We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Celli Villarreal a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Celli, appreciate you joining us today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?
I am honored to have the privilege to work full-time as a tattoo artist and newly registered yoga teacher. It is my mission to incorporate mindfulness into my tattooing practice. I always want clients to feel safe and confident with their design choice and to feel supported by me as their artist. With yoga, it is my mission to give back to communities who I believe can be under-represented such as those in trauma and substance abuse recovery. For me, tattooing has been a journey that is truly nurturing and healing my inner child. Being able to tap into my creativity, strengthen my drawing skills, and having an artistic career has been so freeing. At the same time, I truly recognize that stepping into the role as a yoga teacher is part of my soul mission here on this earth. Yoga and mindfulness have been the backbone of my personal trauma and substance abuse recovery. I never knew that beginning a yoga practice at 16 years old would be the seed to grow into a teacher today. I am currently embarking on a chapter of blending the worlds of these two ancient practices together. I believe there is a lot of darkness and uncertainty happening in our world which can be heavily amplified by media. I am here to fulfill my duty of providing light to those who want to create lifelong self expression through their body art, and to those who want to learn about creating a union between their mind, body, soul with the universal soul. We truly are the creators of our own realities. I have immense gratitude for this life.
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.
As a business owner, I manage myself as an artist. I have the honor to be a part of the Sentient Tattoo Collective team located in Tempe Arizona. My journey into tattooing has been a windy path. I initially began tattooing, only permanent makeup and small, fine line tattoos. My introduction into this world began in September 2021 when I completed permanent make up training. It was not until June 2022 that I decided to commit myself full-time as an independent artist; I opened my LLC and haven’t looked back. Over the years, I have stepped more into the world of body art. My tiny tattoos graduated into taking larger designs.
However, for the most part, I was a self-taught tattooer. After nearly a year of working with Sentient Tattoo Collective, I found myself feeling hungry to learn new skills. Currently, I am completing continuing education under Tyson Weed, owner of Sentient Tattoo Collective. I feel beyond honored that I get to call him my mentor. Completing a true body art apprenticeship is nothing short of humbling. There has already been many moments where I have questioned if I am strong enough as an artist, but the truth of the matter is growth happens amidst discomfort. The decision to take on an apprenticeship while already being a few years into my career as a tattooer has required me to constantly check in and reassess how to create the most disciplined version of myself yet. I feel as if I am an art school full-time, while running my business as an independent artist. Juggling answering emails as timely as I can with a growing clientele, managing my social media, drawing designs for clients, completing drawing assignments as efficiently as I can, and just managing my own personal life, living on my own in solitude, and being a momma to my senior dog can be challenging. At the end of the day, it’s completely worth it despite feeling moments of self-doubt, fear, and sometimes exhaustion. All those feelings are temporary.
Something, I truly value myself on as an artist is that at the core of all my work, is my mission of intertwining the world of healing arts into my services. My journey with yoga and mindfulness have been the catalyst to connect with myself, my intuition, and my soul. These practices keep me grounded. I have been a certified guided meditation teacher for four years, and I recently completed my 200 hour Vinyasa yoga teacher training. It brings me joy to create tattoos where my client feels completely safe, where they can take some time to just pause and leave everything that’s happening outside my booth to fall away. I love having my clients pull positive affirmation cards while their stencil is drying. Whenever I have a client who is feeling anxious, I take a moment to help them connect with their breath and guide them through a few rounds of breathwork to calm their nervous system. Often times clients are vulnerable by sharing their life stories. It is my great honor to have their trust, not only in creating permanent changes on their skin, but to allow me to be a listening ear. This life has taught me that sometimes all we truly need is to be heard and to know that we are seen.
I have intentions to continue blending these worlds together, especially now that I am a registered yoga teacher. It has always been an absolute dream of mine to become a yoga teacher. This past March I spent nearly the entire month in Bali while I completed my 200 hour vinyasa yoga teacher training. It was genuinely the most physically and mentally challenging experience I have endured yet. There were moments where I questioned if I was strong enough to finish the training. But I did! I am excited to share the knowledge I learned from my teachers whom were all from India. I eventually would love to teach for nonprofits or rehabilitation facilities for those in trauma and substance abuse recovery. As a way to celebrate those who have completed their program, I would love to offer them a one hour complementary tattoo as a permanent reminder of how strong they are to get through their program.
