Caroline Derwent: Charity Tattoo Day

Plymouth based tattooist Caroline Derwent recently shared the love at her tattoo charity day in memory of her late father. We caught up with Caroline to see how the day at Dust n’ Bones tattoo studio went…

CarolineDerwent

The idea of a charity tattoo event called “say what’s in your heart” popped into my head when I was thinking of my dad. I wanted a tattoo design and day to centre around my clients choosing a heart frame and having something personal written inside.

The charity meant a lot to me and my family as my dad spent his last few days, before he passed away on 14th May 2017 under the care of the doctors and nurses at St. Luke’s Plymouth. They were so caring and professional and made his last days comfortable. They also looked after us emotionally, I can’t thank them enough.

heartattoo

Every penny counts to help with such an amazing cause so I wanted to do my bit and raise some awareness. The idea of the tattoo flash day was super popular and I filled my day within a few hours. I did 11 tattoos in total. It was a really successful, with lots of cute and meaningful tattoos, and all proceeds went to the charity.

heart

In some way we can all relate to losing someone to cancer and it was such a pleasure to see the smiles on my clients faces with their finished tattoos The whole day was positive and a lot of fun and I was so pleased to raise £800 in aid of my father’s memory.

Twohearts

Tatts For Cats 2019

Tatts for Cats – a nationwide tattoo themed fundraiser to help cat charities is back for 2019!

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The tattoo events will take place across the country, featuring a mixture of traditional walk-in flash days and bookable appointments. Each artist and tattoo shop will be drawing cat themed designs especially for Tatts for Cats.  

Organiser Dolly Osborne is an ex-nurse, cat lover and tattoo enthusiast. Her nursing career gave her a natural desire, or perhaps came from a natural desire, to help people. Mental health and other physical health issues meant that Dolly had to leave nursing, but that didn’t quell her desire to help those in need and ‘do something’, so she turned her attention to cats.

Last year, Dolly volunteered with Coventry Cats Protection, in order to fundraise and reach new audiences she founded Tatts for Cats. Three Coventry based tattoo studios, Grizzly’s Art Collective, Queen of Hearts Tattoo Parlour and The Drawing Room, took part last year. With three tattoo flash days and two raffles, they raised £2002 for Coventry Cats Protection.

TattsforCats

This year Dolly is working to raise money for Keighley Cat Care with more paw-some cat flash, raffles and prizes. This year there are  ten studios taking part, from Edinburgh to Cornwall, with 25 artists in total so far, these include:

Birmingham: Amy Victoria Bryant at Loco Tattoo Lounge. Tattoo flash designs for Thursday 17th October, message Amy on Instagram.

tattoo cat flash

Cornwall: Hannah Ritchie at Sanzaru Tattoo Studio in Penryn. Tattoo event confirmed for 8th and 9th October.

Coventry: The artists at Grizzly Art Collective will be holding an event on 26th October. Artists include; Danny Dygas, Steph Hesketh, Aga Wojtczak and Aidan Murphy

Queen Of Hearts Tattoo Parlour are also holding a flash day in Coventry. Artists include: Natalie, Jamie Rayburn, Tyler Wainwright, Kate Stenner, Tom Chippendale and their apprentice @renrelix. Follow their Instagram for updates.

Edinburgh: Joanne Baker and Michelle Maddison at Semper. Event confirmed for Sunday 22nd September.

cat charity flash

Keighley: Em Higgins tattoo artist at The Little Tattoo Rooms will be tattooing flash for the event on 5th October.

Lincoln: Zoe Fraser at The Tattooed Arms.

Liverpool: The Painted Ladies tattoo studio will be doing flash. Check out their Instagram for details.

London: Briar Rose Tattoo artists include; Tiggy and Sammie Jones. Event confirmed for 12th October.

Newcastle-Upon-Tyne: Cock A Snook Tattoo Parlour ‘s tattooing team charity day is on 19th October. Artists taking part include: Becky FosterSteph White and Lily Rafferty.

Cat flash Newcastle

Newcastle: Lauren Spoors at Blind Tiger on 12th October. Her tattooing slots are now full.

Nottingham: Epona Art & Tattoo studio with Martin Crosthwaite and Theresa Gordon-Wade tattooing from their flash sheets on 5th October.

