We recently connected with Margarida Conceição and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Margarida thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. How did you learn to do what you do? Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process? What skills do you think were most essential? What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?

I learned how to tattoo around 10 years ago. When I started there were no self taught artists, mostly no women tattooing in Portugal, much less a half chinese women. There were only traditional tattoo apprenticeships where you would have to stay for 10/12h a day 6 days a week in a studio, doing free labor (managing the studio, taking care of clients, drawing, preparing stations, cleaning everything, making stencils, running errands, taking care of personal problems of the masters,…). No payment, no nothing. I wasn’t able to pursue my own style, you did what the client wanted and that was it, I was told I would be treated as one of the guys, that I was the first women they taught but I would recieve the same attention, that they would get rich out of my work and abilities, that I was there because my chinese dad was kinda intimidating and was very supportive, which was weird to them, that this is what I had to do and then maybe in 1 or 2 years I would know how to tattoo. I was even told to just look videos on youtube if I wanted to learn, as if that wasn’t the goal of being there. I was lucky that I was stubborn and was really good at what I did, I was drawing since I can remember, I never stoped and always learned very quickly, and I have a disdain for authority, so actually, the best think you can tell me is how you don’t believe I can do something, so I can make sure you have the best spot to make you see me succeed.
I got out of there, I started to learn at home, found a part time job, started tattooing friends and friends of friends, after 1 year of tattooing at friends’ homes I finally saved enough money to rent my own studio, and then everything got better. In the first month I opened my studio my path crossed with another tattoo artist, Patricia Shim, and I found that there were other women and queer artists learning how to tattoo and to navigate this very male dominated field, just in the same month 3 contemporary tattoo studios opened in Lisbon with the goal of breaking from the traditional tattoo setting and allow others to explore the practice, mine, Flourish studio (now Piri piri), Pantano studio ( now Quarto Escuro and Lusco Fusco) and Fiasco. With that, a community was formed, a wave of women and queer tattoo artists exchanging knowledge and teaching each other, helping navigate the practice and how to make sure that what we went through stoped with us and others would have a better way to enter this practice.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I’m a multidisciplinary artist and a full time tattoo artist, my work is how I explore my chinese ancestry, identity and how I cope with reality. I use everything that inspires me to create, being from growing up in the countryside, loving plants, my favourite artists, my philosophies, books, anything really.
I tend to use my paintings and writing to transcribe my reality and my feelings, my illustrations to bring some color and joy to others, and tattoo as a way to regain our bodies back from societal expectations.

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

Society is a fabric created out of different lines, each is as important as the other and only together do they sustain the purpose of a cohesive society. Artists and Creatives have been losing their importance in society for years now, on the other end, our content and creations are required and cosumed like they were created out of thin air or machines. Arts fuels and guides our society, both for better or worse, but only by giving the credit artists deserve, pay what they are worth, providing a secure and commodating enviromental for artist to freely create, educating, can we improve and create what we want and not what we have to create in order to have a way of surviving, but this goes for so many different lines of this fabric, that are not seen with the importance they deserve and are treated as less and nonessencial. As far as the subject of artists go, I’m dreaming of the time where I can be just a painter, a tattoo artists, a writer and a illustrator, where I dont have to be a videographer and editor, a photografer, a media content creater and manager, an influencer, or create with the word content in mind and just create for the love of doing it.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

My dad used to mold me to enter into medicine or biology, I was a very good student and had the possibility to go to any area I would like to. My mom used to joke that I was born with a pencil in my hand, and since I can remember she would show me Fine Arts University in Lisbon, so I think my dad never had a chance with this kind of influence. It is not a easy path, but again, I dont think the others would be easy too. This one thrives in individuality, people spot you if they see something different, something that resonates with them, something that shakes them, and I find that mesmerizing. I have always been the odd ball, the only chinese girl in a village near Lisbon for 18 years, the racism, xenophobia and everything else was overwhelming and it made me who I am, but the good part is that, since I never fit in, I could be whoever I wanted to be because there was no box where they could put me, I call it the liberty of being the outcast. In a society that thrives on educating people fabric mode, I believe that art is one of the ways people can discover themselves, and at the same time understand how it connects with others. I don’t like the narrative that the artist has to create alone and out of misery and sadness, so I learned how to created out of love and curiosity and found a community that wants to do the same. I wish that for everyone, in any field you find yourself in, discovering the joy of being yourslef and not what other want you to be.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://creating-daisy.com/
• Instagram: @creatingdaisy