A testimonial from a great client.

Me tattooing Carina

Jen has been my tattoo artist for two years. A couple months ago I moved far from Jen. I finally made the decision to get my first tattoo since working with Jen. Jen was always open with me, and shared her work preferences and art styles on Facebook and her blog, which always made me trust her work, vision, and flexibility. Being that art work was always a team effort with Jen, I wanted to be sure that my new tattoo artist was the same. After searching through possible shops I finally found a tattoo artist whose work I was really impressed with. I went in to meet with this artist while she worked on a tattoo for a friend of mine. I was able to see the delicate and deliberate way that she worked and I felt confident in my decision to choose her for my next tattoo. When I went in for my art consult, the artist actually sat down with me and designed the art with me so that the entire thing was our collaborative creation. She sat and measured and shaped, and resized – I really enjoyed feeling ownership of my art. I had learned from Jen that artists should have an open mind to new creations, but that artists are the experts in tattoos, and not me. Jen made me comfortable to expressing my ideas for art, while not feeling entitled to knowing what was best – I have great ideas, but I don’t know how ink and needles and skin work together. Between my new artist’s expertise and my ideas, we made a beautiful art piece. Being that the tattoo was placed on the inside of my elbow area, I had a difficult healing process. My beautifully completed tattoo needed some serious touching up. I was afraid that I had finally made the decision to get a highly visible tattoo (compared to the multiple tattoos that cover my thighs) and it was “ruined” because of dropping of color during the healing process. I went to the tattoo artist and expressed my severe stress and she was patient and kind and quickly scheduled a touch up appointment free of charge. The tattoo, recently touched up, is healing nicely once again. It was amazing to feel confident in my ideas and communication with my tattoo artist because of the safe creative space and education that Jen offers at Valkyrie. My experience with Jen will always be the foundation of my future tattoo artist searches and advocacy. Jen and Valkyrie tattoo will always be my “tattoo home”. I already plan on returning for a new piece with my mom and sister as soon as I return to California.

The wonderful Carina

Carina's tattoos