Founder of the all-female SheKnows Ink Tattoo studio Shelby Downey has been running her own spot since 2019 but has been involved in the industry for the past six years and continues to learn and experience new things.
During this time she has come to understand that people have their misconceptions about the industry. One of the oldest misconceptions about tattoos is the belief that they are scary or that they are for a specific type of people. Downey explained, “Tattoos are a form of storytelling, self-expression, self-love and growth. Tattoos are beautiful, and have been around for centuries, so why do some still fear it and feel the need to pass judgment on you as a person solely based on that?”
During her time, she has also come to believe that some do not take the tattoo industry and its art seriously. People have commented to her things such as ‘you just draw for a living’ and ‘if I could draw I could do that’ and she feels that undervalues the time, energy and resources she has sacrificed to be where she is today.
“We tattoo for sometimes more than seven hours a day, then go home and continue to do design work for clients until late into the evening, and then repeat. It consumes your life if you aren’t careful, so finding a balance in your work and personal time/life is extremely important.”
She has already experienced physically changes to her body due to this and at 25 years old she had arthritis and carpal tunnel syndrome from tattooing. She admitted that she loved the job and found it fun but hoped people understood that it was physically, mentally and emotionally demanding.
Downey has inked all sorts of tattoos on people and realised that tattoo trends seemingly change like the weather. “I have seen a lot of trends and fads come and go but at the end of the day, I believe that if the image or symbol has a personal meaning to you, even though I may have tattooed it 10 times that week alone, it still is meaningful to my client and that’s what matters in the end.”
She acknowledged that there was a pain tolerance one would have to have when getting a tattoo but because all people were different and get tattoos on different parts of their body, the pain does vary.
“I have had two tattoos that I physically cried during, one of which still isn’t finished after four hours, and two years later I refuse to have it finished. Those two tattoos were a big flower on my neck and a massive moth on my sternum that expands across to my ribs on both sides.”
