Diane

I got into tattooing sideways, you might say – I’ve worked at Tattoo by Design since 1994, when I started in the office and at the counter.  Over the years, Bonnie Jean made use of my background in graphic arts, including desktop publishing and typesetting, teaching me more and more about working with the customers on their tattoo designs.  Though she asked me many times to think about becoming a tattoo artist, it took me a long time to warm to the concept.  Finally, after six years in the shop, I decided she had the right idea, and asked her to take me on as an apprentice.  I’d already learned almost everything else; I just needed to actually learn how to tattoo.  Now, after over a decade in the business, I love working with people to bring their images to life on their skin.

Of course, like a lot of tattoo artists, I never really saw myself in this line of work.  I actually moved to Eugene to pursue an education in architecture, after growing up in the Puget Sound, and attending the Evergreen State College in Olympia where I studied, among other things, environmental design.  My plan to study architecture never really came together, and in the meantime I found myself in the tattoo world, doing the office work I’d supported myself on for many years.  What I thought was going to be a short-term job in the tattoo shop has turned into a career I really love.  I take this profession seriously, love learning more and more every year about this wonderful art form, and take pride in my membership in the Alliance of Professional Tattooists, and in being invited to join the National Tattoo Association in 2006.

There are many things I like about being a tattoo artist, but a couple of things really stand out.  As an artist, I love to play with color, shading, and shape – all critical to tattoo designs, even black and grey pieces.  And even more than that, I love helping people document what’s important to them through the images and symbols in their tattoos.  You meet so many different kinds of people in the tattoo world, because pretty much every kind of person, from every walk of life, gets tattooed.  That puts me in touch with lots of different personalities, lots of different kinds of artwork, and lots of reasons for getting tattooed.  It keeps my job quite interesting.

Outside work I live a pretty quiet life.  I have three cats and a dog; I like to read a lot, especially science fiction and fantasy books.  I love looking at and being in nature, and love seeing the art which nature creates for us everyday.  Tattooing has become more than just a job for me, something which becomes very apparent every time I see something in the world around me – a bird in flight, the way a flame curls in the night air, the shadow on a cheek, the soft color of a flower just opening – and think about how those images can be translated into a tattoo.  I live a blessed life!