#016 Navigating the vibrant yet complex world of tattoo artistry, I had the privilege of sitting down with the exceptionally skilled Geanna Dunbar, a Plains Cree, Métis tattoo artist who shares her profound insights and personal odyssey within the industry. Our conversation traverses the struggles that artists of color face in mainstream tattooing, from the obstacles of gatekeeping and sexism to the essential act of preserving cultural practices. We peel back the layers of the industry to reveal the importance of mentorship and the imperative of carving out inclusive spaces that allow for Indigenous artists to flourish and heal our communities through ancestral skin marking.
Geanna and I venture further, dissecting the delicate balance of consent, boundaries, and the cultural evolution within tattooing and piercing professions. Our dialogue illuminates a collective endeavor towards ethical practices, underscoring the movement against sexual assault and the protection of young clients. We confront the raw truths of the field and the progressive steps being made towards educating both artists and clients on fostering safer, more respectful environments — an evolution that resonates with our responsibility to honor the art form while nurturing cultural pride and community healing.
Embark on this journey with us as we delve into the intersections of art, culture, and leadership, exploring how Indigenous artists like Geanna and I are not only reshaping traditional and contemporary tattoo styles but also instigating change, defying norms, and setting an example in the renaissance of our cultural practices for emerging generations. This episode of Transformative Marks Podcast promises a profound connection to the roots of ancestral art and illuminates the pathways we are forging to empower our communities through our craft.
I hope you have enjoyed this episode, and I am excited to travel the world of Indigenous tattooing with you as we visit with friends and colleagues from across the globe doing the work.
You can find Geanna at:
Instagram @thebodymodfia
Check out my tattoo work at:
https://www.consumedbyink.com
Instagram @dionkaszas
Buy me a Coffee at:
https://ko-fi.com/transformativemarks
I acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts
#016 Navigating the vibrant yet complex world of tattoo artistry, I had the privilege of sitting down with the exceptionally skilled Geanna Dunbar, a Plains Cree, Métis tattoo artist who shares her profound insights and personal odyssey within the industry. Our conversation traverses the struggles that artists of color face in mainstream tattooing, from the obstacles of gatekeeping and sexism to the essential act of preserving cultural practices. We peel back the layers of the industry to reveal the importance of mentorship and the imperative of carving out inclusive spaces that allow for Indigenous artists to flourish and heal our communities through ancestral skin marking.
Geanna and I venture further, dissecting the delicate balance of consent, boundaries, and the cultural evolution within tattooing and piercing professions. Our dialogue illuminates a collective endeavor towards ethical practices, underscoring the movement against sexual assault and the protection of young clients. We confront the raw truths of the field and the progressive steps being made towards educating both artists and clients on fostering safer, more respectful environments — an evolution that resonates with our responsibility to honor the art form while nurturing cultural pride and community healing.
Embark on this journey with us as we delve into the intersections of art, culture, and leadership, exploring how Indigenous artists like Geanna and I are not only reshaping traditional and contemporary tattoo styles but also instigating change, defying norms, and setting an example in the renaissance of our cultural practices for emerging generations. This episode of Transformative Marks Podcast promises a profound connection to the roots of ancestral art and illuminates the pathways we are forging to empower our communities through our craft.
I hope you have enjoyed this episode, and I am excited to travel the world of Indigenous tattooing with you as we visit with friends and colleagues from across the globe doing the work.
You can find Geanna at:
Instagram @thebodymodfia
Check out my tattoo work at:
https://www.consumedbyink.com
Instagram @dionkaszas
Buy me a Coffee at:
https://ko-fi.com/transformativemarks
I acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts
And it's similar with other things too, like even when you're getting a massage, you don't have to be 100% naked. You know, for some things like you don't have to and you have every right.
Speaker 2:If it feels wrong, it probably is the Transformative Marks Podcast explores how indigenous tattoo artists, cultural tattoo practitioners and ancestral skin markers transform this world for the better, dot by dot, line by line and stitch by stitch. My name is Dion Casas. I'm a Hungarian Métis and Intlacopak professional tattoo artist and ancestral skin marker. I started the work of reviving my ancestral Intlacopak skin marking practice over a decade ago. I've helped, supported and trained practitioners and tattoo artists here on Turtle Island. In this podcast, I sit down with indigenous tattoo artists, cultural tattoo practitioners and ancestral skin markers from across the globe, bringing you behind the scenes of this powerful, transformative and spiritual work.
Speaker 1:Yeah, my name is Gina Dunbar. I'm from the Genesis Gatchewan 3D4, and I'm Plain's Cree Métis.
Speaker 2:Awesome, thanks for coming. So you know the way that I usually kind of start. This is just to ask the question of like, how did you get into ancestral skin marking or tattooing?
Speaker 1:Well, I've been machine tattooing since about 2018, and then, when I left street shops and kind of went off of my own Stacey Feon, your student one of your students reached out because she was ready to take some, to be a mentor of her own and take some students, and it just seemed right at the time I was in the right mindset, I was in the right atmosphere and the right work Like situation where I could take it on and then I was just fully engulfed in it and I didn't look back.
Speaker 2:Yeah cool, Cool, cool. So what was that journey of getting into machine tattooing?
Speaker 1:Oh, so are we allowed to swear.
Speaker 2:Yeah, do whatever it was shitty. Yeah, totally, I hated it yeah.
Speaker 1:It's a very toxic industry and it's filled with a lot of like ridiculous I want to say traditions, but they're not there. It is that like I hate using those buzzwords, but it is gatekeeping and there's a lot of like sexism and racism and like. It's really hard to navigate and a lot of times you have to curb your ethics and morals and beliefs just to get ahead and when you're ready to leave, they make a big deal about it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So it's very hard to navigate as a person of color, to through that and still stay true to yourself. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's one of the reasons. You know, beyond the work that you're doing with ancestral skin marking and all of that type of stuff, one of the conversations I wanted to have was just your experience. You know, because we have briefly chatted about it here and there, and you know, I would say in some ways my experience mirrors yours, but a little bit different, probably because I'm a dude, you know, and I would also say probably due to my mentor. You know, my mentor, carla Romanock, is just a dough pass person, so you know she really was able to help me make the right connections in the right places with the right people. So I think that's probably you know. So shout out to Carla, you rock.
Speaker 1:Holding it down. Yeah, we need people like you, yeah.
Speaker 2:I would say that's probably a little bit of that difference, but I think that I think the feeling that I get sometimes when I'm in, you know, western tattoo conventions and some of those Western tattoo spaces. I always have to remind myself that I'm not really there for all of the other artists Because a lot of times I can't relate to them, they don't really roll up to me and if they do, sometimes it's a bit challenging and I hate to use that word, but problematic.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Totally.
Speaker 2:And so for me, I always have to remind myself I'm actually there for the natives and the Indians and the indigenous folks who are going to roll up and get the work done and they need it, and I'm there and remember that it's places like Tyand and Aga and places like you know, when I came out this way last year for what was it called? Bloodlines, yeah, and I think that's the Sagaewok symposium, that that's really where my people are. But, yeah, I just wanted to explore that with you a little bit. What has been your experience, because I think it's important number one to highlight and maybe to help other folks maybe who are in the tattoo industry to understand some of the ways that they're operating is challenging and is racist and all of those things.
Speaker 1:And it's not right, it's abusive. It's like psychologically abusive, it's emotionally abusive, you know, and they will use things on you to being like oh, you're too soft, you're not, you're not made out for the industry, you're not going to make it Not. Everybody's built for tattooing. Yeah, you know could draw in like a girl.
Speaker 2:How you hear all these things are.
Speaker 1:When I was tattooing, I had to go to my my mentor's house and pick up dog shit and scrub their floor with a toothbrush and it's just like, well, obviously I didn't know what your worth was. You know, like it's just different now. I always thought that I always knew I was going to tattoo. Like since high school, like I've been an artist for years. I would draw and trade for cigarettes and weed and all that kind of stuff and I became the master of forging parents signatures on notes and high school.
Speaker 1:I was always, always, always drawing and always selling and then all that kind of stuff. And I knew I didn't want to go to school. I knew that I wanted to be an artist. So I had to grind and I knew. I knew one day I would be tattooing. I knew it I just knew it from being a teen.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But I always thought and I did hang out with a lot of like around a lot of tattoo shops. I started in a shop like piercing as like a work experience at one shop in the city. But I was really young and I was partying and going through all you know like the native trauma kind of thing, and then in the end I kind of stepped away from it for a bit and I always thought like, oh, I'll be surrounded by friends, like my friends tattoo.
Speaker 1:One of them will offer it to me you know, but they were all white guys you know like, and then the women that were my friends, that were women that were trying to get into it, just couldn't get their foot in the door. This is like 2000 and between 2004, 2000, like 10 ish, 2015 ish, like there was like a span there getting out of high school into my early 20s, so it just never came. So I did other things. I ran like a freelance studio. I held, I held art nights to held my own events where we would, I would bring in artists. I ran a nonprofit, the Sunday Art Market, and we did art markets and all that kind of stuff. I just kept on creating and creating. And then I was offered a piercing apprenticeship.
Speaker 1:When I was doing kind of my own thing, I was like, yeah, I'll jump back into it. I was like sober and I cleaned up my act and I felt in the right headspace. I didn't know what I was getting into. I didn't know what kind of shop I was getting into. I was really naive. And then, within like a year and a half, two years, I knew that I had to get out of that shop and it took me about another three years to actually get out of that shop and it was really challenging. And when the apprenticeship for tattoo, for tattooing, came up, I was even though I didn't feel like it was a connection with this person, but he was the boss. So I'm like you know what, yeah, and it wasn't a great experience, it wasn't a great experience at all.
Speaker 1:And then near the end of my apprenticeship, the moment I saw that break in the bush, I knew to go and I haven't looked back since and since then I've been able to claim what's mine. I was able to grow as an artist and I was able to really like fully heal, even from all the trauma. That stuff that we are. Trauma from growing up follows you. If you don't heal it, it will fall into workplaces. It will allow you to be in these workspaces to be manipulated, to be controlled, to be conditioned because you're already broken. So those people who are of power over you know how to work that and they know how to make you stay with fear mongering and empty promises and all that you know better, tomorrow will be better you know like and then the next thing tomorrow comes.