Follow TattsforCats on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter for updates and more details.  Purr-fect… 

Holly Astral: ‘The Art of Tarot’ Project

After seeing sneak peeks and behind-the-scenes pics from some of our favourite tattoo artists taking part in ‘TAROT the art of Tarot’ we couldn’t help but be intrigued!

We caught up with Holly Astral, the woman behind ‘TAROT the art of Tarot’ and Gravity Tattoo Studio to find out more about the project and how you can get your own piece of it… 

Poster for Tarot, The art of Tarot project by Holly Astral

What inspired you to start the ‘TAROT The Art of Tarot’ project? It just came up spontaneously! Me and the girls in the shop love reading tarot, and one day we started talking about how fun it would be to design some tarot cards between us, and the idea for the show just clicked into place! Since I got the keys to the building that is now Gravity Tattoo Shop I’d always said I’d like to hold an art exhibition in the ground floor reception area, and this seemed perfect!

You’ve taken part in exhibitions at galleries across Europe and America, was this part of your motivation for the tarot project? Totally! Before I was a tattoo artist I was a toy designer, and ran my own line of designer toys. During that time I put on a couple of collaborative art shows in London, and one in LA. Each one showcased toys which has been customised by other designers in the industry and were so much fun to put on. My main motivation for this show and those that I’ve organised in the past is to showcase the talent of those around me – I figured I’d put on the kind of shows I’d like to attend.

Poster for the Tarot Tattoo Project

What message do you hope to spread? I’m interested to get the conversation going about tarot cards, and how people view them. I am relatively new to the concept, having dabbled a little as a teenager. I had a very rough start to this year and got into it as I was looking for answers. I don’t believe in divination or mediums, rather my take on tarot is that whatever you latch onto within a reading is your subconscious trying to tell you about a part of your life you need to look a little deeper at, or maybe an answer that you already know and need permission to bring to the surface. We all have the answers to our problems inside of us and activities like tarot reading can help us to bring the answers to the surface.

The Tarot project aims to raise funds for Hula Animal Rescue, does that charity mean a lot to you? Absolutely! We raise money for them throughout the year, and last year put on a flash day to fund raise for them. Gravity is a vegan tattoo shop and animal welfare is important to us, Hula are a wonderful small charity doing great things for animals.

Sneak peak at the Tarot Project Exhibition

You’ve brought together 78 individual artists for the tarot project – how did you pick them? Well at first we were going to do just the 22 major arcana from the tarot deck, so we asked some friends if they’d like to design a card for the show and it just got bigger and bigger! Before I knew it we had the entire deck being created, we were just blown away by the response.

Is there a wide variety of styles, mediums and interpretations? It has been incredible seeing all the artwork come back for the show! We left it up to the artists how they wanted to create their cards – any medium was okay, the only proviso being that it needed to fit in an A4 frame for the show layout. We have paintings, drawings, digital artworks and even a couple of embroidered pieces in the show. Seeing how everyone interpreted their card’s meaning has been so fun to see, with so many unique and interesting designs coming back to us. All the pieces they’ve created for the show were available to purchase for £100 each (a steal!)

Will they only be available to purchase at the show? First dibs on purchasing artwork from the show will be given to everyone who attends on the night of the party (August 24th 6-9pm) with any remaining artworks sales being opened up to the internet in the weeks after the show.

Sneak peak at the Tarot Tattoo Project

Will tarot sets be available to purchase too? We can’t wait to do a reading with them! Yes! Pre-orders are now closed but were available through our big cartel: gravitytattoo.bigcartel.com/product/tarot-cards.

Celebrating the art, design and creativity of tattooing will the tarot project be exhibiting anywhere else before the pieces go to their new owners? Nope! Tarot is a one night event!

Holly Astral - The Art of Tarot Tattoo Project

You used to create your own plush toys ‘Cavey’ and even exhibited at ToyCon, was this integral to deciding to create a physical product from the exhibition? My background in product and the toy industry definitely helped, and I also recognised that not everyone can afford £100 for an artwork and wanted to make an item that everyone could afford, so they can still contribute to the charity. Making the deck of cards seemed like the perfect idea, and a great way to showcase all the great art from the show! We enlisted the help of a local printers to help us make the cards as fab as possible.