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
In December 2023, I left everything I knew in my hometown in Ohio. I made the choice to walk away from stability in my career being booked out three months at a time, which is my ideal timeline to be booked out with clients. I made the journey road tripping across the country to Scottsdale, Arizona. Arizona had been calling my name for quite some time. I always felt very drawn to the desert and the mountains, I was craving a radical change of environment. I especially wanted to be close to Sedona. I lost my grandfather too soon to liver cancer in the summer of 2021, and I always regretted not traveling to Sedona with him when he asked me to go just a few weeks before he took his final breath. All I knew was that when he came back from Sedona, he was so at peace. It felt as if that was the final task he needed to complete before leaving this physical realm on earth. And I must say, after spending some quality time in Sedona since moving here, I have received profound closure with my grief of losing my grandfather. I’ve had moments where I felt he was right beside me and I whispered, “I understand why you needed to come here. Thank you for guiding me to come here too.”
I am grateful I didn’t make the journey to Arizona completely alone. My partner at the time also wanted to move to Arizona for his career. However, our relationship had many tumultuous ups and downs. After just a few months of living in Arizona I made the choice to leave our relationship. Only living here for a few months I didn’t have too many close friends yet. I felt incredibly isolated and alone yet knew I was exactly where I was meant to be. It was not an easy choice to make the decision not only to leave the relationship, but to embrace living alone and fully supporting myself. In a blink of an eye, my living expenses doubled. Was I going to make enough money to pay rent and still have food on the table each month? Living in one of the most expensive cities not only in AZ but in the country, this decision certainly seemed daunting. I trusted my intuition guided me to walk away from a relationship that was no longer serving me for the highest good of all. In my mind, all I kept repeating to myself was “I either sink or swim. I choose to swim.“ I truly believe the power of our thoughts are so real.
As painful as it was to let go of a relationship, it gave me immense drive and motivation to create a sustainable life for myself and my baby girl, my senior dog Chickie. I had nothing to my name yet as an artist in a brand new city. But I knew that as long as I surrendered trust in the divine to have my back, I would be taken care of. It felt almost as a test from the universe honestly. I worked relentlessly on consistency with my social media. I created a website for myself. I trusted that as long as I continued creating tattoos, rooted in mindfulness and love, all would be well.
So here I am nearly a year later, and I am blessed to feel I am walking out of that “starving artist“ chapter. I am on the path of sustainability with my career, which is a beautiful sense of relief. I have created some of the most deeply connected friendships this past year. I feel surrounded by so many powerful women whom I know I can lean on whenever I need emotional support. I am excited to move in just a few weeks to be much closer to the studio in Tempe. And the cherry on top is more opportunities being presented through my yoga teacher journey.
Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?
Consistency with social media. Social media is a completely free tool that is so powerful. Yes it is an entire other job and requires hours of work each week. Yes there are periods where I might fall off here and there. I’ve grown to learn that quality is better than quantity. So I’ve shifted my perspective that I need to post every single day to creating more well thought out posts and styles I enjoy tattooing most. Creating my website and frequently posting on my stories with a link to my booking form also makes it super easy for clients to visit my website with a simple tap of their finger.
These days, it does require in some ways to be a content creator as an artist for visibility. I actually have grown to enjoy making content. Collaborating with other local businesses is also a great way to cross promote each other. I use the scheduling tool within the apps to schedule my posts, which is also helpful. I’ve tried using third-party scheduling platforms for social media, and I still haven’t found one that I necessarily love that is also budget friendly for a business of one. The last six months I have been sending a heartfelt message to new followers. I try to always extend gratitude to new followers because at the end of the day my growth does not exist without new clientele. I’ve had several clients who have scheduled with me simply because of my message I sent to them. They voiced that no artist had ever sent them a message like that so that’s why they decided to schedule with me. It’s moments like those where I feel confirmation that I am on the right path.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://Www.cellidubz.com
- Instagram: cellidubzink
- Facebook: Celli Dubz Ink
- Youtube: Cellidubz
Image Credits
Sedona Desert Photo: Mikayla Russell
All other photos: Celli Villarreal