Speaker 1:And then it's five years from now and it still isn't better.
Speaker 1:So it's just those moments where you really got to like grab by the horns, no matter how scary it is, and go off in your own and it's just the what's best for it in the end. So then that's when I started getting into it, and then I couldn't really fully express myself through the art of tattooing until I was like 100% on my own, because even when I hopped from one shop, when I left that one shop and went to another shop, they were even though I wasn't an apprentice I was still beneath them. Even though the person I was working for was younger than me, you know, even though they had different life experience, a different training, I was still beneath them and they still talked down to me and they still did all that.
Speaker 1:And that was around the Me Too movement, where I was super vocal about that. I ended up getting interviewed by the news press because I was so vocal about it, because so many tattoo artists in our city were getting outed and we are female artists, so we're hearing about it from our clients. So then I didn't shut up about it. Anybody would listen. I would talk about these users, so I was pretty blacklisted. And it's funny too, as soon as you start talking about setting up for these clients and you have proof that these people are exploiting their clients and using them inappropriately, how uncomfortable your mail coworkers get speaks volumes like volumes.
Speaker 1:And when all that stuff came out, even about R Kelly, in one shop like I had the first shop I was at, they were defending him and I'm like, oh, there's like literally videos Like it's world renowned that he is a pedophile but they were still, you know, like demanding it that no, he was innocent and slander. And there's moments like that where it's like why am I working in this shop?
Speaker 1:And there was a lot of those moments. You know, in all these shops I remember, like why am I the only piercer piercing natives and people of color?
Speaker 1:Why is my mentor not piercing them? You know like I look at their portfolios. Why is everybody whitewashed Like? Why is every pitcher only their white clients? And there was a while ago where there was one artist who posted, very brave and boldly, an SS tattoo online on Facebook and it blew up and I remember they were like saying that he also tattooed a Confederate flay. And I remember sitting at the desk at the first shop I was at and I was like I remember going to my mentor on my you wouldn't do that, and he said, well, I wouldn't post it. And I right away I was like ugh, wow, rough man. There were so many of those moments that added up.
Speaker 1:And then I found myself like not dressing up for work anymore, gaining weight, you know, not eating while I remember like pulling up and standing outside that shop and waiting for a coworker to show up because I didn't know what I was walking into with the two bosses in there I didn't know if I was going to go in there and get a garbage can thrown.
Speaker 1:I didn't know if, like, I was going to get screamed at or blamed, you know. And I didn't realize what, how they were treating me and what they were taking from me and the time that they were asking from me. I was always the first one there, last one to leave, kind of deal. I didn't realize that wasn't right until I stepped out of that and went to the Association of Professional Peersers in Vegas.
Speaker 1:I started going to those conferences and I went alone I knew that there wasn't regulation for training for piercing in. Saskatchewan and I was like well, I want to retrain, because the person who trained me did have a lot of experience, but they were trained by somebody in the 2000s, they were trained by somebody in the 90s, so like, a lot of this stuff was outdated the jewelry plow was good and I was like we didn't have that in.
Speaker 1:Regina, let alone like Saskatchewan. We're really far behind on a lot of things. So I went out there and I remember there was just a round table chat of other Canadian tech too, or sorry, peersers, and management and health inspectors and stuff, and we were all chatting and I'm like, wait, everybody's not treated like this Wait, you can get paid for an apprentice. You can get paid for working the table. You don't have to like the front desk, you don't have to work for free, and there was just a moment where I was just like baffled and then I knew immediately that things had to.
Speaker 1:I had to change it to make a plan.
Speaker 1:I knew immediately that things had to be different. And then I wanted to go shadow for a bit where there was regulation, and then I met out there. I met Elaine Angel and Fakir and Cleo Dubois and they invited me to do their branding course in San Francisco. And I was like you know what? Yeah, I'll head out there. So I had out there and I stayed out there for a week and got trained by them and then just and they were all predominantly white but, they were just so.
Speaker 1:it was just such a different vibe and like a different, like loving, caring, healing atmosphere and I like. And then I just remember being in their workspace and even being trained by somebody who was like nurturing and understanding and like and checking in on you and your mental health, like I just met these people you know, and then I think I'm like but I've known these people have been working with for how long and I'm not treated like this. They don't care about me like this.
Speaker 2:They don't.
Speaker 1:Like I'm. Just, I would never get praised for the quality of work I've done. I would get praised for the amount of money I'd make at the end of the week. And that speaks volumes too. So, there's just so many things that I'd experienced outside that shop where I was all like this is how I want to live my life, this is how I want my experiences to go on from head on. This is what I want to bring into my spaces, and that's just really breaking a cycle.
Speaker 2:Yeah big time. Yeah, thank you for sharing a lot of that. I think it one of the things that really keys to an opportunity to have a conversation that I haven't had the opportunity yet is maybe to talk a little bit about those processes of consent that has to do with tattooing. You know you have because to make people aware of what they should expect from their tattoo experience. You know and also maybe share some of the things that both of us have explored and the ways to deal with some of the because, of course, you are tattooing, sometimes you do have to be on clothes, and so part of the process is that we can take to ensure that people do feel safe in the space that they're in when they're doing that. So, yeah, I just open up a conversation about that and I think for those folks maybe who don't know about the movement that happened in tattooing, maybe just talk a little bit about that. You don't have to say names, but just give context to what you were talking about when you brought that forward.
Speaker 1:In the movement where women were standing up for sexual assault and different types of workspaces, and it was worldwide throughout it, so it shook a lot of every almost every community you know, really woke up women and gave them momentum to speak up. And what was happening specifically in my industry was women asked to be on clothes. They didn't need to be in clothes you know they would use their numbers from their consent forms and add them to Snapchat and they would tattoo them and then be like you know.
Speaker 1:this could be free if you did this or this or this to me, or if you know you met up or you send these pictures, I'll give you a discount right and with doing both piercing and tattooing, my youngest client for piercing is six years old, so, and I've been piercing now for almost eight years eight years ish and so a lot of them grow up and they become my tattoo clients or they want to go get tattoos.
Speaker 1:So, then they'll be like, hey, I want to go to this person. And they're like well, hey, actually this guy did this right, like you should, if you like. Even if I don't want to do it, I'll be able to send them somewhere safer.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Why you know, want fine line script, go to this person or this person, right, like you, only really navigate about it. The best thing that we can do is, like educator clients, what's normal and what's not normal, right, and it's similar with other things too, like even when you're getting a massage, you don't have to be 100% naked. You know for some things like you don't have to and you have every right.
Speaker 1:If it feels wrong, it probably is you know like there's a moment where you don't feel comfortable, it's probably because something is happening that shouldn't. No artist should be using their your number for anything else except your tattoo, like they shouldn't be texting you outside of anything. They shouldn't be adding you to apps you know, they shouldn't be inappropriate Asked, like, talking about, like the underwear you're wearing or something like things like that. They shouldn't be doing that. Or even if you're getting work on your, your ribs and it's under your bra, like, or it's like by a priori, you don't have to take out your, take off your bra, yeah, and then at the time, you don't even take off your shirt. You can just roll it up, tuck it in, and then that's what we have dental bibs for to protect clothing, and we have those barriers For a reason. You're not getting major surgery.
Speaker 1:You don't there's no reason why you need to be in like fully nude with a drape sheet over you. Like there's no reason for that and I feel as we like, the older clients get it. They know, but these younger clients don't know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, big time.
Speaker 1:Because right now we're at like we're at a spot in Western tattoo culture where that traditional way of teaching and running a shop is like just ending. We're at the very, very end where, like now, these new shops are changing how they run. Now these new shops are backtracking and be like wait, maybe we shouldn't be doing cocaine every night in the shop. Wait what? We shouldn't be parting and doing beers and all that kind of stuff with our clients? No, yeah. We shouldn't be offering every young girl in here apprenticeship Like yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1:Just those things where they're just checking themselves a lot more.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Which is also super gross, because it's like you're still a shitty person. You're just now doing it more stealthy you know like and. It's just really important for us to speak about that to you. Even when I do piercings on young folks If they're not, if it knows no, like if a child six and the parents like just do it, I'm like no, they said no. Yeah, exactly Like and that's when you teach consent. Yeah, you know, you don't want that uncle to hug you. They don't have to hug you, you can say no.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly you know, like if you don't want to wear that two piece bathing suit at 11, you can say no.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like that's what you need to really implement. Yeah, it has to be taught, because I even think I even remember growing up like I just always knew I had to be quiet, don't sturd, okay, people mad. You know like don't argue like with anything or anybody. You know, and that is taught for so many years, that your condition like that. So then that follows you into your relationships, that follows you into your work situations where you are like oh no, I better not say no.
Speaker 1:You know like, or I'll lose my job, or he'll get mad.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:You know I better not speak up for what I want out of this relationship because I might get yelled at or you know or I? Might get hit, or you know, like who knows, like you never know. It's always that sense of fear that if you do speak up, something will happen. And you know, and now I'm just like roll up, Let it happen.
Speaker 2:I hope you do get mad.
Speaker 1:You know, like totally at this point where it's just like yeah, totally.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I really, you know, before I add some things maybe to consider for artists and practitioners around this space of consent and how to navigate those things, first I just want to hold you up for, you know, speaking out for taking those opportunities that you have, you know, the platform that you do have to share about these things, because I think it's super important, very, very, very important to be talking about, and I do hold you up for that in the way that you obviously have done your own work internally to be able to have that strength and that courage to speak in those ways. So I really do hold you up and commend you for doing that, thank you, and for speaking about it, because you really are doing that really hard, powerful work and maybe it isn't always acknowledged. So I just wanted to acknowledge it and hold you up.
Speaker 1:That's really cool. Thank you, Dionne. I don't think it's ever been acknowledged and I imagine everybody cries on your podcast, yeah.
Speaker 2:At some point it's hard.
Speaker 1:It was definitely scary.
Speaker 2:I lost a lot of friends.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I do have friends in the industry here, but I'm very careful now because a lot it is taught. You have people teaching these traditional ways to their apprentices, which are now a lot of women, because you know you got to be diverse. Now these guys right, so they're bringing these women and they're always like looking for the hot women and looking for all that. Like I knew, my mentor wanted some hot little number and then he just got me.
