My Dear Friends of Inked When you start getting tattooed so heavily um i don’t know it’s like the path kind of opens up your your your your head opens up so as i said nothing looks like a taboo anymore i am michaela boutin and i’m 32 i’m italian but i now work here in new york.
At soho inc i grew up in the very north of italy a very small village a few thousand people and a very family-style village where you know everybody know each other and you know it was just very a very healthy and happy childhood and you know experience.
All my tattoo journey anyway happened when i was there and everybody was very like maybe surprised but not judgmental at all because they knew me anyway they knew my parents and you know they knew who i am um so it’s i i was never an alien you know i was.
I was still like their daughter like maybe a living nuts but still that their daughter and still there you know one of one of the friends and family around there what made you want to get tattooed for the first time.
Oh my sister absolutely as every younger sister uh i just wanted whatever she had i was very very young it was like my teenager and like years so i wanted to be different so i wanted piercings or tattoos or stuff like that of course it took years for me to get.
One but that’s definitely the reason why i started wanting a tattoo so bad because she got it so i went to the shop and i just picked for the thingy and it was an elf that i got covered the the placement was wrong and picking up for a book i remember uh seeing once i was on holiday i saw.
Another girl that had it being on a around a swimming pool and seeing this woman that had the same exact thing so you know that kind of taught me uh that that’s not the way it was supposed to be i rushed it so that’s why i kind of regretted.
It because i just wanted a tattoo because of my sister i just wanted whatever i didn’t even pick as i said it was at the moment you go there there is a catalog i was collecting little elf statues back in the day so i thought okay elf i’m not going to.
Regret it because i love alps i collect elves it has its meaning but no that’s not that’s why actually uh the the first real tattoo and the first that actually made um like left a print on me is definitely the beatles one so it was very important for me and i.
Remember thinking about it getting myself an appointment and and getting it done and it was a totally different experience and that i remember it like my first tattoo i started collecting work in a in a different way um with a different quality and that is just you know just started.
And i’m still i still have that mindset you know like um even though practically like a bunch of my body is black um this area is not gonna be and i like i’d like to you know to collect pieces from you know artists i like uh more than it has almost.
The same meaning as the subject i’m getting right now you know it’s not just i’m getting i don’t know this piece because i love the piece but i’m doing this piece from these artists i really love so it has double the meaning and to me it’s just like.
Amazing all the time every time what made me feel different it was definitely my hands i remember the day i got my hands tattooed i got them done at the same time and i remember splitting two sessions so we did line work first and then eventually we colored them in but even just having the line work.
I remember like feeling like wow now i’m like you know i was looking down and i was like now i’m tattooed like that made me feel very very different in my you know in my journey so i did it without really being like oh my god i’m about to get my face tattooed of course i was like oh my god my mom is gonna kill me.
But that was the only thought i wasn’t thinking really like i’m doing this massive step uh and even when i did it i it never felt like uh oh my god what did i do it always felt you know uh very of course you see it before you actually get tattoo you get a sense or a.
Drawing or anything but i never rushed anything i wasn’t comfortable with um yeah so i did a little by little everything changed after i started doing black that’s for sure my mom she was like you need help because it was so different.
For them it was like meaningless like this is not like this is not a cool design or this is not like what what is this you you’re having issue like i remember my mom being worried that i was going through some real weird phase of my life and that eventually i.
Would regret it because it was just like what what are you doing um which i’m having uh but then yes doing black definitely raised a lot of questions around me and people were staring a little bit more because it was so weird you know tattoos even though i come from.
A from a small place they got popular in a heartbeat but seeing like big chunks of black there was something that wasn’t there at the time so everything started with a cover-up period i just needed i just needed a cover up and because someone else’s share is work i.
Got to know valerio cancellier and he actually lived an hour from me and i used to do all this black work and stuff like that and i messaged him it was like hey i think that’s i need i need a cover up but i think i can use black so i i went there for a consultation with him and i remember he drew me a.
Bunch of stuff uh that then didn’t even happen it was so funny so we made i went there for a consultation to make plans and then i went there for the appointment and the plan was changed entirely it was so funny because i think it just goes with uh.
With kind of his guts somehow you know what it does is it’s not something you really plan when tattoos are fresh so they’re so strong in colors and everything i never really liked them but that happens all the time even now so i remember as soon as i got it done i was happy.
But it was like a little bit like that’s that’s that’s heavy after the healing process i remember coming out of the shower and tattoo was all healed and it looked amazing i remember coming out of the shower and i have a mirror straight in the front and thinking to myself this is really.
Good i love it so from there i without needing any other cover-ups to be honest i loved it so much and i loved his work like the experience with him was kind of uh an experience but it was fun like he’s he’s a character so i end up booking.
Uh more session we started i think it was this arm from his arm this arm from this arm you know everything every everything has happened i’m very happy with everything you did on me like uh every time i was going there of course there is no telling like it’s.
Not that you can go there you can say hey i want this or like hey look i want this you just go there and what he wants to do he does but um because i like his work so much i always trusted him blindly and i was always i still am always very happy with.
Uh with what he did what he did on me i’ve always been very shy very teammate and very like i don’t know like everybody like stay away a little bit um so having these tattoos like having an extra cover an extra armor it definitely makes me feel more comfortable the thing that changed my.
Life totally is my eyes tattooed when i got that i i gained a thousand percent confidence because um whatever is my business whatever is happening in my life it’s my business it’s not my colleagues business or my clients business or stranger business but my eyes for whatever reason.
Was an open were an open window to the public you know um if i was sad you could tell if i was in a bad mood if i was tired you could tell and i had tons of people telling me and i hated it you know you go somewhere and maybe you’re not in a hundred percent mood and people tell you.
Oh you look horrible today or like oh is everything okay you look sad or stuff like that it was pissing me off so much because they could tell something that i didn’t want them to know so when i actually got my eyes tattooed that finally changed because i could have cried five minutes.
Ago and you cannot tell so that’s something that finally got me to a point where i’m comfortable and confident and good you know i i really feel good that’s the the life-changing thing for me that i would do a thousand times all over again um and.
It was kind of like uh a complete like the the the final step together with my with my with my black let’s say um they make me feel uh made me feel much better if you can start over what would you do i would probably get exactly the same thing.
Yeah it was my journey you know it’s uh i know it may sound like i don’t know like uh something that doesn’t really make sense or whatever but it was a journey i think without those previous tattoos i wouldn’t get to these tattoos that now i feel.
Comfortable with so i need you know it’s like you know it of course you only have one body so whatever you do is your first experience and so you you kind of you know you on the way you you put together something and not always the first attempt is the perfect one so you know sometimes you have to.
You know to re redo a part or we do another part in my case i redo i redid most of it um but that’s you know it was my journey to put together what i put together now so i’m i’m happy i’m happy with it you know it’s of course i suffered double the time.
But but that’s okay like it’s absolutely okay you
Welcome to Heavily Inked. In our newest series, we’re going to speak one-on-one with tattoo collectors and artists about what it means to be a heavily inked person. We’ll get deep as we go through the motivations behind their tattoo choices, the way they’ve been treated in society and much more.
For our first episode we spoke with the delightful Michela Bottin. Bottin grew up in a small town in Italy before become a tattoo artist working here in New York City. She tells us about her first tattoos, the reason she chose to tattoo her eyeballs, getting tattooed by Valerio Cancellier and whether she has any regrets.
Michela Bottin: https://www.instagram.com/michelabottin.ackerman/
Valerio Cancellier: https://www.instagram.com/valeriocancellier/
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