We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Carlotta Saracco. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Carlotta below.
Carlotta, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.
For the tattooing process, even if I started an apprenticeship in a shop I must say I am self taught. My attraction to this practice trace back to a long time ago. I would say right after highschool during my years of fashion school. I immediately was very connected to the weirdest and punk fashion designers like Vivienne Westwood, Alexander MQueen, Jean Paul Gaultier , who definitely use the tattoo imagery in their designs. The relationship between the sewing machine and tattoo needles is very thin, as is the making of a sewing pattern and an important back/sleeve/thigh piece. So I already had the notion of the body shape when I first started tattooing. After all isn’t skin just living leather?!
I asked an apprenticeship 10 years later. After I realize how deeply connected I was to this ritual and of course after I did get some ink myself! During all my travels I started being obsessed with people’s choice of getting art under their skin. How in Asia it’s a different technique and link to a spiritual level than in Europe. How in America people have a very easy access to it, as if they were just getting a new haircut.(etc..) In a few words the cultural and traditional craft that it represents and the way it heals through the pain itself. A tattoo is not only a mark on your skin, it defines a moment in your life. It is also a way of accepting your body, marking an event, showing where you come from, choosing your own scars, make it the most unique for you so you feel stronger.
I couldn’t decide to touch a machine before knowing how and why, so I asked an apprenticeship far from my hometown, to a very special artist to me. Indeed he was the first that showed me it was possible to draw on the skin and not tattoo in a very traditional way. I will always be thankfull to this person for the chance that he gave me to observe and learn his very essential technical gestures, and to have believed in my drawing skills. I was 29 years old at that time and -fortunately- was not ready to be broken by certains behaviors, so I choose to leave my mentor’s ship before it was too late and before we had no more respect for each other. In this field (as in many unfortunately) it is too common to face a dominating/submissive relation between apprentices and masters. To all apprentices in all fields: Never accept any situations you feel abusive or uncomfortable with!
So I chose to make it by myself, not totally unscathed from the few months I spent in this shop and was about to begin an intense journey in the tattoo industry.
I think if you want to become a tattoo artist, you need to be very aware of your physical and mental limits, in 2 words: your sensitivity. You need to work very hard on your drawing skills and observation, and be very careful of the person you will be tattooing with. Never forget your canvas is a human being that needs to be respected and carefully treated. Listen and be patient, always.
Carlotta, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
I am french with Italians origins, indeed Carlotta is my real name. As I said before, I have an artistic and fashion background. I did a few internships with some of the best fashion designers 15 years ago (Jean Paul Gaultier, Karl Lagerfeld..) and then started to work as assistant of a well-known french/Belgium costume designer (Pascaline Chavanne) on a few movie sets.
After this experience, I needed to express myself not only on paper but also on stage, so I went to drama school and followed Jack Waltzer’s masterclass in NYC. Realizing I was too tall for a movie/stage career (yes, I’m 6 feet tall ;) I needed sometime to travel and discover my innerself. It is during this moment of deep self connection that I faced the real attraction I had for the tattoo practice.
I am proud that I am here today thanks to my determination and it hasn’t been an easy thing for me to say. I had the chance to always follow where my heart was telling me to go and even if the path was difficult. I can certainly say that I am free to do what I love, to connect with people very deeply during my tattoo sessions and travels, to have found a beautiful crew to work with and most of it to have a community that really understands my art. Indeed I never accepted to tattoo anything else than my own drawings.
My inspirations are multiples (I think you can tell the link with fashion and cinema) but I would define my work as “ecofeminist”. As I love to include the female body in botanical compositions, in my drawings as in my ceramics. My ceramic work is the next step for me as an artist. It is a way of creating in volume, with my hands, contemporary genderfluid shapes, with very natural textures of clay. It is also in link with the skin, as I want people to feel the need to touch them. And maybe in both my arts there is a connection to feminism and erotism.
I like also to paint on fashion magazines, female colorfull naked bodies to give a bit of shapes to these “bored ladies” (as I call this serie of artwork).
What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
To me it is when people reappropriates your vision. When after a tattoo session, the design we built with the customer doesn’t belong to me anymore but will now live with the body that adopted it forever. It can be a bit vertiginous. For example I have the chance to sometimes tattoo dancers and acrobats. It is amazing for me to think that my tattoos will live a new life on stage and be part of their creations as their body is their most important tool.
What I really love with tattooing is to face the immediate reaction and satisfaction of the person that chose it.
As with sculpting: I have to wait to have many pieces before I can show it to a crowd. I really love to listen to people’s reactions when I make an exhibition. It is when something you created in a very personal and lonely process finally meets the eye of strangers that it make sense! When people feel something (positive or negative) the beauty of it comes up.
Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?
Yes I think my life’s choices can be hard to understand for non-creatives. Even though I think we are all creatives in the end but some people struggle to see it. Also I don’t think all human beings are able to take the shape of what the society and the economic system inflict. I think we are raised in societies that scare us with insecurity and make us believe that time is money. It doesn’t give the time for people to face their feelings and true desires. I say that knowing that I am lucky I was born in France. This country gives to the youngest free access to culture and artistic studies.
I know there was a time when I was going through a very dark moment in my life. Without that moment and the feeling of hitting the very deep emptiness I would have never had the clic to just give everything I had to try it in the tattoo industry. People are scared to lose everything but I think the opposite: you have everything to win if you try! Whatever gender/age you are, whatever background you come from: believe in yourself!
Many people in my circle are very talented but never tried hard because of a bad self estime and fear, and I think it’s really a waste. So believe in yourself, always be curious, know your limits and go for it!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://
carlottasaracco.wordpress.com/ - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/
carlotta_ink/ - Other: ceramics: https://www.
instagram.com/lescorpsdargile/
Image Credits
Carlotta Saracco