Speaker 2:And I knew that, like I knew that going in right.
Speaker 1:So there's just moments like that and that's still happening, Like that is absolutely still happening. I see it in the city for sure, where they use these people. I'm not saying that these women aren't talented, they are extremely talented. Yeah, it's just you have to realize like, are you being tokenized? And that's in every aspect, women or a person of color, which you can experience both.
Speaker 2:Totally as both.
Speaker 1:And it is scary. It's scary because Regina is a large city but we definitely run as a town and there is like a small group of people that run the narrative in this city. So there's a lot of big fish in a small pond here, so it can be very isolating and very like lonely at times.
Speaker 1:So I'm really grateful when I did find Indigenous tattooing, because then that really it just made sense, like everything just made sense. It's falling together and then now it doesn't bother me anymore that like they don't really talk to me anymore, but I don't get invited anymore out or yeah. And I start to look at things online and I'm like, oh wow, they're all drinking. Oh, everybody's like white. You just really notice things like well, they really don't hang out with like a diverse people. Oh wow, there's like a lot of dudes.
Speaker 1:you know, like you, just notice it all and and you don't see that originality anymore either. Like how like, if you can count on like how many American traditional artists there are, you can count how many you know like floral, like they. Just it's all the same.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:How many neo-traditional like if they're just they're not doing anything revolutionary. And one thing that I really really, really realized is like I go into a shop and I'd see like, oh, the same artists on the wall Right, these big names Canada whatever, and I just think, like when I opened my space and I'm like, well, I don't, these people don't care about me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they don't care about me.
Speaker 1:They don't care what I'm doing. They just want my money for these conventions. They just want my money, like they don't care about me at all.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:They are not nice to me. They barely answer my inbox questions. You know like it's hard enough for me to get a receipt for the table so I can like claim it on my taxes. I have to chase them down for it, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But if it was like blah, blah, blah for mink masters they brought in, they'd be running out of like invoice receipts like nothing. You know they'll be making sure your garbage has changed, like there's just those things where, where you don't see everybody treated like equals and that's just so disgusting and I feel like like pop culture and all that really ruined. Tattooing yeah, and then when you do challenge things are you bring it up like hey, why are you tattooing that sailor Jerry native head?
Speaker 2:Like why are you doing that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and they're like oh, it's tradition, it's like honoring, it's like honoring who? Yeah, some guy Like who cares? So now I'm really like careful, who I hang up like who, who takes up space in my walls, in my space? Yeah, where does my money go to? Who am I spending money at? Which conventions am I supporting? Are they ran by gangs?
Speaker 1:You know like is my money funding hurting women? Is it funding fentanyl in these, in native gangs, is running gung. You know, like I think of all that stuff now and which is extremely important because this stuff has been taking over our industry for far too long, yeah, and it's just been never talked about because it's scary. Yeah, and it's scary to talk about the me too, women too, and it's scary to get vocal about it because it can put you in danger and it can't get you isolated. But you know what's more scary it continually to happen.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's scary, hell yeah.
Speaker 1:Especially now that I have, like nieces and nephews and they're getting into art and I know one of them is going to be an attached to. You are to second, like already see it and. I'm just like I don't want this to still be a thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I want there to be spaces where they know. I want them to be educated that they know to stay away from these shops.
Speaker 2:Yeah, those things to look for, yeah, big time.
Speaker 1:And then, even like I'm already telling them cleanliness of a shop, because now they're interested in getting piercings and I'm like the first thing you go into a shop, ask to go to the bathroom. They're not cleaning up their bathroom. They're cutting corners everywhere else.
Speaker 2:Yeah, big time.
Speaker 1:And then they're like clients are if they're not cleaning that area, then they're not cleaning other places.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Big time.
Speaker 1:Just small things like that, even educating clients. When I have people coming in for their first tattoo or their first piercings, I'll explain the setup and I'll be like this is the indicator that it went through and it's sterile If it's not this color, it's not, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:This is how they should be prepping the skin. If they're not cleaning your skin, if they're not shaving you, yeah, get out of there. They don't like they're just really cutting corners, or even simple things like setting up with no gloves.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:There's so many times where I've worked with people and they're setting up and tearing down like well, they'll tear down with gloves, but then they'll spray cavicide and then they'll wipe with no glove and I'm like what is happening here? Yeah, Like it's just. I think people become very used to how they work, or they get lazy, or they feel like they're lazy, complacent, yeah.
Speaker 1:And then so there's just things like that, where if we can tell our clients and maintain it, then they'll know like well, I've gone to three shops and you're the only person that's like properly sterilized me and marked me.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Or you're the only person that like. Just the other day I had a girl, had a woman that was said like oh, you're the first person that shaved me and she was like covered in tattoos and I'm like what? I'm like that's like a mandatory thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Like you're supposed to shave the hair off your leg, Like yeah, so yeah, and then some of them won't even think about it because they don't know right yeah, but now, she knows.
Speaker 2:Yeah, big time. Yeah, thank you for sharing that, and I just wanted to kind of circle back and maybe share a little bit of some of the insights that I've gained in my own practice around creating, you know, safe spaces, creating places for opportunities for continual consent. I think it's important to really highlight that, and part of it is, you know, working through the Inflacop with Blackwork project that I have been working on, so doing full body suits, you know, not only full body suits but documenting with video that whole process. And so how do I honor the integrity of each person who comes, each collaborator that gets comes to get that work? How do I, you know, being aware of the fact that all of us, indigenous or non-indigenous, but many of our indigenous clients, have been through a lot of traumatic experiences? How do we ensure that we are navigating in such a way to try and acknowledge that fact, but not always, you know, discuss it, you know, because I think sometimes that can be re-traumatizing to discuss those things. But how do we roll, how do we act? You know, how do we hold conversation and space for people in a way that acknowledges all of those things? And so for me, right at the get-go, I try to explain my process. This is what you can expect. This is how I roll. This is the way that I do things. If you're down, you're down. If you're not, I'm not the right person for you. That's number one. So they know exactly how I'm going to do that process. Number two is okay, we figure out what we're going to do. You know, it's an upper chest piece right Going down onto the sternum, whatever.
Speaker 2:And then I actually send them a big email that says this is the process, this is where we're going to meet. I specifically state I will only be communicating with you via email, unless something needs to be changed on the last day. If you need to get a hold of me, here is my you know my text. You can text me, if you need to, on the day of the appointment to let me know if something's come up. Otherwise, we'll be communicating through email. And then I also, you know, state the fact that, hey, you know the relationship between a tattoo artist or practitioner, especially a cultural practitioner. You know there is a power imbalance in that relationship. And so I always state multiple times through that long email that says that, hey, if you want, if you don't consent, or, you know, I always want to provide an opportunity to dissent, for you to say no, right, all throughout that process, and then I'll let them know.
Speaker 2:You know, this is what you can expect if the design, say, is on a chest for someone who has breasts, and this is the process that we're going to take to get the design on there to make sure that it's, you know, fully symmetrical, all that stuff. You know I have pasties, I have drapes. I actually bring, I actually buy the a, what it's like a poncho that you can put in the front and then, if you were doing a back, you can turn it all the way back. So I actually have that as and then, for, you know, people who have penises, and I buy I have little, I call them little banana hammocks. But so if you're doing going on to the butt, cheek, right, so kind of like a G string underwear, so that you can ensure that you can accomplish the things that you want to, but ensure that they feel like they're protected.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're not as exposed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so I do that. And I conscious, you know, yes, that costs a little bit of extra money for to provide these things, but it also, I think, is the ethics of care that we need as we move forward as practitioners. And so I outlined that. You know if we're going to be, you know wherever we're going to be, I will let you know that I'm going to be. If I need to rest on you, if I need to manipulate the skin, I'm going to let you know so. And I asked for consent in that process. And so that's why I say continued consent.
Speaker 2:Just because somebody says, yes, you can tattoo me, doesn't mean you get to do whatever the fuck you want to get that accomplished. You have to continually ask for consent. And then you know sometimes, you know if you're doing, say, a middle of the chest, middle of the back, you have to stand up sometimes. And so I let people know, hey, I'm going to stand up over top of you, just so you know, and so that I stand up and I do that work, just so that they know that. You know they're not surprised that you know big dude standing over top of them, right. And then in that email, you know I describe all of those things and I ask for their consent at that point. Are you okay with this process? You know I describe, I'm going to draw it on, draw the design on, you know, the bigger blocks, and then we'll tattoo that and then we'll come back and stencil on the finer details. So I actually outline every single step so that they know what's going to happen when they arrive.
Speaker 1:I love that. That's setting a bar.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I feel like everybody should hear what you just said, because I would love to see your oh, totally, I'll share it, yeah, and like you know, just to like read it and see it. That's so refreshing to hear. Especially, you always want to pay for trail, not just for your safety but for theirs too.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Like that's in anything, any professional thing. Even when I go do murals and stuff, I always like to have that paper trail. So because if they come off what they said, it's there right, yeah, big time. So that's always really important. But yeah, you definitely set a bar and a lot of people can learn from what you have to say there, so it probably wouldn't hurt to even do something like that as like a real online where people can share it where it's like oh, I didn't realize I could do that.
Speaker 1:Or because some people too, a lot of people in the tech industry. They don't really have any other trainings, so a lot of them you know where, like roofers or floor, you know like not, that that's not like that, that's like a bad job or anything or makes them less of a person. They don't have skills to deal with or the emotional experience or customer service experience to deal with certain situations. So even though they want to have good intentions and they're trying to be as professional as possible, it doesn't come across like that sometimes.
Speaker 1:Just with words right, or they can't. They don't have the ability to communicate what they actually mean, which a lot of people do Like. There's a lot of times where I can't my boyfriend, I'm like I think you mean this right. Because when you said this. It kind of comes off as this right.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So just small things like that that are really important too is just like the right phrasing and the intention behind it. So that's really cool to hear that, and I feel like a lot of people can benefit hearing your process for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would say, you know I can't take full credit from that. There's a great book by Tamara Santibanya's, I think. It's called Tatoozer Magic and it really talks about a lot of these things. So I really started to seek out other formats, other models to help me to understand what are other people doing, because I had my own sense of what I should be doing, and part of that is actually just going through.
