We were lucky to catch up with Christine Garcia recently and have shared our conversation below.

Christine , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.

Apprenticeships are a huge risk to aspiring tattoo artists because you can never know when you’re going to actually start making money from your craft. Some apprenticeships can last months and others can last years. While everyone’s apprenticeship looks different, it’s a universal struggle to determine when you’re ready to start tattooing people. There’s a lot of practice and technical knowledge that comes with being prepared to tattoo a human. Some of this is tracing linework, some is learning how to create designs, some of it is cleaning/ earning the respect of your mentor(s), and some of it is tattooing fake skin.

My apprenticeship ended up being a year long. It was extremely difficult to get through because I worked six 12 hour days per week and couldn’t make enough on the side with the one day off I had. I went through all of my savings and into a bit of debt during my apprenticeship to be able to afford to pay rent and buy food.

All of that being said, it was the best risk I could have ever taken. It has been a year and a half since I completed my apprenticeship and it is so amazing to be able to tattoo and make money through the job of my dreams. I absolutely love what I do and am so grateful to my past self for trusting the process of becoming a tattoo artist.

Christine , 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?

My name is Christine Garcia and I am a 26 year old tattoo artist from Colorado! I got my first tattoo at 18 and it was such a life-changing experience to see how big of an impact tattoos can have on things like body image. Growing up, I struggled to like some parts of my body, and through getting tattoos, I’ve learned that body art helped shed a more positive light on the way that I saw myself. They can make you feel more comfortable in your skin! I loved feeling more confident in myself in my body, and I wanted to do that for other people. Because of my educational background, I never really saw art as a lucrative business to get into. I had that stigmatized opinion in my head that there are only starving artists in the world.

After I got my bachelors degree in Public Health, I started working in my field, but I noticed that, as soon as I got home, I created art until I went to bed. My heart was in being an artist, and I ended up leaving my job to become a painting instructor at Painting with a Twist. Although it was a huge pay-cut, it definitely, more positively impacted my mental health. After starting my journey in the creative industry, I decided to look for apprenticeships and worked on getting my dream job is a Tattoo Artist.

It has been a year and a half, since I completed my year-long apprenticeship. I, now, tattoo full time and have my dream career! I specialize in color tattoos, including color realism, gold/chrome, watercolor/abstract, illustrative, and neotraditional tattoos. I also love tattooing black and grey designs and practice styles with stippling, illustrative, fine line, and micro aspects. Because of all these different styles that I am able to do, I don’t really have a set style as an artist and I think that versatility is what sets me apart from others.

I’m most proud of myself for getting through all of the struggles that come with an apprenticeship. It’s more than just a financial struggle. Apprenticeships are also mentally and physically exhausting with all of the possible tasks/hazing that come with them. Getting through all of that and being able to tattoo for a living is one of the most amazing and satisfying achievements I’ve accomplished for myself.

I look at every tattoo appointment as a collaboration piece between my client and I. I always want to create the design my client had in mind as close to what they were envisioning as possible and aim to harness an environment where my clients feel comfortable enough to communicate things they like or dislike about my design. This way we can get to a point where the design is exactly the tattoo they’ve been hoping for. I never want anyone to feel intimidated to say what they have in mind, especially with something that’s going to be on their body for the rest of their lives.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

I think the most rewarding aspect of being a tattoo artist is when you finish the tattoo and your client sees it on their body and reflected in the mirror as a new addition to themselves. When you give someone a meaningful piece, seeing them connect with and be emotionally impacted by that tattoo on themselves is one of the best feelings as a tattoo artist because I know that I’ve given them something that they are proud and happy to carry with them for the rest of their life.

How did you build your audience on social media?

Networking definitely helps to build relationships in the community and to build your audience on social media. If you interact with other people that you are inspired by or who’s are you feel that yours is very similar to or just someone you look up to and want to be like, those are definitely the people to connect with. Shout them out! Share them on your stories and maybe their reposts will have their followers check your account out!

My advice when you’re starting to build a social media presence is don’t let yourself focus too much on the numbers. Sometimes you’re going to post something that won’t get a lot of likes and sometimes you’ll post some thing that you don’t think deserves a lot of likes but it just ends up blowing up overnight. No one can ever be right on top of the algorithm and it’s never good to filter yourself to just try to be perfect always. It’s good to post your progress and it’s awesome to post where you start because one day you’ll be where you want to be and you’ll have something to look back at to see where you started and how hard you worked to get there.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://coloradonativecreative.com/
• Instagram: @Coloradonativecreative
• Other: https://linktr.ee/coloradonativecreative?fbclid=PAAaYfB4b4Gx4f9NUn5AnNdfnJVpAO46_p-YA_soOhdSItSwHnQXsGzUMnqyg