Integumentary Embroidery
Lauren puts in her earrings to start the day at her house on Pine street, Mt. Pleasant, MI, Saturday, Feb. 27. The earrings are of a matching set given to her and her boyfriend.
Lauren looks down the hall at her boyfriend, Jack, as she asks him to grab her a water from the fridge before her first tattoo appointment of the day, Sunday, Feb. 7. After rushing around all morning to get ready for almost an 5-hour session of tattooing, she nearly forgot to eat.
Getting dressed and ready for the day in her tiny, upstairs bedroom that often “feels like a broom closet,” she is surrounded by a greenhouse of plant life, Saturday, Feb. 27.
Lauren prints out a tracer for her next client in the kitchen of her home, Sunday, Feb. 7. “This is an old house, and the only working outlet that‘s not taken is in the kitchen,” Lauren explains as she fiddles with her printer. “I used to have to draw out tracers by hand, so this is so much simpler.”
Lauren tattoos a client with a pinup girl, Saturday, Feb. 27. “I think her name should be Phoebe, she seems like a Phoebe,” Lauren said.
Several consecutive hours of line tracing caused Lauren’s hands to cramp, Sunday, Feb. 7.
Lauren browses nipple coverings at the local sex shop, Intimate Ideas, to find an appropriate covering for a client later that day, Sunday, Feb. 7.
Using a .35mm needle, Lauren primes it by dipping it in ink, Friday, Feb. 5. The needles are actually groups of tiny needles arranged in different patterns and sizes.
Lauren tattoos a cutthroat trout onto her own leg, Wednesday, Feb. 10. After several hours with her leg up on the table, her foot went numb.
After Lauren’s boyfriend Jack chugs most of her water while she’s doing homework, Lauren takes the bottle and sprays him, Friday, Feb. 19. “Ahh, hydration,” Jack said sarcastically.
After she takes a big hit from her vape, Lauren pulls up her mask and lets the smoke roll out the top, Sunday, Feb. 7. ”I’ve been trying to quit nicotine,” Lauren says. ”But I think I’ll quit tomorrow.”
Following a long day of tattooing, Lauren rests on her table, Sunday, Feb. 7.
A lifelong dream…
The things that we do with our lives define who we are, who we will be remembered as. The tasks that we undertake - a thread with which we get to weave into our world’s fabric. Stitching embroidery onto the fabric of time, we make our marks upon reality with prismatic, kaleidoscope thread that is our place in humanity.
With a hand-poke needle and ink for thread, Lauren Hunt has been weaving tattoos into the skin of her clients for years; an integumentary embroidery shaped by her hands in a simple, poetic motion. Tattooing for nearly three years now, it is clear to her that her calling, her stitch in the eternal tapestry, will be as an artist: “Tattooing is my everything,” Lauren said. “It feels like this is what I was destined to do.”
In her tiny studio she’s surrounded by plants of all different sizes and varying shades of green - a small forest of foliage if only the wood in the walls still had leaves. Her clients lay down on the black tattoo bed lined with zigzagging cling-wrap, rest their heads on an embroidered couch pillow as the air is filled with resplendent sunlight filtering through the faded window panes.
Her headlamp shines a beacon down on skin as a lighthouse guiding ships ashore, guiding her needle as it flits in and out with deft precision. With the utmost care and accuracy, she lines up her tracer - a guideline of sorts. It shows a tease of what the final product may be. The tracers are also the product of her background in graphic design - her major at CMU. She says that her major and her life’s passion compliment each other “like peanut butter and jelly.”
While tattooing is her main passion, graphic design is more of a fallback, something she’s doing to make sure she makes a living. “My parents know I don’t want to be a graphic designer, and they’re okay with that,” she said. “They both want tattoos from me someday, and they give me career advice. It’s invaluable to have that kind of support.”
From her first tattoo in high school, she says she was hooked: “I tattooed my best friend in my art ceramics classroom, just a simple pine tree after watching some YouTube videos,” Lauren said. “Honestly it was really sketchy, but I fell in love with tattooing that day.”
Hand-poke tattoos have existed as far back as ancient Egypt; the more traditional, non-electric counterpart to the process that we know today. But to Lauren, the traditional method is more personal: “Making every single little dot in a line, it just gets me closer to the tattoo and makes me focus so much more.”
In a trance, she works tirelessly as if existing for the sole purpose of finishing the design in front of her; “When I’m done tattooing, my everything hurts so bad. But I don’t even notice - time doesn’t exist when I’m tattooing. All I know is poke poke poke.”