Speaker 2:As a professional tattoo artist, you know, a lot of times there's the sentiment that I'm the artist, I'm going to do what I need to do to get this art done. Yeah, right, and so I'm like no, it's a human being that you're working with who has feelings, emotions, their own desires, their own fears, traumas, all of that type of stuff. So we have to acknowledge that at the forefront. And so, as I acknowledge that and also as I understood, okay, well, I'm recording. You know, I don't want any of that stuff to get out there in any type of way so that the somebody feels like they were exploited, right, that's one of the things that I have at the forefront of my mind, you know, even when I'm taking pictures of a finished tattoo. Well, how do we do that in a way that makes them feel comfortable. Some people don't care. That's fine, that's, that is their own body sovereignty. However, some people do, so we have to acknowledge that in that conversation and go, hey, you know, this is the photo that I took. Are you cool with me sharing it? Cool, right. And then even to the point sometimes and I drop, you know, sometimes I forget, just because I've been doing it a long time, but I have it in my mind to always go, hey, this is what's going to be in the photo even before I take it. Are you okay with your face being in it? Are you not all of that type of stuff, right?
Speaker 2:And then the other thing is there was a website that I visited that I also used as a model for some of the language that I was using, and I can't fully remember it like, maybe, like safe tattooing or something like that. It was like a really great resource that I was able to access. So these, you know, and these are Tamara Santibanya's wrote this, that dope book. And then is it, and they're all from, you know, professional tattoo artists, western tattooing models. So those models are out there and I think we just have to push them out and find the language that we need to it as cultural practitioners as well, and I think that we have. You know we have.
Speaker 2:I always like to put that standard really high, especially as cultural practitioners or ancestral skin markers. I think it should be for everyone. Anyone who's doing any type of skin marking it needs to be there. However, you know I'm always like, well, we got to push that forward and put it up there as an example so we can move forward. So I'm super stoked that we were able to have this conversation and that you know it went that direction. I didn't know it was.
Speaker 2:I am so stoked that it did. Yeah, totally yeah. So there's just some of those things that are super important to highlight and I would say, you know the things that you brought up, you know those things. Some of those things are unacceptable, you know, very unacceptable for people to be reaching out about. Non tattoo related communication. You know, you know, in some of the reading that I read, yes, you could meet somebody and, you know, become romantically involved with them, but they stated that if that was to happen, you should wait a month after you did some type of procedure. So, whether it was a tattoo or a piercing, wait a month until you actually start to pursue that thing so that that power dynamic is actually, you know, reduced. But you know, and of course those things just happen because we're humans, but not in the same way as people being predators. There's a big difference between people praying on people and then, you know, things just happening naturally and moving forward. So, yeah, just having that balanced perspective as well, I think.
Speaker 1:And I feel that even you need to check your coworkers too, because there's a few times where I've been working along shops and I'm like, oh wow, blah blah, blah is really going into blah blah, blah is room a lot. So I go check it out. Yeah, she's in a thong laid out you know like it's like.
Speaker 1:usually he never goes in and checks on that other coworkers work, and then now, four times today, he's gone in that room you know, I remember my female coworker was getting tattooed by another coworker and then another coworker came in and it was on their sternum and he, just like, while she was getting her chest tattooed, he took his finger and, just like, grabbed the cusp of her bra and pulled it down to look further while she was sitting in the chair.
Speaker 1:And we were all like I remember making eye contact and they were all baffled that that happened, that just happened. You know, like there was just a moment where we're like what the hell? And I feel too as female, feel like our fem presenting folks in a shop. We can also be subjected to things too, not just our clients.
Speaker 2:Yeah, big time.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of times where I worked at this one shop and I've been on that the front computer multiple times. I entered their emails. I ran all that stuff. Then, as soon as my coworker came out, my boss was on that computer. All of a sudden, porn popped up.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And it's just like porn's never popped up on that computer the five years that I've worked here yeah, yeah. You, deliberately, was feeling worse, feeling things out you know, like, and right away she was like what the hell?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So it's just like you can even be in an area where you think that these people are looking out for you, but no, you're just, they're also coming after you, yeah. You know, so like that's something, too that you can acknowledge as well. Or even I remember being told like oh, you should go get your hair done, you should go get new, like new clothes. And I'm just like, for who?
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly yeah.
Speaker 1:Like whatever yeah. So, it's just those. Those comments to you are not okay as well.
Speaker 2:So just a thought. Yeah, hey there, listeners, it's Dion Casas, your host from the transformative marks podcast, where we dive deep into the world of indigenous tattooing, ancestral skin marking and cultural tattooing. No subscriptions, no hidden fees, just a simple one time gesture. That goes a long way in keeping me on the air. Plus, kofi doesn't take a cut, so every penny goes directly into improving the podcast, from updating equipment to visiting with new guests as I go into recording season two. So if you like what you hear and you'd like to help me keep the lights on, head over to my Kofi page, wwwko-ficom. Forward slash transformative marks. The link is in the show notes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I would say you know that just brings to mind and I'm super thankful of the shop that I work at and the owner, taren, you know, thinks about those things, and so you know, yes, it's an open concept shop. You know there's eight artists. You know you can see everything that's happening from the front to the back. However, you know she's provided privacy barriers Right, and so I always check in, even if it's sometimes places that I don't think people would want a privacy barrier. I'll check in and I'll be like hey, you know, if you'd like, and that's even if I'm working at the shop. That's one thing that I do state in that email is you know it's it's an open concept shop. You know I just wanted to check in and let you know that we have privacy barriers. I also say that you know there is a bathroom with a door that can lock that you are welcome to use at any point throughout the process.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh, I'm just remembering some of the other things I say in there in terms of, like, when you are adjusting on the table, I'll look away and then check in to see if you're reposition, because you know that's another way that you know people. Can you know you can just go back and look at the situation to get some kicks out of watching somebody you know move and all of that type of stuff. And then you know I also state that you know when that's happening. If you know I need to help because, you know, sometimes people are so awkward it's like the weirdest thing in a tattoo studio. You always see the memes of how, like, people try to get on the chair. You know I'll tell them. You know in the email, if you need to move or reposition, I need to help.
Speaker 2:I'll ask for that consent, so always providing those processes of continued consent throughout it. But yeah, those privacy barriers are super important, especially in those private studios, and I would also say having those conversations in studios as well, to ensure the privacy and safety of any client. Unless you need to be in that room or in that space, you shouldn't be in there. Totally Right, like there's no reason for you to go in and check on that client If you're not involved in that process, no matter how cool the work is. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:See the pictures? Yeah, and or they. You can ask for consent, hey, are you okay if this person comes in?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I would even even in the studio I'm at, even if it's like a forearm, they're doing a forearm piece. I'll go.
Speaker 2:Hey, is it okay if I come and check in and have a look, right, instead of just bombing in? Sometimes I forget, but you know I try to do that. I try to do it as a process to ensure that that is okay, because, you know, sometimes it's a, you know, an intimate private moment where somebody's sharing their heart, right, maybe it's a tattoo about a memorial. You know it's maybe not the most appropriate time to dip in and, you know, interfere in that Interaction. Yeah, absolutely, that's such a good point. Yeah, it's. It can be pretty wild in a shop though. Yeah, many moving parts, so many different personalities and everybody comes from a different background, so what they think is the most appropriate time to dip in? And, you know, interfere in that interaction.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. That's such a good point. Yeah, it's. It can be pretty wild in a shop though. Yeah, many moving parts, so many different personalities, and everybody comes from a different background. So what they think is normal, you know, they bring in and you sometimes we have to correct each other and just be open and always remember that, like we don't know everything and that we're always learning. Even though we 100% think that something we're doing is right, it might not be, and we just have to, you know, put our pride aside and grow together and all be on the same page when you're working together, and that that alone is like just mutual respect for our clients and our coworkers.
Speaker 2:So totally cool, yeah, yeah. And I would say I always say is, like I said it numerous times, is we don't you know, we don't know better, you know, so we can't do better, but once we know better, we do better. Right, and I would say if I, when I think about it in terms of if I ever opened a studio, those would be the requirements, like this is what's expected of you, this is the way you should be rolling out, this is the way that we deal with our clients and our coworkers, and if you're not down, you can fuck off.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know those boundaries for sure, which also teaches those people who didn't have those boundaries that, like you, could have those boundaries. Those are real tangible things you can have, yeah, and it also teaches them that they can also have like their. Their clients can have those boundaries too, right, yeah. Yeah, it's tough, it's tough.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's worth it. Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1:As soon as you get it going like a smooth machine, then it's just like clockwork, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, big time, and you get more.
Speaker 1:You just grow together and you create these awesome relationships, Like there's so many times where I'm marking somebody and just the mutual respect I want to hang out with them after.
Speaker 2:Yeah, totally and just moments where it's just like hey, you want to go grab a coffee after this, or you want to do this and yeah and then, like we've been kicking it since you know, so you'd be surprised what comes out of those moments just treating people with respect and that mutual care and compassion yeah, absolutely Seeing each other as human beings, in the full reality of what it means to be a human being, understanding our own histories and our own traumas and all that stuff, and realizing it's not just us who's fucked up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know we are, yeah, exactly Just different frequencies.
Speaker 2:Yeah absolutely so. As we kind of like move out of that, I just want to give you an opportunity to do a shout out. Highlight your shop as you move into maybe a conversation about traditional skin marking and what that experience has been. So where's your studio? And if people want to get work, where do they reach out?
Speaker 1:I'm on Scar Street in Regina, saskatchewan downtown. I have private studio on the third floor upstairs loft. A lot of people just reach out to me on my Instagram the body mafia or my Facebook. Piercings and tattoos by Gina. I have two co workers there that came from one of the toxic shops we're from. We all kind of just jump ship.
Speaker 1:Diptoe yeah, go together now and it's great and it's a really cool space that I'm in because it's with Saki Gay Walk, the same in the same. That's an Indigenous artist collective in Regina, and on the second floor is a Metis artist, Madison Pascal, and then to the side is Holly Abishon and Audie Murray, which also do. They also do traditional marking. So we got a little like cool hub going on, that's cool yeah which is really nice.
