It's All Been Revelatory

Vision Board 2025

I’m bad at commemoration because I hate the announcement of it, but it’s been one year and three months since I started Tattoo Passport on this platform. This started as a creative exercise for me, to bring me back to the reason why I love to write - talking to people. To have had a moment of connection with another human being, talking about something as intimate as their art is a joy that I have been blessed to experience several times over in the last year. I cannot express enough gratitude to the artists who have welcomed me into their world.

Making Tattoo Passport has made me consider how I, and society at large, engage with artists, artistry, and art criticism. It helped me evolve as a writer, and this year, I want to expand my breadth, which means there will be some changes to this newsletter.

First, what’s NOT changing? Tattooing will continue to be a staple. I will continue to profile tattoo artists because I love tattooists and tattoo culture. The themes that I cover will persist. I have never shied away from demonstrating socioeconomic and political issues as they impact artists, art making, and art consumption, and in fact, it will become more pronounced this year.

However, I will be doing more interviews with other types of artists, including painters, photographers, sculptors, maybe musicians etc. This is a space for discovery. Of course, I have aspirational profiles. Yet, I want to make a point of focusing on emerging artists—particularly younger artists.

There’ll be more essays (yay). I’ll delve more into long-form analysis. I will continue doing breakdowns of media (books, documentaries, articles, etc) about tattooing and tattoo cultures from around the globe. I want to write analysis pieces about political art movements (past and present), the origins of trends in contemporary arts, and more. I want to bring you along as I learn things, and hopefully, it helps you learn something as well.

Lastly, I want to incorporate more community-building/community-centric practices into this newsletter. I hope to do at least one guest spot this year with an emerging arts and culture writer. Last year, I used this newsletter to do some fundraising for the Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund, and I want to do more things along those lines. Also, I plan to share news from artists (featured in the newsletter) about their work and/or shows so anyone interested can support them.

It’s been an absolute pleasure to make this newsletter, and I am really excited for the year ahead.

P.S

Sharky released Volume #1 of I Sing the Body Electric, based on her research and interviews with Valerie Ann Watson, one of the first Black female tattooists in the United States. Click here to learn more.