Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Melissa Yearwood. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Melissa, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

I have wanted to be a tattoo artist since I was a young kid, maybe ten years old. I have several family members with many tattoos, so it was never abnormal or taboo to me. I also grew up in a household around creative people, and have a love for many art forms. Tattoos particularly interested me because of the history, as well as the idea that the art is permanent on the person. I enjoy the beauty behind body modification – it gives a person a sense of self, confidence, and appreciation. I started taking tattooing more seriously around the age of 14. I would go around this particular shop in my city and look at the walls of tattoo flash, take pictures of their books of flash, and asked a ton of questions. I got lucky enough that the guys who worked there were genuinely nice and didn’t mind my questions and interest in tattoos.
Since then I knew I had to learn!

Melissa, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I’m a 24 year old self taught tattoo artist in Austin, Texas. I got into tattooing around February 2020, and have been learning and accomplishing so much since then! I generally enjoy tattooing American Traditional, Neotraditional, and sometimes illustrative styles.
My current place of work is Serenity Tattoo Studio. We’ve been open for almost a year, and my boss (Brandie Cottrell) has been tattooing for about 15 years.
In my spare time I enjoy drawing, painting, tending to my plants, spending time with my cats, swimming, and playing Dungeons and Dragons. I am a fairly introverted person and I feel like this job has really brought me out of my shell!
Tattooing is incredibly important to me, and has opened up a whole new world for me.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

Being able to support myself with just my art is incredibly rewarding to me! I feel very lucky to be in the position that I’m in, surrounded by the most supportive people I’ve met in this industry.

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

I hope that people learn not to take advantage of creators – whether it be tattoo artists, seamstresses, muralists, dancers, hair stylists/barbers, etc. We deserve to have leisure, days off, and to be paid fairly (what we ask). Haggling with creatives is one of the worst things, if you have a budget you’re trying to stick to just be upfront about it!
I think generally there is also a lot of pressure put on creatives to continuously pump out new work, which should be addressed more. We are people too! We need rest too!

Contact Info:

• Instagram: Instagram.com/tattoosbymelissa
• Facebook: Facebook.com/tattsbymelissa