Speaker 1:Now all we got to do is fill that main floor with something really cool. I've been really pushing a trading post because we don't have one here.
Speaker 2:There's one in.
Speaker 1:Saskatoon and I'm like, oh, we should totally have one downtown, but we'll see what happens. Oh, and we just got my neighbors. They're an Indigenous theater group that just came in too. Yeah, so we're like slowly taking over this like downtown trunk which is really nice. And then, yeah, we just painted a full, fully large scale beadwork path on Scar Street, so as soon as you walk in, we just took over the whole.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the whole Scar Street pretty much, so we did not have Scar.
Speaker 1:Street, so that's where I'm at. I do machine tattooing and I do the traditional Indigenous tattooing. I do the traditional Indigenous tattooing by offerings only in the city, but when I do travel I have to charge because it costs money right. Yeah, that's offered for sure, Cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and when I just as we're moving forward, I thought it was important to also highlight one of the things that I encourage when I'm doing a lot of the body work and that type of stuff is if people feel they need it, I encourage people to bring a support person.
Speaker 1:Oh, always. Yeah, I am not strict about that at all, I think you can totally come in and bring somebody yeah.
Speaker 2:I think it's important because sometimes you know in that moment, you know when you understand the, you know a flight or flight or freeze, you know of being in a situation where you're not comfortable, it's important to maybe have somebody to support you. And so I think it's important for us to provide spaces and also let people know that it's okay to bring somebody to support them in their body modification journey. And I know a lot of people will think about that and him and Ha, you know, put it down, but I think that's part of creating a safe space so that person isn't walking into this situation that's foreign and has to do with their body sovereignty, without some type of support, and I think that helps to also balance the scales of power a little bit. And I also, in my email, state that it doesn't have to necessarily be somebody in person. If they can't find a person, they can actually patch someone in virtually if they need that support.
Speaker 2:That's a good idea, you know, just again trying to balance out those levels of power. But moving from there, you know, of course, those things just keep ticking off in your brain what, what you've been thinking about. So what has been the experience with you learning about ancestral skin marking and traditional cultural tattooing?
Speaker 1:It's definitely been life changing. It really puts things in perspective of what's important. Sometimes it can be really frustrating to like when I almost like I feel like you have to decolonize myself because everything that I've learned in Western shops I have to retrain my brain and how I how do I wear this? I have to like retrain myself with hand poke and skin stitch.
Speaker 1:How it's not going to be the same, how it's not going to look the same, how the flash is going to be different, how the outcome is going to be different, and it took me a while to really lean into that and like really deprogram my brain, which was really cool. What also was really cool is that my dad's side he was the indigenous one, my mom's German. There was a lot of trauma, so his family was very transient A lot of addicts, sex workers, that type of thing. So I didn't really get to know a lot of my family. I know a handful of cousins Like I can count on one hand, and a lot of them ended up moving away because they can't be in the same city when a lot of things happened to them.
Speaker 1:Totally valid, so I didn't really get to meet a lot of my family. But I noticed with, when I started doing these markings, the people coming forward and the conversations we're having Like in the middle of marking them. It's like shit, we're cousins. You know like oh we're from the same land, oh you're this you know like. And it's just crazy the how it all sinks together and the timing of my dad's death and then getting my mentorship and then, like it was, like I remember I went through all the emails.
Speaker 1:I'm trying to document everything we do. From the very first day I started meeting with Stacy, I kept this journal and I just kept them marked. I knew it was really important because everything that was written about this Wasn't written by indigenous people, so I'm like I got to document everything, every mark I do. I got to document it all and I look back and I was like shit. She asked me on my birthday, like that's cool yeah.
Speaker 1:And then like just small things like that, it just kept building and building. And then even Audie, she's from the librette area, that's where my family's from and I'm like, oh, like there's another indigenous tattoo artist, it's like from the same land. And then there was a moment where we went you were here and we went to the roadside allowances and I was like, oh, stacy and my family were like neighbors.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:Ditch people, you know like it's just wild. And then even the last meeting we had before you came for supper, I had like. I told her I'm like yeah, I'm thinking about changing my name, and she's like, well, what do you mean? Like a lot of my names felt ridiculous. Everybody says Gianna, but Gina.
Speaker 2:I said it, I admit it.
Speaker 1:And she's like oh, you mean like the spelling. Oh, my last name, my last name is not my real last name, dunbar is not my real last name. And she's like well, what's your last name? It's Klein. And she's like oh, we're cousins, so it's like Stacy and I might be related. Wow, We've been meeting together like over two years. Never even thought about it. And I was like yeah, well, we were like, our ancestors were neighbors, yeah.
Speaker 2:Like on the roadside.
Speaker 1:So they probably did some shacking up and that's really cool to like just to grow up and not be around my family but then reconnect with family members through markings alone. It's just so powerful and meaningful and like and then helping them heal Because they've been through the same things my family members have been through, you know, and then, like we're like healing together and like that alone is just so powerful and like life changing.
Speaker 1:I can't believe how much I've changed internally over the last two years here Wow, just in everything.
Speaker 1:And it's also hard to, because you just feel anger, like coming from traditional shops and like how they will look anything under machinists beneath them and I'm just like what, like? But this is like the main reason why you're tattooing or to be treated differently, because you do indigenous flash and you're doing things differently, that you're not good enough or the same level as these other artists but they have they're doing neo traditional tax tattoos of, like, white women in headdresses and all this other stuff that they're taking from our culture. But then they can look beneath that what we're doing. You know, I actually remember when you came around for your school, I was looking in one of these shops and they were upset that you were teaching at the university. Yeah, and I know one of my coworkers at that time wrote the Yovara letter saying that they emailed them saying that they shouldn't be doing that. Yeah, and I look back on that and I'm like wow, that's a major entitlement, and rage there, yeah.
Speaker 1:Which is just wild to me and I also think about, like what was taking from us.
Speaker 1:Like when you think about when the tattoo machine was created it was by Sam O'Reilly, and like he was born in the 1900s I think it was 19 something, that he built this machine off of Thomas Edison's electric pen, yeah, and I thought like if we weren't taken our markings were taken away from us it probably wouldn't have been an Irish man that you know invented some of this stuff. It would have been really cool to see how our markings would have evolved.
Speaker 2:Totally.
Speaker 1:And I thought that taken away from us. And then to have somebody like what's his name? Bill, I can't remember his name right now he created, he was like the godfather of, like American traditional, and then you see the tattoo of the Sundance and it's a white woman in a headdress and moccasins, dancing and it's like favored by American traditional artists. They all want to do it and they all will do it on other white people and like you can Google it.
Speaker 1:It's like people bow down to that artwork and it's just like why? Why, like it's 2023. Why are you still like condoning this type of like? Why hasn't that evolved? You know like those things where it's just so.
Speaker 1:sometimes I'm like in conversations and I just get like really, really mad yeah big time Like super annoying and then by all these people were, you know, like that's just the way it is, that's history, that's us. Okay, so you're like, your history matters because it comes from, like all these white guys, but like our history doesn't matter because you guys said so. Like what? Yeah, but that's frustrating.
Speaker 2:It's such a contradiction though by saying it's history, because the reality is everybody was fucking hand poking and tell Samuel O'Reilly and the tattoo machine that came Right. So that is their fucking history, that they're just choosing not to acknowledge it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Right, it is part of the lineage of Western tattooing, whether anyone chooses to or not.
Speaker 1:That's a good point.
Speaker 2:You look at, you know the German presidents who got fucking hand poke. You look at the history of all, of of all of the people that got tattooed before the fucking Samuel O'Reilly and the tattoo machine, the electric tattoo machine. Everybody was fucking hand poke, yeah, and they were all Western.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So that is part of their history. They're just choosing that this is where they're going to start their retelling of that history. So it's really a form of ignorance, of not understanding their own fucking history. So they're talking about oh, this is our history, this is the lineage. No, y'all were fucking hand poking, just like we were. So you know, come on now.
Speaker 1:Well, when you say it that way, it's not that surprising, because you're doing that since the beginning.
Speaker 2:Yeah, everybody was.
Speaker 1:Ignoring everything that's happened.
Speaker 2:That was hurtful to any other person.
Speaker 1:But themselves yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I would also like to point, you know, like when we talk about the headdress and we talk about the women wearing the headdresses, we talk about all of those things in terms of American traditional flash. You know, it's important to highlight some of the reasons why those things are changing, why those things are challenging for us. Part of it is, you know, the vanishing Indian theory. You know the creation of the savage. Those things were created as a iconography to send back to, originally, the missionaries to convince the people in England and France and Europe that we were so fucking savage that they could steal our land. So when you look at these images and these designs, they're actually the narrative that helped to destroy our cultures and our communities in a large, large way.
Speaker 2:And the idea of the savage is all the way through in all of the documents, like it's recorded there in terms of like fucking McDonald's. You know John A McDonald talking about the savages, right, simply a savage who can read and write. That's what the day schools were creating and that's why they justified the use of the residential schools. Right, that's what's encapsulated in those designs, let alone the fact that those people wouldn't wear those headdresses in those type of ways, and then also not understanding the importance and the power of some of those things and taking them out of their context, culturally appropriating them, not knowing why they should or shouldn't be used or given to a certain person, right?
Speaker 2:So all of those things are very, very true and a lot of people say, well, it's wrong to use those. But I would say, like, here's some of the reasons why because they're connected to the destruction of our cultures, they're connected to a narrative that was used to put us down right. Like. So all of those things I think are important. And then I would say, when it comes to the idea of the Indian maiden right, that is a iconography that was used to sexualize women and contributes to missing and murdered Indigenous women, it's connected to a narrative that puts Indigenous women in that place of hypersexualization and therefore exploitation. So these are the reasons why those fucking things are not acceptable. So now you know, do better.
Speaker 1:Facts.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Put that in your pipe and smoke it. I like that. I'm glad that you said that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I just think yeah, people don't explore it, and there's a lot of other reasons why they just can't come to mind when I'm thinking about it. I know that I've looked at and explored it and tried to think about it so that I could talk about it really intelligently. But, you know, that's what I have at the moment and that's what's come out. No, it's good that you like it.