This is your first exhibition at your studio Gravity Tattoo Shop, has doing the Tarot project given you a taste for curating tattoo art exhibitions again? Absolutely! We’ll be doing another, different show, next year!

Tarot Tattoo Project Poster

Don’t miss the launch of ‘TAROT The Art of Tarot’ on August 24th at Gravity Tattoo Shop in Leighton Buzzard from 6pm- 9pm or follow over on Instagram for more information!

Interview by Amber Carnegie originally posted on the Barber DTS Tattoo Supplies blog. 

Sasha Nicole: The Black Heart Project

Tattooer Sasha-Nicole works out of Gold Irons Tattoo Club, Brighton and is the founder of the black heart project. Sasha tells us all about the creation and inspiration behind the charity tattoo project and how you can get involved…

sasha

The black heart project is something I created a couple of years ago, with the sole purpose of raising awareness and funds for mental health. Primarily the charity ‘Mind’. I designed a simple image to hold a word relevant to the client’s own experiences, whether that be their struggles or their triumphs, to display as a badge of honour in place of the stigma we’re often subjected to when it comes to these things. I wanted people to be able to be proud of who they are, despite how difficult things may be.

black heart wrist

I was going through a particularly rough time myself. I’ve struggled with a variety of things in my lifetime, and I guess I just wanted to put that energy into something positive and help other people along the way.

We all know that we need to talk more, and that doing so helps enormously, so the idea was to create a chain through these blacks hearts.

One person has a black heart tattoo, someone may then ask them about it, opening up topics that may have otherwise not come around, they may then tell someone or even get one themselves, and so on. When people come in for these tattoos they really open up to me, whether I know them already or have never seen them before in my life. The tattoo chair is a fairly vulnerable place and with this project solely based around mental health, I think it kind of gives people a safe avenue to open up and talk about it. I’ve seen people around town who have come up to me weeks or months after their tattoo, and they update me on how they’re doing, or tell me that their friend got one. I’ve had people from Brighton to Scotland get involved in this project so it’s nice to know that even a handful of people from different parts of the country have been made to feel a little better about what they’re going through.

black heart project

I generally advertise on my Instagram when I’m going to be doing a flash day, and then take bookings and cram as many people in as possible! I’m looking to expand this project over the next year, I won’t say too much now but I’m planning on taking it into schools (obviously not the tattooing element), but I want to spread the general idea as far as I can.

I get asked what word I would have in a heart on every flash day and I honestly still don’t know! I think I would probably have a blank one, just as a starting point for the logo and the concept, and then if people ask I can direct them to the black heart project from there!

Still Not Asking For It Tattoo Flash Event

Still Not Asking For It

The worldwide tattoo charity event is back on Sunday 9th June 2019

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Born in 2015 by tattooer Ashley Love, Still Not Asking For It, an annual tattoo event, aims to bring people together to support and speak out about sexual assault and abuse. In their own words the charity fundraiser is ‘making efforts for awareness, prevention and recovery from sexual violence.’

Starting out in a just one tattoo shop, this year’s tattoo event sees over 80 tattoo shops and hundreds of tattooists and artists from around the world taking part in a co-ordinated charity flash day. From London to New Jersey, Johannesburg to Florence, tattoo shops are coming together to support this event and survivors.

Tattoo designs will be available from each artist in the shops, and the proceeds of these will raise money for local and national organisations that fight for issues around sexual violence. Each shop or artist will choose a charity to donate to, and since 2015 the event has raised and donated $367,000.

Just some of the tattoo shops taking part on June 9th:

Yellow Rose Tattoo, Salt Lake City
Red Point Tattoo, London
Diving Swallow Tattoo, California
Lotus Body Adornment, Utah
Lizzie Renaud, Toronto
Ninth Wave Tattoo, New Jersey
37tattoo, Peru
Tooth and Talon Tattoo, Manchester
Black Iris Tattoo, New York
And many many more

Make sure to follow @stillnotaskingforit_flashevent and #stillnotaskingforit2019 for more tattooists, tattoo shops and information.