My Dear Friends of Inked When you guys approached me and were like for the heavily tatted this this series i was like okay wow i i didn’t i didn’t think that i had got here hi my name is gossamer and i’m a.
Fine artist and tattooer my mom’s filipino my dad is african-american so i grew up in northeastern pennsylvania so it’s like really white just isolated part of northeastern pennsylvania it was kind of tough growing up not having a lot of other people i could relate to other than family it seemed like it got a little bit easier when i went to.
College i mean i related to people on an artistic level but it wasn’t until i moved here to new york and kind of connected more with my ancestry through tattooing that i learned more and felt more comfortable in my body so when i was 17 i had designed some tattoos i wanted on myself because i knew i really wanted to see my work on.
On skin but i wasn’t sure how to make that happen in the traditional model of a walk-in tattoo shop so it wasn’t until i realized people were marketing their own work and online that.
It was something that i could probably think about doing as well so my first tattoo was that drawing that i talked about when i was 17 i didn’t get it at first um after i turned 18 because my dad threatened to not let me go to art school and that’s like why i didn’t get.
Tattooed until i was 27 but yeah it’s this um drawing i made here i designed it when i was a teenager um and i finally got a tattooed when i was 27 i’m 31 now um so i’ve only been getting tattooed since i was 27. you know i spent a lot of time thinking about my body and.
I you know i’m also transgender and it took time for me to like kind of reconcile a lot of that part of who i was and so like just thinking about modifying my body was something i couldn’t really fully grasp in the way that made sense from a not just teenager kind of way.
Until after i had started my transitioning in 2014 so it took some time but then we got there as i transitioned you know um i’m non-binary i i had a double mastectomy and i was like is my body really that is that really a permanent situation is that.
Something i would regret when i thought about you know being transgender and changing my body and like it was just like no it’s like just straight out no like it’s not like something that you just run into doing like you know that that’s the right thing for you.
And that’s how i when i as soon as i understood those things tattoos felt like the same same kind of you know power to transform myself to be who i identify myself to be i feel like we’re all born with this avatar that we can modify if we want and there shouldn’t be any stigma around changing.
It if you on the inside want the outside to reflect the same thing so that’s how i felt when i went through my transitioning and then as i you know you know felt that power that i could empower myself to change my own body and be who i want to be like.
Covering myself in art just felt like more more of that and covering myself in my heritage and my hands and my my face and like recognizing these different parts of me that i had kind of ignored or or felt ashamed about you know with my body so that was something really powerful about tattooing that i i i loved that i could do for myself and and.
Being able to do that for others was also really important and it’s not just you know a trans experience i feel like anyone has that ability to change themselves and their body and their mind as much as well too you get so comfortable with the way things are and the way your body or your mind.
Is that you feel like it’s too much work to change it and it is a lot of work to change and to be the person that you really desire to be or that you know is healthier for you and and going through all those things and really making those changes so i could be here today and not you know and and really like flourish as a human.
Being is it’s not easy and it takes a lot of power and courage and you can’t do it alone either i needed everybody to help you know and and and i feel like you know it’s the same thing when you when you’re able to transform your body and um.
And really like let yourself show on the outside without being afraid of what that looks like yes i do all my work hand poked so when i started i was like i think i made a mistake i was like oh [__] am i going to be able to do this it’s definitely a type of.
Personal challenge for me because you know you’re never going to be in a position where you’re tattooing a person or it shouldn’t be where you like need a mirror and all this and like you don’t have like two hands to stretch and things like that like it’s never like a that’s never a situation where like.
If you’re tattooing someone else you need that kind of skill being able to do something of that um at that skill level on yourself like you only have yourself to like blame if you [__] and it’s some of it is just that thrill of being able to accomplish something.
Technically difficult that i love about art in general because i think about my ancestors and how they built from scratch with just their hands and like limited tools and like that ability and that that attention to craft is so important to me and that’s that’s what i think about when i’m doing something very.
Technically difficult like tattooing my neck or my face you know i thought for some reason that was that was a lot harder than i expected because my hands were like in front of my eyes when i was like tattooing the round just two round simple dots and you know and just like even lining it up without like you know.
Somebody else helping you is like those types of things are difficult as well little things you never thought about that you know you take for granted when you are able to just look at a canvas and it’s in front of you but when your canvas is you it’s a different kind of there’s a different kind of uh perspective when when you’re thinking.
About it these markings right on the center of my forehead so those were based on north african tattooing after i did this piece on my arm had that done at a local shop and i had like a small moon tattooed on my chest too on the same day that was like my third tattoo was on my face i was already learning a lot about.
You know my heritage through that way and trying to be more connected to my black heritage and my filipino heritage because growing up in a super like you know white part of the you know america and and not having a lot of people to talk to other than like your closest family members about.
You know what it means to be both those things and not feeling like you belong to one or the other was very difficult for myself um just trying to reconcile like what that meant for me um and i feel like tattooing really helps me understand how to share both of those.
Things and make them you know and just just really feel like that is a part of me instead of feeling like i need to fit in with the rest of what everybody else is doing or the way people look or xyz you know when i learned about my heritage and how much that was like and how much tattooing was removed from that our cultures.
With colonialism i also had such a strong intent to try and preserve that in some way and that’s another reason why i love doing it hand poked because that’s as close as i can get with modern day techniques and sanitation and and health and safety to the different kinds of techniques that.
You know in africa and then the philippines were done it’s really only recently that more attention has been brought to like even specifically filipino tattooing because of um a little bit more research on um the kalinga people of the northern tribes and uh wang ode who’s a really old um one of the last.
Tattooers and that that recent you know information and highlight on in that area is like why i was able to learn more i mean i’m still trying my best to learn about different techniques in africa and it’s hard to find that information without like a super white perspective on like a colonialist perspective on it.
And it’s it’s really it’s really tough getting my face and hands tattooed made me feel like you know there’s a way i can preserve this there’s a way i can communicate this to other people with it without trying to like rehash it or like reinterpret it and just you know let it be what it is and through tattooing i’ve.
Been able to connect with so many different kinds of people who also feel the same way as me which i didn’t expect which is so important to me and i’m just so glad i can try and help people in that way as well because it’s something that’s really lost nowadays do you regret any of the.
Tattoos that i realize it’s a short short time span it is a short time stamp um no i don’t i feel like everything could be transformed you know like i did like this cover up on myself um there used to be tattoos um that i got from somebody on here that were like drawings that i had done and i was just.
Like you know what i’m just not feeling it you know and like especially like the compositions so i was like you know i might as well just practice cover up on myself it’s like whatever you know like little things like that especially since i have the ability to tattoo myself i’m like well.
If it falls out i’ll just fix it i feel like a lot of tattoos probably feel that way but you know i feel like there’s always that power to transform myself even if you know i get something from someone else and but like it even even if that’s the experience like.
You know there’s there’s good scars and bad scars you know emotional ones and i feel like there’s always going to be a way to heal from that especially after you know all i’ve gone through with you know both of that being visible and invisible scars i think there’s always a way to to to to be able to empower yourself to to get through it it takes.
Time for sure but i think it’s it’s always possible you
As an African American/Filipino growing up in a very homogenous town in Pennsylvania, Gossamer struggled to connect with their heritage. Around their 27th birthday, Gossamer learned that by researching African and Filipino tattoo traditions and applying them to their own skin built the connection they were searching for.
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.
Gossamer https://www.instagram.com/grelysian/
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