Speaker 1:No, it totally works and it's tough to, even being an Indigenous artist who's learning a lot still, you know, and like a lot of our images and stuff were documented by, you know, observers. So it's just like trying to navigate my own flash too right, and making sure that I'm doing it justice and I'm not taking from somebody else or taking or you know something I don't know yet right. So I'm always asking the state, like I asked Stacey. I'm like have you seen anything weird in my flash?
Speaker 2:you know, and she's like no, you're good, you know things like that, or even chatting with an elder here and there is always really nice.
Speaker 1:So I know, even as a cremated person, I have to check myself too at times. Oh yeah, I'm not innocent you know like there's moments too, but it's just always being aware of that. Or even when I'm doing these convention spaces and the clients that come up and that want them, Some of these images too, I have to do a background check sometimes too. Yeah, you know like oh hey, and then I do have flash that are meant for everybody.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And then I also have elements of the land which they can totally have, yeah, totally. Just because it's a bison, a sastrion berries, doesn't mean you can't have it. Yeah, you can totally have that. Yeah, yeah, totally.
Speaker 2:Yeah, those are things that are generic and when I think part of it is the sacredness yeah Right, like some of those pictograph designs that I've tattooed in the past on folks that maybe I shouldn't have, but it was really doing that and then reflecting on it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I was like, oh, maybe I shouldn't have done that because that's actually connected to some of our creation. Stories Like those should be reserved for our people. Those should be reserved and special for us so that when we see it and I see that sun man pictograph I can go you're in to cut Muck or your interior Salish.
Speaker 2:I know where that pictograph actually came from and I know the story that's connected to it. I know how that interrelates with the other stories that help us to see the world the way that we see it, as in the cut Muck interior Salish people. Whereas a bear paw, yes, in some cases that is sacred, especially for bear clan people, but you know, grizzly bears are all over the fucking place. Yeah Right, it is a more generic design and so I feel more comfortable being able to share it. You know a sun. You know a sun pictograph or a tattoo design, of course, like everybody fucking gets that sun to warm us Right?
Speaker 2:So yeah, so yeah, just trying to think through some of those things and I always say, you know, it's just be gentle with yourself because, again, we just don't know sometimes, and we are really at the basement of working up in this practice for each community, each culture, each family, because, you know, sometimes there was a difference between families, let alone just cultures.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's, true Right.
Speaker 2:So the way my friend Julia Mungal Gray says she's a Papua New Guinea skin marker and actually one of the reasons why I use skin marker, she was actually using that phrase back in 2015 when I met her in Aotearoa in New Zealand, but I was just like, oh, I can't use that. Like I know what you're saying, but you know, I wanted people to connect. If I said skin marker, they wouldn't understand it and so I would use tattoo until the point where we are now.
Speaker 2:So, within the last couple of years, I started using skin marker, skin markings, because it's different. So you know you were talking about that aesthetic. You had to train, retrain yourself of how that's going to turn out, how that's going to look Well. For me, that's the difference between a tattoo and a skin marketing. But anyways, she says that we are the new old, because the reality is is that we're creating things that in 100 years it'll be looked at as old, whereas we're looking back at things that are 100, 200 years old and we're saying it's old, but it was new at that time. Yeah, it was.
Speaker 2:So it's really becoming and creating for the future. So, you know, we're looking backwards, moving towards the future, for the people to be walking in that way, and I think that you really do that and I hold you up in terms of asking that question to Stacy, going like Yo, you see anything jacked up in my flash right. So that's really walking in that gentle way, you know, walking in that humble way, which I think is so important, and I hold you up for doing that. And I think it's an example for those who are coming up, you know, behind you, you know, and maybe those who are already doing the work that maybe need to rethink some of the stuff that they're doing. So, yeah, thank you for sharing that and for walking in that way, that really important and gentle way.
Speaker 1:And there's moments, too, where I wasn't comfortable, like before I even asked Stacy that I had like three days of panic attacks Because I was like what if I am, what if I did something that I've said to her, you know? And I'm like like what if I've been doing this for like three months now and they won't say anything. They're just like, suddenly like talking about me and like, you know, like, and then that comes from being in those toxic shops where they're like, would constantly criticize you and not critique you properly you know, like so, then I'm like no, this isn't that anymore.
Speaker 1:I'm just going to flat out ask you know like there are those moments where I have to like, really like, retrain my brain from how I was treated in other shops, like every time that I like, I even remember like, oh, do I post this? And then I'll post it. And then, after I'm working at these shops, like you take that down, this is crossed over there, and I'm all like, oh no, and then I hate myself for like a month Now, you know.
Speaker 1:I'm lower. You know like and like that follows you into any mentor relationship after that you know. So then I had to remind myself like this is different, this is different, it's not the same, Like Stacy is not the same as that other mentor you know like this is different, this is better, this is I can say something. And then that's when I was like I'm just going to ask.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, I'm just going to go for it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it does take time Two and, like we all have our insecurities, we'll have our experiences, right. Totally, it's just like you just got to really bite the bullet and just push past it, and then it just makes a stronger relationship.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, 100% Makes you grow too right.
Speaker 1:So yeah, I just thought I'd put that in there, just in case anybody else is dealing with that as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, totally.
Speaker 1:I did have a question though.
Speaker 2:Yeah, totally.
Speaker 1:So when you started doing machine tattooing, did you do like regular street tattoos? So did you end up doing like the infinity symbols and like the Tasmanian Devils and stuff like that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I started at a small town tattoo shop called Vertigo Tattoos in San Bernard, bc and I think what is the town? Something like 15,000 people or 18,000, you know around 20,000 people in the town, right? So there was no way to specialize, right? And so I just did whatever came in the door, whatever somebody wanted, unless I felt that it was racist or disrespectful or something that I felt.
Speaker 2:even I felt that they were going to regret at some point I would just like or not necessarily regret, but in a place that would be visible all of the time that they would regret, right? So if you're going to put that on your leg or whatever and you're going to regret it, that little stupid design cool, I'm totally down for that but it's not going on your arm, you know, your forearm or your lower arm or somewhere that's always visible, that you're going to regret and see it every day. So you know, I had those things and those were really from Carla, my mentor, and so, yeah, I did fucking everything script. You know, when I first started, it was like that phase where people their first tattoos they wanted was script or some type of writing, and they always wanted on their fucking ribs. You know, I was just like, oh my God, really.
Speaker 2:And then, yeah, I mean I've done Polynesian stuff, I've done Formline, I've done Woodland stuff, you know, I've culturally appropriated in my own career and so as and that's partly why I say you know, sometimes we just don't know, we don't think about it, it's just not something that's brought forward in Western tattooing, right. But once we become aware of those things, it's important for us to change those actions.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so, yeah, I've done roses. You know, sometimes I'll do watercolor. Still, you know, I just don't post a lot of that stuff. Now that you know I'm trying to move towards doing stuff that's connected to my ancestors and giving it space and time to create something for those who are coming after us. Because you know watercolors been done, you know roses have been done, skulls have been done. There's nothing wrong with those things. It's just that it's time to give our own cultures and our own communities and our own visual language space to grow and to develop and to be recognizable.
Speaker 2:You know, for us as Intlacatmuk, interior Salish people, what's his name? Franz Bose. He wrote in this book I can't remember what it's called. It's like a pretty famous. You know Indian art or whatever it was called, and there's a section about us as interior people and there's like pretty, he called our artwork primitive, right, and so for me it's like no, we have to stand up and stand proudly in our designs, symbols and motifs that are connected to our ancestors. Yeah, that is our visual inheritance, and so that's the way of moving. But, yeah, I did fucking everything I've done. Yeah, all types of stuff.
Speaker 1:When was the point that you wanted to just solely focus on just doing your markings?
Speaker 2:What was that?
Speaker 1:transition like Was it hard for you to transition?
Speaker 2:Well, I think it's still hard.
Speaker 2:It's still hard because you know, when you do everything, part of this work is to pay your bills, yes, so you know it's like that delicate balance between being able to pay your bills and doing the things that you want to do, right, and so it was really, just to be honest, it was about what would have been 2019, probably was the time where I was like no, this is what I want to do, and I made that transition and I'm beginning that through that transition, through funding through the Canada Council for the Arts, right, and I was like this is the vision that I have of creating a contemporary in the top look tattoo style that is fully immersed in my ancestral visual language, and so creating space from that was helped through Canada Council and that support from them to be able to do the research.
Speaker 2:Right, so that I can. If somebody asks, well, hey, why are you using that symbol or what does that mean, where does it come from, I have an answer for that, right, giving me space to do that research and that work. So, really, it's been through that process and it's still difficult, right, I still take on stuff that isn't my own ancestral stuff, so watercolor or you know, black and gray or whatever, I still do that type of stuff. It's just not on my page.
Speaker 1:It just doesn't live there. You know, yes, curious, I remember Nahan said that like, oh, I don't do machines anymore, I only do this. And I'm like how bro, how you live, but it's something like I know eventually I will want to steer to. So it's just interesting to see how you go about getting there, and I know it's going to be hard, especially, I think it depends on where you are too.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Because I think a lot of places will have more opportunity. And big ups to Canada Council man. They're making some mad moves for artists. Like.
Speaker 2:I've seen them doing some pretty awesome funding, so yeah, I mean, it's pretty amazing that they would you know, support the work that I'm doing and the way that I'm doing it.
Speaker 2:It's just so epic and so good you know, so I always have to give a shout out to them you know, give that props and I would say, you know, to be honest, I would say it would be easier for me to do this work if I lived in BC whereas I live in Nova Scotia. It just would be easier. There's more people who are connected to those design symbols and motifs and actually, as a matter of principle, I try to if I know the client is MiGMAW, because I live in MiGMAW. You know the ancestral and unceded lands of the MiGMAW people in Nova Scotia. If I know my clients MiGMAW, I'll just do whatever the fuck they want.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because that's my responsibility, that is my form of land acknowledgement because I'm a visitor in their lands, in their territories. It's not where I come from, so if they want work to be done, then I'll do it for them. That's cool, because that is my responsibility as an ancestral skin marker, an indigenous professional tattoo artist, to do the work of the land, of the people that I'm on Right and so supporting them, supporting their journeys wherever they need to go. But you know, it's just understanding who they are and doing that work. So it's a form of ethics and you know, it's a way of doing land acknowledgement without doing land acknowledgement, totally no.
