247 Ink Magazine (December/January) 2016 Issue#12 | Page 128

Cleen Rock One: What was the first tattoo you ever got? M: My first tattoo was on my calf and it was a phrase “Here’s a toast to ships at sea” C: How old were you? M: I was old, like 23 C: Damn, that’s really old. Old for a first tattoo M: I never wanted tattoos when I was little. I was like a hippie girl and I wanted natural skin and I started seeing them on other people and I loved them and then I thought if I loved them on other people, why wouldn’t I love them on me and I was thinking about learning to tattoo and I figured the first step of any of it was to get a tattoo and see how it feels to be a tattooed person. C: Do you feel like since you started getting tattooed then to now the whole persona of tattooing has changed? M: I came into it pretty late, I came into it as a big change was beginning. I’m from a newer generation of tattooer but luckily I got to see the change. I studied in Maine and Maine is always like 10 year behind the rest of the country but the benefit of that was I had a very old school apprenticeship. I had to make needles, I had to clean in the shop, the motorcycles, I bought the coffees, I was shop bitch.. C: It sounds like I wanna get a job at this place. 126