the artist.

Heather’s been into tattooing all her life, since about 10 years old; and now she gets to fulfill her dream of becoming a professional tattooer. Shes the lifer. A term that was used to describe kids that grew up in tattoo shops.

Her mom took her to her first shop in ‘97 in New York City and thats where it kinda all began. Back then tattooing had just become legal and was still illegal in her homestate of Mass. Throughout her teen years she spent hanging out in tattoo shops in NH like Dragons Lair, Shogun Tattoo, Ed’s Heritage Tattoo, and Jim’s Tattoo. Until she was of age to get a tattoo legally, she was getting body piercings and grew an interest with all things subculture and body modifications (like BMEzine.com).

She was offered an apprenticeship at age 17, but growing up in a single parent middle/lower class family she couldn’t afford the $5000 price tag along with it, so she kept drawing and painting and waiting for another opportunity.

A few years went by of trying to land another apprenticeship and by 2010, she got a call from a friend in the Boston area opening a shop in a Harley Davidson shop on rt 16. She spent a year as one of the shop apprentices where she cleaned the shop, scrubbed tubes, ran errands and eventually did her own solo flash event where around a dozen people showed up.

After that shop closed unexpectedly, she packed up her things and decided to hop a one way flight to the mecca of tattooing at the time, San Francisco. She wanted to learn from the best of the best. Thats where she found Jason Storey of Picture Machine Tattoo.

At the time, he had just left Picture Machine after a decade or so to try his hand at running his own place, Blue Dragon Tattoo down the street and thats where she met him. She was and still is his only apprentice and she was trained by him in the ways of both american and japanese tattoing. She spent a year with him before Jason went back to officially purchase Picture Machine after Pat’s unexpected passing. He helped her graduate and not having the space for a new artist, he sent her on her way.

She really struggled to find a shop who would hire her in the bay area. She was in a land of the best tattooers on the planet. Still though, she remained in the community by doing weekly paint nights at 111 Minna gallery, doing art shows at a local messenger bag company called Mission Workshop, and she would often hang out and get tattooed at places like Seventh Son tattoo, Tattoo City, Idle Hands, and Everlasting.

She ended up leaning more into bicycles, messengering, traveling to amateur competitions, local cross races, alleycats, working as a bike mechanic and ended up racing her local velodromes. She won a few awards, landed a few sponsorships, feeling accomplished and stoked on life, but tattooing had always been the goal all along…

Enter: the pandemic. She’s now in Seattle, WA living there for 4 years, riding bikes, hanging out with friends. She was able to pick up machines again and not knowing if she would be accepted back, she blazed through anyway. She grew up during a time where people who werent white, CIS biker males just didn’t have a seat at the table. Luckily, shes re-entered the community at a much more inclusive time, tattooing is much more popular and widespread, and more opportunities are given to those who never would’ve had the chance.

So, its been almost 25 years of hanging out in shops, about 3 years of apprenticing, 16 years working in shops, and depending on who you ask (some argue to exclude apprenticeship years, some don’t) the amount of time of tattooing full-time as a licensed artist is total to about 5 years now.

She lets others form their own opinions of what years matter and what don’t; regardless, her experience is now pretty much her whole life.

Shes always growing, drawing, learning and trying to be a better artist, co-worker and community member. A true sponge and forever student.

You can find her at her local shop, Torchbearer Tattoo as well as traveling guestspots around the country or at tattoo conventions with her friends.

When she’s not tattooing, Heather’s probably out shooting 35mm film, working on her vintage Chevy van, hunting through antique shops for forgotten treasures, or on a quiet bike ride through the woods, All of that finds its way into her work — nostalgic, sincere, a little witchy, and always intentional. Social issue that are really important to her are LGBTIA+ community rights as well as making tattooing accessible to the POC community. NO MAGA ALLOWED. pronouns are she/they.

Thanks for reading and for being here.

“You kinda had to be half a cowboy” - Freddy Corbin