Speaker 1:That's a really good good way of looking at it. And I find too that in these like shops that they do control what people like placement and stuff on everybody Like you can't get your hand tattoo unless you have a full body suit.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:They don't even question what their background is you know, like they really police.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Where and what, and they have to be earned and it's just like, why yeah?
Speaker 2:yeah.
Speaker 1:You grew up in the suburbs. Who are you to say?
Speaker 2:that this indigenous person needs to earn their hand tattoo.
Speaker 1:You know, like I just look back and I'm like oh, my God.
Speaker 2:I just roll my eyes out the door Like yeah.
Speaker 1:So it's really it's good that you say that, because that's just a good. That's that's a good a good. Another bar, right, yeah, like, where artists shouldn't be doing that, nor should they be policing their, their employees, who are of color with their markings and how they mark their people too, Cause I noticed that too.
Speaker 1:I worked in one shop where I was pretty much told that I wasn't allowed to tattoo there because I tattooed a 17 year old with consent and I'm just like man my people were marking people, or marking people before people. Well, you were still in your dad's balls. So you can't tell me, as a private contractor, who I can and cannot mark.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:If it's legal and their parents there, you know, like who are you to say? Like there's just moments like that, where? But they're supposed to be allies. Yeah, totally so it's just small things like that yeah.
Speaker 2:We had this conversation yesterday. You know, I was visiting with Nolan Malboff and we were talking about some of these questions of, well, health boards and that type of stuff. And I was saying, you know, for me, another reason why I talk about his ancestral skin marking and a cultural tattoo practitioner is that these things are protected by United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous People, articles 11 and 31, you know, which state that Indigenous people have the right to practice their own ancestral artistic practices and they are protected under the yandere. And then I would also argue that these practices are the existing Aboriginal and treaty rights that are in section 35, one and two of the Constitution Act, and so for me, these are actually human rights issues that you know we need to continue to work through and we need to change the language of the way that we do things so that we don't fall under because the health board has nothing to fucking do with what my ancestors did.
Speaker 1:Totally.
Speaker 2:Yes, we have to police ourselves, and that's why it's important for us, as cultural tattoo practitioners and ancestral skin markers, to try and hold up a different standard of health and safety. You know, when I think about that, that's connected to the genocide of our ancestors. You know, germicide and the bringing of germs to this continent was part of the colonial project and the genocide of our people.
Speaker 2:So we can't say that we're doing something cultural or traditional. If it's potentially going to be dangerous and harmful to our people, it's just not traditional. You know people say, oh, this is traditional because this is the way our ancestors did it. You know, the number one thing is if you're doing harm and you're hurting people, that's not fucking traditional.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So that is the number one bar and the number one standard and ethic, and then we move from there. That's just the way I see it. People will probably get pissed off or whatever, but I don't give a fuck.
Speaker 1:If you're hurting people.
Speaker 2:It's not okay, it's not traditional, you know, just because our ancestors did it. Our ancestors didn't have to deal with HIV. Our ancestors didn't have to deal with hepatitis. Our ancestors didn't have to deal with MRSA, which was created in the hospital system. These are all colonial things that our ancestors didn't have to deal with, but we do, and so that's why we take that step and go. These are the things that we need to do and again, if you're one of those people that didn't know better, now you can do better and reach out to someone and say, hey, I might be fucking people up, what am I doing? And you know we can help.
Speaker 1:Yeah, totally I love that. Yeah, oh, thanks for saying that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you for bringing it forward. Yeah, thank you for these conversations.
Speaker 1:They need to, though, like people need to hear it right, like there is a it's important. It's absolutely important, yeah, especially when you're in a heavy area, like Regina has a huge AIDS problem you know, like it's real you know, and it's something that needs to be continuously in the back of our mind. Yeah, it's always really important to you, no matter what, that you are trained to develop on pathogens. You know, and your shop does have first aid training.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's really important, because you never know when you're going to need it.
Speaker 2:Like.
Speaker 1:I've been in shops where somebody just waiting for a tattoo would have a seizure and know everybody froze. But I was the only person that had training and had to jump in. You know, like you never know. You never know. People have so many different health problems too, and you gosh got to be ready for whatever whatever comes, yeah Right. And it's tough, but it needs to get done. Like you want everybody to feel safe too, right.
Speaker 2:And when I think about that as well, is also to highlight and put forward that. You know, when we talk about blood-borne pathogens, hiv, aids, hepatitis and all of these things, it's important to highlight that these are things that people live with. That's not who they are Absolutely. And just because people are living with these things doesn't make them less than you know. The narrative in the past has been that people are dirty and people are, you know, almost untouchables.
Speaker 2:You know, for me, when we do the work, we do the work the same every single time, because we assume everybody has one of these, is living with one of these things, so that we don't treat anyone differently. And it doesn't matter to me if somebody does or doesn't have, you know, isn't living with one of these diseases and health challenges. So I just wanted to put that out there as well as, like, if you are living with one of those things or somebody you know is, it's not doesn't make them a lesser human being. You know, it's not that we're putting people down in these ways. We're just bringing forward the things that are of concern for us, you know, you know, yeah. So I just wanted to highlight and put that out there to ensure that you know we're using language and not hurting and being harmful in those ways, because you know it has been something in the past for people that has been used as a tool and a weapon to push people down, and that's not what we're doing here.
Speaker 2:Just having a conversation about some of the things that we deal with.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I've also like seen shops that will turn down folks who do have it. And I'm like that's not okay at all. They can't, they shouldn't do that.
Speaker 2:Well, I'd say that's another human rights issue yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Right, and I would say that the human rights legislation in each of the provinces Nova Scotia is actually one of the only provinces that has in their human rights legislation the discrimination based on undue fear of health concerns, and so I would say that, you know, in Nova Scotia is one of the things. It's actually kind of interesting because it's one of the also one of the forms of legislation, because in 2019, nova Scotia put out the Body Art Act and in that act, it says that you cannot tattoo if you have a blood-borne pathogen, so either HIV or hepatitis, and so for me, I'm like what?
Speaker 2:You know, that isn't in the package that they give to people, but I've read the Body Art Act numerous times just to understand what's going on in there and I would say that you know it's another human rights issue that they have put through in legislation to discriminate against people on dually doing this work.
Speaker 1:Now can you even ask if they have it on a consent form, Is that even legal?
Speaker 2:Well, I guess, if it's not in any type of legislation I think in the Body Art Act it states that you have to. Oh okay, who cares? I mean, that's why we're doing it. You know, that's where that? You know, and I've read in many documents about how nurses and doctors actually treat their patients differently. Who have, you know, a blood-borne pathogen? Some doctors will actually refuse service, right, and so there has been studies around this type of thing. So it's just not okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's not.
Speaker 2:We're all human beings, we all have lived our own lives and come to a place where we're at, and so we have to just care for each other and all of those things that we do, and it doesn't matter, because we act as if it is the reality, right? Yeah, totally. Yeah any other questions or things that have come up for you.
Speaker 1:Well, every day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, live my life every day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's been a really good experience and I really appreciate you coming into my life, especially with some of the problems I've had lately with conventions and just dealing with just different space like the same spaces but a different purpose and a different practice and like navigating that can be really challenging, totally it can be really challenging because it is discrimination or it is.
Speaker 1:You are like it's blatantly obvious in some instances. So you can feel pretty alone because like sometimes I'll be at a convention and something will happen and then I'll turn to the two people that I came with who are white and I'll be like this is happening and they're like, oh cool. Thanks guys, please go on another 45 minutes about your boyfriend and how he doesn't clean up around the house.
Speaker 2:Thanks. Your problems are way more important. Thanks Totally.
Speaker 1:So moments like that where it's just like, oh, or I even find with the indigenous tattoo gathering, I find sometimes where I'm in spaces like that where you're dealing with so many energies and so much healing that you can come home feeling really heavy. I didn't get that from.
Speaker 2:There.
Speaker 1:I didn't get that at all, like I totally thought I'm like, oh, I'm going to come home and I'm going to feel so heavy and like and I didn't and like that was really cool. Just reflecting on my experiences there with the locals and marking and like the people around and like their work. It was just really refreshing and it reminded me that I'm on the right path and that I'm doing the right things. I mean the right people and yeah, big time.
Speaker 1:And it's super wild to be around in the industry for machine artists and know these people for like over a decade but then all of a sudden jump right into indigenous tattooing and around you know like other indigenous people and it's just like these people get me Like. I'm like. I could say what I want, I can do what I want. I can crack a joke. And you know like and they'll get it and like I can really let myself be fully myself.
Speaker 1:I don't have to like tiptoe or worry about things anymore, which is just so refreshing. It's so refreshing and when there is a moment where I do feel like there is some sort of barrier put up and while I'm working in other spaces, that, like I now have a community that I can rely on, I can't go talk to you know, the people I work with, or I can't talk to the people that I usually talk to because they don't get it.
Speaker 1:They don't see it and they never will. You know like. They can kind of get an idea of it, but they go home and it's off their plate you know like and then. I go home and I apply for another space to go work out of, and then I deal with it again, and then you know, like so it's just, it's just nice to have that, that actual like you always hear when you're in shops, like tattoo family, tattoo family.
Speaker 1:Not once have I been in a shop where I felt like they were a family not once they talk behind each, they criticize each other. They always have snarky things to say. You know like, and I have four sisters.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know criticism, I know bullying.
