Speaking to Gemma I found out that it was through an initial interest in body modification that she became interested in tattoos. She was head piercer and then went traveling. Through traveling she found her style of tattoos that she wanted to do ( very much floral/henna/symmetrical patterns/ eastern and bold style) After traveling she decided she wanted to open up a friendly and approachable tattoo shop (which I can say is definaly true, as its the place I got my first tattoo). Gemma sees tattooing as a pure art on the skin, she also said that there is a lot more of a community with people who have tattoos rather then a community of the tattooists themselfs (due to the fact they are always working) to help with this Gemma runs the Norwich body art festival. This is 2 days of artists showing their work and also tattoing ( it involves 100 artist coming together) Her vision for indigo is for it to be a place where women are seen as strong tattoo artists as well as men, so it becomes an equal place for art.
How will this help develop my work?
Something I took away from this interview was the idea Gemma said about how she works with the body when she tattoos . Thats something I feel I can use for things like henna designs, as working with the body is part of the art of it in my opinion.
This is so engaging...loving the interest in tattoos!