My Dear Friends of Inked I love that i conned both of my parents into being tattooed before 18. i was the only kid in my school with tattoos and it was so awesome you know i was i tricked them it was like my secret i felt guilty you know i but only a little bit not guilty enough to not go through with it and i would have.
Done it a third if i had a third parent i probably would have done it a third time my name is bianca faro i’m a tattooer at destiny tattoo studio in south fanboy new jersey i was born in vegas and i spent like the first 10 years of my life.
There and then we flew all the way to jersey i’ve been there since at first childhood was really nice growing up in vegas the kids were kids and we just like went outside and ate sand and played in sand and like picked up scorpions and stuff like that and then we moved to this like little fancy town in jersey and that’s where everything.
Changed it was a massive culture shock and growing up was really rough i never fit in anywhere that i went especially in school everything was different so the kids weren’t kids they were dressed head to toe in designers and their parents were very concerned.
About how their kids were looked at because that would be a reflection on the parents so i came to school with like a video game t-shirt and a matching backpack and the rest of them had like purses and i had never even touched a purse i was like nine so right away i was weird i never really understood why people bullied me so bad.
I was always a really nice kid um i didn’t think i was that weird but i felt a little bit of getting tattooed kind of gave them more of a reason so now they were making fun of me for my tattoos like now i was weird because i had tattoos you know so at least i understood why i was being targeted but.
On the other hand it gave me a community getting tattoos and you know interacting with other tattooed people gave me the opportunity to meet a large group of misfits when i grew up thinking i was the only one my dad is the first person that i’ve.
Ever seen with tattoos he has he’s like covered in tattoos he’s very heavily tattooed and i always grew up thinking that was so cool and he always grew up telling me don’t get tattooed it’ll ruin your life so of course that made me want to do it even more his rationale was.
He was able to have tattoos because he knew what he was doing with his life and he had his place in life i was very young and had no idea what i was doing and he was certain that getting tattooed would limit my options on what i was able to do with my future my first tattoo was a con job because i convinced my mom to let me get a tattoo.
Instead of having a sweet 16 because i was like i don’t have any friends what am i going to do this week 16. so i convinced her to let me get a tattoo and it had to be in a spot where my dad couldn’t see it so i did it and he never found out about it and then like a year later i was like you know dad like i’m almost 18. what about a.
First tattoo what if you just take me to a shop and i’ll get it done the right way and he was like you know what okay i think you’re ready and i had to sit there and pretend like what do i do how do i take care of this is it gonna hurt and i got away with it for a long time until i posted a picture on facebook where you could see both tattoos and i.
Was not yet 18 and my somebody sent it to him and he called me and he was so pissed and i felt like such an because he really he really felt like it was and it was it was a special thing when he took me to get that tattoo it was like a real bonding moment and the.
Whole time i was just like i’m a bad person i felt so guilty i felt like i still feel bad about it what was uh what were the tattoos the first tattoo is a sugar skull and it’s on like my stomach and it it was a sugar skull but i was 16 and i’ve had like 10 different bodies since then so it’s warped as all hell and then the one that um my dad took me.
To get was a cherry blossom tree but like just the tree he took me later to get like the water that was before he knew i had lied well he still thought i deserved to go back for another tattoo i got my hand tattooed after i had been doing hair for about two years because i felt like i was in an industry where i.
Could express myself and there was no reason not to i had already been pretty heavily tattooed at that point so i got my first hand tattoo um my dad was so mad at me he did not care that i had a career he did not care that i was making money he was like i told you don’t get it on the hands and what do you do you get it on the hands.
Um it was bad though i shouldn’t have done it he’s right i should have waited i had to get it covered up twice no hand tattoos hurt i don’t i didn’t want to do it more than once and i had to do both of them like three times i never really planned out my tattoos i know.
It’s um something that some people take really seriously when it comes to thinking about it but i’ve always been a really impulsive person and if i want something right then i’ll be i know i’ll be happy with it that has been proven wrong i’ve covered up a lot of tattoos.
But basically i would just sort of i started with pokemon tattoos because i knew i would never be upset about that because i love video games i love pokemon i’ve loved that my whole life every week or so when i got paid at the little job i had i would just go and get something and it just felt so good and i couldn’t.
Stop i hadn’t stopped since when did you first start noticing other people like strangers when i started working when i started working at 16 which is the same time that i started getting a lot of tattoos and at that time i had a ton of facial piercings and my ears were probably around two inches so only a.
Little bit smaller than they are right now um and i was working at like a convenience store so i was exposed to the masses and the general public i noticed people started taking pictures of me and like the first few times it really freaked me out but then i sort of like.