Speaker 1:Like I know what is up and like this is just a lot of malicious intent and all that. And I didn't feel like there was a tattoo family until I got involved with Stacy.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I was like this is what it's meant when people say this.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And it's totally different from what's what's portrayed you know big time, which is really like eye opening for me as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And you can tell no one's feeling it.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:No one shook. He's getting adopted real quick.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and I love it, I love it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 2:I thank you for sharing those words and, you know, highlighting it and bringing it forward and acknowledging it and also contributing to it. You know, and that's why I hold you up and you know, shared the words that I've shared with you is because you're contributing to that family. You're not just a dormant part of that equation, you are part of it. You've been doing some of that work and helping to lift up in this area with your voice, with also your actions in terms of helping to develop spaces, as well as help to support different movements in terms of volunteering for things. All of that stuff is creating that space and creating that family. So, thank you for all of that work that you do and I'm just super stoked to see what the next couple of years end up being. It's going to be awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm really excited, even sitting. It's so nice to in our city, like I'm very grateful to have Holly and Jada and Stacey here. They're not part of coming from a shop, though, right. So, they don't really know a lot of that. And even when I was dealing with some of the things I was dealing with in Manhattan, then she told me, like you need to talk to Dion.
Speaker 2:Okay, okay, I'll talk to Dion about this, right.
Speaker 1:It's really nice now to have Nolan here.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Because Nolan comes from the same training too, right?
Speaker 2:So like.
Speaker 1:Nolan's now Nolan's seeing it.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And then Nolan's kind of growing into more of his traditional things, so it doesn't feel so isolated and alone too in my like in machine tattooing, because it feels like I just got a new brother. You know like it's what it feels like, and he's Métis too, so we can come and talk Métis and, like you know, put around and like, really grow and work together to create different things too.
Speaker 1:Because, we have, like our gears, are turning to you about what we can bring here, who we can bring here, what kind of stuff we can do here, and we have the experiences like that. We can pull it off, but we slowly have to get like that manpower and totally that. So it'll be really interesting to see how, on Treaty 4, the revival will be here, because it's already pretty cool.
Speaker 1:Like there's quite a few of us now here and I was trying to look in Saskatoon and I think there was like one person there right now I don't know if there's anybody in PA like so I don't think Regina knows how lucky they are.
Speaker 2:Oh, it's like epic.
Speaker 1:I don't think they know. I don't even think our indigenous people know yet either. Like they don't know what. Who's all here and like what, like how many of us there are here? Yeah, it's a hotspot, for sure it kind of is it's like a hidden secret, Like yeah, like I could roll up and do like five podcasts on indigenous tattooing In one city, you know like that's true, that is very true.
Speaker 1:So like I don't really think about the work until you reflect on that, yeah, and then you're like oh, like, actually we did quite a bit right.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Even with the bloodline symposium, I was a little dissed that like nobody from like traditional shops came out, like like street shops came out, because it's just like that would have been so important for them, right. And I just remember, like you saying it's for us, like when we were there, is for us, and like immediately the next day shifted yeah, felt it shift, you know, and and then you really see to like how much healing there needs to be done in our, on our land.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Like there's just so much like, especially now, traveling to like Frederickton and all these other places and you see all these other indigenous communities and how far they are and how strong they are and like, even like, their homelessness, how they deal with that and I'm like what is Saskatchewan?
Speaker 2:doing wrong.
Speaker 1:What are we doing wrong?
Speaker 2:What do we?
Speaker 1:need to do to help these people, like what like. So then I try to think, okay, this is what they're doing, I'll try to bring that back in, or I'll reach out to these people and like we're trying.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're trying.
Speaker 1:I'm in meetings all the time. I'm totally neglecting housework.
Speaker 1:You know, like I'm just totally neglecting certain things, like just pushing and pushing just to make sure that, like we speed up what our healing process and we speed up our spaces and we speed up a lot of this stuff because, like we are far too behind and we've been weighed down too much with what's happened and it's time now to like fully be lifted up as a community. So I really hope more people reach out and platforms like this reach out and then like we're out here and if you're in Regina and you're an indigenous artist, you're somebody who wants markings, like we're out here, we're here to help you.
Speaker 2:Well, and I would say that, like it's important to acknowledge that and highlight you know. You know I'm all over the, I'm going all over the place and I would say this is probably one of the places that I could just reach out and go. Hey, you know, like I said, schedule five podcast interviews in a week, right, like there's no other city in Canada that I can do that.
Speaker 1:It's wild. That's weird to hear.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Because I always feel like we're so far behind with everything fashion food, like news.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I feel like we're constantly two years behind, like my whole entire life. And I would cool that we're like yeah we're ahead here, like that's really refreshing to hear and I like that. It's like we're indigenously ahead. Yeah, that's kind of a bonus. We need that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, big time.
Speaker 1:That's cool, yeah, and I feel too a lot of our nonprofits here and a lot of our even I've just been working a lot with our regenerate downtown bid. Like they're putting in the work.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Like they are then some of the other districts in our city, like they're really grinding and like making spaces and creating jobs for that financial stability too. So because a lot of us can't get hired because we don't have our bachelors of fine arts, you know a lot of us. And I've had to say it a few times, like hey, like I've been on my own, so 16, 17, I had to go to school and have a job and pay rent.
Speaker 2:And like.
Speaker 1:So I didn't have the option to go to school. I drew and paint on my own, I like. I'm self taught, like 100% self taught, and so sometimes it's really hard for me to get certain jobs because I don't have that education and that's a lot for a lot of indigenous people now yeah.
Speaker 1:Like I'll be 37 this month. I didn't actually get to have financial stability until like the last like since 2019. Yeah, like I've always had to have other ways of getting money and I've always had to do all that. And like, if it wasn't for even a really good allies, the Marion at the creative city center, that's a nonprofit.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And like if it wasn't for them and Regina downtown bid, there's no way me, as an indigenous artist, would have been able to do what I'm doing now and have the spaces that I'm doing now and now. I'm putting these now. I'm putting now, with the experience, over time, I'm putting these. They're not situations. I'm putting these places where I have the power now to hire other indigenous artists and get them paid for what they're worth, and that is really cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:That's my word matters who I say comes in, does math like it matters and like that alone is powerful because it just creates me, taking up a space. So other indigenous arts and take up spaces and who don't have the same training or come from harder backgrounds too. Cause like man, all of us are healing and like the arts, the only thing that makes us heal.
Speaker 2:You know, like it's the only thing we were grasping on.
Speaker 1:Do the mid keep us sane. Yeah, and if we can't do it, then like who knows what would have, who knows what would have happened to me if I didn't have art?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I don't know where I would be or what would happen to me, and I really think it's cool that Regina can push forward with that without those like biases for education, even though I still get asked like from time to time and I just have to be real with them, like, like, not everybody you hire is going to be able to have those rights you know, that's a privilege.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Like there's a privilege to go to school and stuff like where these new indigenous students, like they're 21, all rosy cheek, they can go to school you know, like they're in these situations where they they're able to do it and like where, when I graduated, that wasn't an option.
Speaker 2:Yeah, big time.
Speaker 1:You know, so like that's something that is really cool that these other larger businesses know now that like okay, we're being kind of like biased on this. Yeah, and that's another thing too with indigenous cultures. Is that, like we're taught by mentors and elders and all that we didn't have schools like so for them to be like, well, you need to have go to school. It's like for what?
Speaker 2:My heart like no, it's our culture Like yeah.
Speaker 1:So like that's something that I feel is really important, and sometimes, too, a lot of indigenous people can be threatened because they don't have it. They don't have their education, and at one point I was.
Speaker 1:I was like oh, I'm never going to be able to do anything, I'm never going to be able to have the time to go to school, I'm never going to be able to afford this and this and this, you know and, and I was just so down on myself. It was like 2016, 2015. And then I'm like I don't know what I'm going to do. And then I got this mentorship program through the First Nation University and it was called Liquid Art and it was me and another artist, and that other artist did have her schooling.
Speaker 1:And there was a moment where they were teaching me how to write a CV and with all my experience and all my like volunteer work and all my event planning and all that, my artist resume totally out, blew hers.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was like four or five pages of like 10 years with the work. So it's like. And then I remember Marion from the creative center was all like that was your schooling, gina. Oh yeah, hell yeah, I was like 10 years that you did all that. That's your school and I was like you're right, I think it was even better.
Speaker 2:I think, it was better than school.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because those are real world lived experiences that you, that you fucking struggle for too. You know, like that's different, that's way different than it was a grind, yeah. It felt like an RPG game I just had to like grind, grind, grind, and I got a little bit and then it's like oh, I got you like former levels, grind, grind, grind.
Speaker 1:Now I got this, you know, like it was just constant all the time. And yeah, if anybody's listening and they are an artist and they don't have an education to it is doable, you can do it.
Speaker 2:Fuck, yeah, you can.
Speaker 1:You can take up space. You don't need to do that. You know like there is opportunities for you, there are spaces for you and you just got to really go out there with passion and it will come. Yeah, awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that's a good spot for us to end. That's so awesome. Thank you, thank you for, you know, coming and sharing this time and sharing your heart. Yeah, you know, talking some hard truths, sharing some things that may be difficult for some people, yeah, and even could potentially be difficult for you when people hear it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but I thank you for it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I totally thank you for it and lift you up for doing that.
Speaker 1:Thanks, man. Yeah, I'm really proud of myself. I didn't cry. I'm really proud of myself. I didn't. That's awesome yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm super stoked that you were able to visit with me and, you know, maybe next time around we'll do another one and see where that goes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, totally Follow up. Yeah, I'm down, I'm always down.
Speaker 2:Okay, cool, thanks. Yeah, no problem. Hey everyone, thanks for stopping by and taking this journey with me through this episode. I hope you enjoyed it. I'll just ask that you would go and subscribe, if you haven't already done so and if you have subscribed, thank you very much. I appreciate you following this journey. I just want you to remember that, no matter who you are, where you're from, what you've done or what you've been through, that you were amazing, that you were loved, and that we need you here today and going into the future so that we can transform this world for the better through our collective thoughts, actions, feelings and our compassion for each other as human beings.
Speaker 2:And then we'll head on over to next week's episode, where I'll be talking to Robin Humphrey and Intlacot Muck, cultural Tattoo Practitioner and Ancestral Skin Marker based in Merritt, british Columbia. In this episode, we'll talk about the hosting of the Awakening, our DNA Tattoo Gatherings. Remember, every coffee helps me to bring you the content that you love. So head over to my Ko-Fi page and let's make something great together. And the last thing that I will ask you is to do me a solid and share this episode with somebody that you think will enjoy it. Thanks a lot and see you next week.