Blog-Miss Vix-July31,2006

Seattle's Secret Tattoo Artist

It isn't every day that a sweet but 'sharp' young girl wanders into a hardcore tattoo shop, with a portfolio of sketches in hand and gets hired on the spot. It's rarer still to meet a tattoo artist whose customers let her choose what she wants to ink on them.

But both are true of Faith - as she is simply known - who says that she visualizes her designs in her mind before digging in with a needle gun at Vix Tattoos. Faith's tribal style [is] already developing cult status in town while many even believe that these tattoos bring good luck.

But before you even think of it, be warned that you can't just walk in off the street and get a tattoo from this girl. no, Faith has to interview you first.

"For me it's the same as if the client is telling me what they want," she insists, choosing every word with care as she brushes back strands of auburn hair. "The image comes to me like it's their choice, only they just didn't know how to put it into words."

Getting Faith isn't easy either. First you are scoped out by Miss Vix herself at the main entrance before being escorted out of Vix's lair and down the back stairs by a big dude(?) with serious tattoos and even more serious attitude. He then guides you down a long narrow hallway to a dim basement room covered in pages of Faith's mysterious designs along with the usual tools of the trade.

Watching Faith at work isn't much different from seeing any other tattoo artist put customers through scream stifling pain - only Faith isn't covered in tattoos herself. At first, she spends a few minutes sitting contemplatively alongside her client before firing up the needle gun. In this case her canvas is a 22-year-old bike courier who says he's felt a whole lot safer dodging cars since Faith put her first mark on him three weeks ago.

Once Faith completes the last touches of her work - yet another cross between an ancient rune and squiggly lines from her personal lexicon - she leans in to whisper something in the courier's ear and he departs with a knowing smile.

Faith doesn't pretend that each customer's tattoo is unique but she also refuses to reveal if her designs are anything more than cool random symbols. And she just grins mischievously when quizzed about rumors that her renderings bring her clients good luck.

Faith's lack of self-promotion seems to work in her favor though for after only a few weeks she has a backlog of customers. She even claims to turn away those who aren't "real" enough for her. Is she starting to scare you off a little?

Don't worry, it might be good to get a little scared before going through the transformative experience of Faith's inspired needle-work - something that clearly comes from the heart, a refreshing fact in a business too-often inundated with over-Gothed images of the dark, the fiery and the fanged.