My Dear Friends of Inked Love tattooing I love tattoos I’m just attracted to the art and the way that it looks on the body the permanency of it everything changed after I started doing black that’s for sure blackout is more addictive than any other tattoo on the planet.
So all the black work that I have has been the last overs of other tattoos you know one of my favorite things is layers so as you can see there’s many many layers on there I never really planned the whole blackout work stuff out it was just I started with my arm and moved to my neck and like just kept.
Going I got it two years ago and I did it in two sessions and were it took three to finish this inside but I went in at the Philly Convention in 2019 I went full day one day boom and then the next day boom and we ran out of time and he was fast he did this in six hours all the stuff that I collected in my youth I had removed laser with laser for.
About I would say two solid years everything on my legs chest at a big throw piece all black and gray stuff sleeves fingers you know everything I lasered off once I lasered everything off I realized you know this is like I’m like a newborn right now you know what.
Am I Really Gonna Do With Myself what do I what do I want to do not what I think I should do but what do you really want to do and I thought about getting blacked out probably two two thousand but no one was even thinking of tattooing yet like like that you know and I’m like man I just I just want to just want black stuff.
That’s it a suit the first thing I did was the arm and that was really early on I mean I just got like a geometric from the elbow down um again really well done uh but I just had an idea I think I was saw someone with a black dot Army on kind of before it became a thing I.
Blacked out my whole leg from the knee down I covered up probably like six tattoos when you mentioned earlier like did you have a strategy about getting to no I didn’t some of it was just not great work or some of it I just feel like wasn’t me anymore and I was more attracted to this style um and then there was a couple just like.
Marijuana tattoos and it’s cool but I’m becoming a grown woman and I don’t need a weed nug stick and poke on my shin I’m not gonna lie so time to go I was the old in with the new yeah do you have two three I got about some two some three some four.
Feel that I grew out of them or I’m ready for the next level of change like when I was 15 I didn’t think like oh I should tattoo my face like a skeleton in my arms like a skeleton I wish I did but I didn’t you know when I was 18 19 I did tried in a partnership and this was a decade ago when it was like traditional or nothing.
Um uh this is a machine and you need a coil or nothing you know or and if you’re cute or pretty you were getting sexually harassed and sexually abused so it was a way different Dynamic back then um you know and you try and you try and try and get defeated and defeated you know so um these people I surrounded myself with.
That would go and fill it in or do the this filler or this or that weren’t good people and weren’t good reminders and memories to me I did it as a start over a clean slate and yes black is a clean slate but I did it for me to close a chapter and to start over and now I have a clean slate and I feel better I feel stronger and I feel like I.
Can push forward from this so everything started with a cover-up uh period I just needed I just needed a cover-up and because someone else’s share his work I got to know Valerio cancellier and he actually lived an hour for me I used to do all these black work and stuff like that and I messaged him I was like hey I think that’s I need I need a.
Cover-up but I think all I can do is black so I I went there for a consultation with him and I remember it 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 he does is not something you really plan So Hood is my my blackout artist and he did my face he did my chin he said we should just black your arms out.
This is something that when you hear it and being who I am I’m listening to it going this is sacrifice this is ultimate sacrifice I’ve been wearing this shield for x amount of years and now a man is presenting it to me to give these things up that have made me who I am and then it was you’re gonna get this kind of.
Black work done we’re just gonna you’re a warrior we’re just gonna do this and as he would go I would we would just bicker no I want there to be a line screw that line blacking it out and then I just gave him he said you keep saying you have to give me control you have to give me control just let me do what I’m going to do you’re going to.
Appreciate and this is the whole two-faced thing and and people seeing and what they’re perceiving me as as like a gang member or as a warrior and I still fight but when I let go that’s when when things went correctly definitely takes some like a strong mentality.
Especially when like sometimes I didn’t even want to go bad like I’m fighting myself I’m like oh I don’t want to go work on this area you know like this is going to be brutal even even Hood he pushes me every time I go he’s like 10 more minutes so you got you got 10 more minutes and then 10 more minutes turns into 20 more minutes and 20 more minutes.
Turns into a half an hour half hour turns into 45 minutes I’m like dude I was I was giving up like an hour ago he’s like no no you’re not after the heat process I remember coming out of the shower and satu 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’ve without needing any other cover-ups to be honest I loved it so much and I love this 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 ended up booking.
Uh more session we started I think it was this arm from this arm this arm from these arms you know everything every Everything has happened I’m very happy with everything he did on me like 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 everyone 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 with what he did on me it’s because your normal tattoo artist.
Isn’t going to be able to accomplish something this big and saturated the way you’re going to want it and have it come out you know without you getting chewed up you know because there’s there’s a certain technique to it it’s not just hey it’s a coloring book and like that’s what a lot of people think like I get.
Comments all the time oh like a second grader could do that I’m like no dude not really what they don’t realize is all the trauma that happens to the skin during all that you know and how easily it could all go wrong as crazy as it sounds I don’t really think of myself with a lot of tattoos I know that’s like.
Ridiculous but I guess yeah I mean like walking around with like my girlfriend or friends or just like people that I’ve really been out in public with before and um you know telling me after the fact like you know that like every single person walking down the street like sitting on the train.
Is just like giving you looks cheering you I think that kind of reminds me that like oh yeah I do look like a crazy person even though I swear I’m not a crazy person um I guess it’s more of reactions of like my friends and other people that remind me of.
I’m I guess I’m a tattooed person because a lot of people don’t understand but block work isn’t for everyone because it’s also really painful you know um it’s it’s a lot it’s bold doing that and surpassing like eight seven hours of.
Just shovel shovel shovel I had to go inside my mind and really meditate and transfer that pain and that energy to something else called healing and I know that sounds insane but I healed through that pain Phoenix energy
Over the past year and change we’ve recorded over 30 episodes of our introspective series Heavily Inked. And while everyone we’ve interviewed has been fascinating in their own way, there is something incredibly captivating about listening to people who have blacked out significant parts of their body. We’ve collected bits and pieces of some of our favorite interviews talking about blackout tattoos and thrown them together. Enjoy.
Presented by Mad Rabbit: https://www.youtube.com/@UCBUmjOvfK1vTGD6AW5bylSw
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Joe Smith: https://www.instagram.com/tat2joe777/
Michela Bottin-Ackerman: https://www.instagram.com/michelabottin.ackerman/
Richie Bones: https://www.instagram.com/criticalmass77/
Sarah Elizabeth: https://www.instagram.com/sarah_elizabeth_tattoos/
Baphomet Puke: https://www.instagram.com/baphometpuke/
Karlee Jane: https://www.instagram.com/karleejaneisback/
Gunny: https://www.instagram.com/blackironmonk/
JW: https://www.instagram.com/good_lordy_wardy/