Things I learned from being at a tattoo festival last weekend
Episode forty-eight
Firstly, no, I didn’t get a tatt.
I was invited to attend the West Australian Tattoo and Art Festival at the Royal Perth Showgrounds with my little business, From Scratch Baking.
To be completely and utterly honest, I felt like a fish out of water. I felt like a square peg in a round hole. I felt like I’d stepped into another whole universe where everyone was inked, pierced, enhanced, had hair colours like my fluro pens of the late 80’s, and obviously had hours and hours (and lots of money!) to sit and get drawn on.
And there was me, sitting behind my table full of cakes, completely devoid of any kind of tattoo, my hair greying naturally, my body still with all its original bits and pieces, and my little chicken earrings dangling precariously from my ears (my business logo is a chicken).
I was eyed with suspicion at first, and perhaps rightly so. These colourful people are used to mixing with their own kind. However we think we don’t do it, we all judge people from how they look. I might see a woman approaching me with blindingly pink hair, tattoos littered all over her arms, legs and up the back of her neck, her clothes a daring mix of ‘I just don’t care’ and ‘this is super cool’, and her footwear so huge it looks like she stole them off a massive statue.
But this is normal for her. And she’s quite lovely.
Her partner has those plug earrings that look like he’s stored a jar of lip balm in his lobes, his tatts go right up to his buttocks because he’s walking around in his undies with a half-inked picture there, his bald spot has a yin/yang design etched on it, and his clothes look like they’ve never even heard of an iron.
And they’re happy. They belong. They have three happies kiddies running after them.
That whole weekend, the entire three days, was a showcase of people with tatts relaxing in their safe space. I guess something comparable would have been me at a writers’ festival, or some sort of food show; it’s the world I inhabit. It’s the essence of who I am. It’s the place where I feel the most comfortable and able to Be Myself.
And for inked folks - that’s a Tattoo Festival.
My sales on the Friday were slow to okay, although that could have been from the delayed start. Because of the nature of getting a tattoo, where the artist is essentially puncturing your skin and inserting ink there, there had to be an inspection by the City of Perth’s Health Officer before any tattooing could begin. And (apologies to anyone who works within a council office) by nature of a council, the guy was late. He was hours late. The event was supposed to kick off at 10am - we’d all been there since 8am to prepare ourselves - but no customers could be let in until the inspector had been.
Eventually he rocked up at 11:30 {eye roll} and wandered around the massive hall with a rather perplexed look on his face. Inspection done, the tattooing could commence, and all the people standing out in the driving rain were able to come in.
About half an hour later, I saw him wandering over to where I was, so I got all my documentation ready. To attend markets, I have to have multiple pieces of paperwork; permission from my local shire to bake at home, permission from the place of the market/festival to be there (can you hear that cash register jingling?), and public liability insurance for $10 million.
I showed these documents to him and waved a hand at the hand-washing station the City of Perth council insist anyone with food have at their stall.
He got his phone out and made an attempt at taking a photo of one of my documents, but his eyes were as wide as dinner plates as he glanced around at the people around us.
‘I think I’ve got more worries here than food,’ he mumbled, stumbling off towards the wagyu biltong stand next to me.
Saturday was a better day. For starters it didn’t rain, it was the weekend, and people streamed in when the doors opened at 10am on the dot.
The tattooed folks who had bought my cakes on the Friday showed up early to get their treats. I’d sold out of a few of the items by early afternoon the day previous, and people clearly didn’t want to miss out. I got chatting with a few of them, some of them came back two or three times during the day (I was there from around 8:30am to 5pm - the festival went on until 9pm with a concert, but I figured Cake Time was over by then)
And you know what? Take away the bejewelled dreadlocks, the ink creeping up their necks like some sort of horror movie, the nipple piercings (OUCH), and some of the images scribed on their skins, (OMG) and they’re just normal people.
In fact, it’s not about taking those things away, it’s about being able to look past them, to see the human underneath.
Sunday was a huge day. The weather forecast was for actual tornadoes, lashing rain, and damaging wind. It certainly didn’t deter anyone from attending the festival as far as I could see.
As per the previous two days I took my laptop to do some writing, because it’s a very long day, and there were large swathes of time during which everyone was busy getting inked, not seeking a sugar rush.
However on Sunday, I think I got as far as opening it and turning it on. The rest of the day I was chatting with people, selling cakes, and really, really enjoying myself. It was almost like these colourful people and I had reached a truce of sorts. I didn’t have tatts, and looked like a little cornflower in an orchid hot-house, but my cakes were AWESOME! And the word had got round the pavilion.
One guy who I’d seen walk past several times over the weekend, stopped and sighed late Sunday morning.
‘I can’t eat anymore chips,’ he said, gazing at my beautiful baking, ‘this here is whole food, I need me some of that.’ He walked away eating one of my Keto Berry Slices and a huge grin on his face. ‘Awesome!’ he called back to me.
Another lady and a friend bought a piece of my Gluten Free Choc Cashew Salted Caramel Slice to share, and walked away with it. Literally minutes later, they were back. ‘OH. MY. GOD,’ one of the women said. ‘That slice was the best thing I’ve ever had. Can I have another ten?’
So I filled a box with my homemade deliciousness for her, she paid me, and walked away a very happy lady.
Artists who were on the whole other side of this massive place - 3,220 square metres of space - traipsed all the way over to the other side to buy a treat from me, and stop and chat.
People came twice, three times. People came who said the artist next to them had recommended me.
People stopped and smiled at my chicken logo, then kept walking. I always like to think that maybe they didn’t taste my cakes, but I was able to give them a smile.
And you know what?
Tattooed folks love good cake, just like you and me.
They might look intimidating. The art on their bodies might even look decidedly frightening and not something you want to spend a lot of time looking at.
But that’s exactly what it is.
It’s art.
And art is made to confront us. It’s created to make us think. It’s there to catch our eye and maybe shock us. It helps us explore emotions and concepts and shakes up our preconceived ideas about what’s beautiful. A yawning shark jumping from a bed of red roses mightn’t be what you want swathed across your back, but that’s exactly what one guy had.
And who are we to say it’s not art?
Some of the work I saw over the weekend was stunning. You wouldn’t see better on a piece of canvas in a gallery. And yet this art is the type that people wear - it’s on their skin for the rest of their lives. It becomes a part of them. It means something to them.
So the next time you see a person with tatts all over, try not to see them as some fool with too much money, buckets of time, and a complete disregard for what the ‘rest of us’ determines as ‘normal’.
That person is a walking art gallery. They’ve chosen to decorate themselves this way to perhaps fit into a culture that is loud, proud, embracing, and incredibly talented.
I look forward to seeing these people again next year, if I’m invited back, and maybe (MAYBE) I might even get some teensy tiny microscopic tattoo myself.
Maggie xx
I love that you are thinking of getting a tattoo!
What a legend MaggieFromScratch - both at cakes AND at how to treat others with kindness and respect whoever they are and whatever they look like 🏆