashamed of their body. They don’t want to really show it off. But as soon as you’re done with that tattoo, and they look in the mirror, they walk out that door with their shirt off. They’re like, it’s a whole new world, and that’s what it’s about having people be comfortable because we know what it’s like to be in a spot that’s not comfortable.
I’m also the resident drag king, so I really incorporate that into my tattooing a lot. Tattooing in drag is fun; it helps other drag entertainers, whether you’re a king, queen, or nonbinary, you’re like, oh, I can relate to someone; we have something to talk about, instead of just going into whatever shop on the street in drag and getting all these weird looks. We all know that drag is under attack right now, and everybody gets weird looks, but here you won’t; you’ll get encouraged and supported.
What are the plans for the future of Disruptive Ink?
Holly: If you’re looking at kind of a five-year plan, we want to be bigger. We want to be more known in the community and really make an impact. We do a lot of community work, and all of our team steps up for us anytime that we want to get involved and raise money for a lot of different things. Not just for the gay community, but for a lot of different underprivileged communities that get slighted in different manners. And our team is huge on that. That’s one of the biggest things that we’ve built here that we’re most proud of, is the people that we built it with and the family that we’ve kind of created here.
So the next five years, we’re just looking to be bigger; we’d like to expand, whether that’s in size of one location or into two locations. And we’d like to just continue to bring more people in that believe the same thing we believe we’d like it to be more normalized, right? It’s not necessarily about being a gay shop, because not all of our clients and artists are gay, but at the end of the day, we should see progress from where we are today. You’re safe here. And we’d love to have you and if that’s us kind of paving the way to open that up to clientele and to open people up to the fact that tattooing is no longer for just the people that are bikers and are different things like that.
It’s an artistic expression that’s for everybody. And different people use it as therapy. They use it as an alternative to self-harm. They use all these different things, and they should be safe going into any place, whether that’s our shop, or whether somebody saw our shop and just thought hey, that’s a cool idea. And I’d like to model mine after it. We’d love to see that, and we’d love to kind of just pave the way for that.
Mateo: I’d like to chime in too, and while I’m not a tattoo artist, healing work is an art. It’s called the healing arts for a reason. And one of the things that I wanted to chime in on is as somebody who’s trans and nonbinary as someone who has taken my shirt off and had artists tattoo my chest, specifically around anniversaries of surgeries and so forth. It’s a very intimate and spiritual and artistic process. And that’s one of the things that I love the most about doing Reiki in this shop. And even if people don’t receive it directly, just coming into that shop and having that healing experience, just being safe. That’s why we do a lot of Reiki ink with really deep healing tattoos. It’s done in a very sacred manner that’s guided by the person who’s on the table receiving the healing and the work.
Check out Disruptive Ink this summer for an incredibly unique tattoo and to support a local queer-owned business!
You can follow Disruptive Ink on Instagram @disruptiveinktattoos or go to disruptiveinktattoos.com.
Photo courtesy of Disruptive Ink