Lived for it and i would just try and like smile and let them know like i see you taking a picture of me or not sneaky um but there were there was so much attention on me at work all the time it got annoying the attention from strangers never made me second guess what i was doing but it made me realize how close-minded everybody else around.
Me is i don’t understand the big fuss about tattoos it’s just a picture on your skin to me it’s the same thing as wearing a t-shirt you know so it’s crazy to me the way that people will actually be disgusted by you for.
Something like that you know i have had this one guy i remember this one guy looked at me and he poured his cup of coffee at my job and then he just spit in the cup and dumped it on the floor and walked out of the store and i had to clean it up and you know stuff like that just nasty like so hateful that there’s so many examples of.
Of stuff like that but the pictures taken of me was super weird because i would see them on reddit sometimes i saw a picture of me in line at taco bell on reddit it was cool i was like wow i really i really did it was there a certain point in your like tattoo journey where you.
Feel that you went from being just someone with tattoos to a quote-unquote tattooed person yeah um i got my head tattooed when i was 19. so at that point i had like two almost full sleeves and pretty much nothing else and my secret tattoo but i got the side of my.
Head tattooed when i was 19 and it was at the philly convention and hordes of people were watching me get my head tattooed and when i finished i stood up and everybody high-fived me and like gave me cigarettes it was awesome and i was like yeah this is cool and for the.
Longest time and still kind of now everywhere i go i’m the only person with my head tattooed it felt so bad it hurts so bad um but it was cool i you know i got a lot of recognition for being like a dumb kid getting my head tattooed at the convention and i felt so brave and yeah.
I felt very tattooed after that i had gone through phases where i would grow my hair back over my tattoos just to kind of like blend in a little bit more i went through a couple years where i was sick of the attention and just wanted to you know i was sick of people looking at me um but getting my face tattooed it was.
Still a big deal even though i have these very obvious head tattoos it was a is a big deal on the face there’s nothing you can do about it there’s nothing you can do to hide it really and that’s there forever i think the first thing that people notice about me is probably my face tattoos before they.
Really look at anything else on my face you know they’re right there what’s the first one uh the word above my eyebrow says immortal i got it when i was 23. so i’d been tattooing for about two years when i got that done because i’m on reddit i’m never gonna die.
he was so pissed again i was like i’m not gonna be a doctor we know this now it’s okay you know um and i always told him like you know if i really want to i could put my hair over my eyes you know cut some bangs but he was still he was pretty pissed about it but only for a minute because i.
He really couldn’t be su super mad about it like i’m working at a tattoo shop i’m surrounded by people that look like me i feel like people walk into a tattoo shop and expect to see people that look like me nobody cares if i have a face tattoo do you regret any of the tattoos you’ve done yeah.
Here this lovely black piece covers everything i got when i was 18. they were all really bad like not only were they dumb designs but they were kind of really poorly done so it wasn’t that i regretted them but i wish they weren’t there and they’re not there anymore and over here.
I got most of this done when i was 18 19 20. when i started working at the shop that i’m at my boss who is also my best friend she did me the very generous favor of reworking everything so that they don’t look like garbage and they look really nice um my legs are for regrettable tattoos so i can’t regret something stupid if i put it on my leg.
Because nobody knows it’s there anyway that’s what the legs are for that’s what i tell everybody i have a farting cockroach tattoo why because we found it on some flash and i was like that’s awesome if i could start over i would 100 still have tattoos.
And sometimes i wish i did things differently like sometimes i wish i just went super strictly traditional big bold you know really really nicely done um because i was a kid so i couldn’t afford like the big tattoos so i sort of just got whatever i could get away with but i’m also pretty sure that if i had done that i would wish that i.
Had some variety you know i think that whatever you end up doing you’re gonna kind of wish you did it differently because you don’t know what it’s like so i’m i’m glad i have a variety you know i think if it weren’t if it wasn’t for getting tattooed as much as i did i don’t think i would have even have ended up tattooing.
Because the tattoos that i got and the shops that i went to is how i was able to meet the people that ended up you know being involved with the apprenticeship and so i’m i’m indebted to my tattoos because otherwise i don’t think i’d be where i am at all and i’m i’m entirely committed to it to getting tattooed to.
Doing tattoos just tattooing in general i love it and i just want to learn as much as i can about it and be as big a part of it as i can you
Every child understands the art of playing one parent against the other to get what they want. Bianca may very well have perfected this artform, somehow tricking both of her parents into taking her to get her “first tattoo.” Bianca told us all about the journey she’s been on since then—from finding pictures of herself on Reddit to getting her head tattooed in front of hundreds of people at the Philadelphia Tattoo Convention.
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.
Bianca Ferro https://www.instagram.com/vileusagi/
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