I first met Amber around 2008 when we both worked in a Fossil store at the mall. At the time she had a handful of tattoos that I don’t recall being visible at work, but over the years have come to encompass much of her body. She arrived in a tube top and shorts to make her ink accessible for the shoot, and our conversation began with me exclaiming, “You have a lot of tattoos! When did all this happen?”
“I was trying to look through, when it kind of blossomed. 2014 is kind of when it started getting heavy,” Amber said.
“I like to go at least twice a year. But money is a huge barrier. I do forget, quite a bit, how many tattoos I have, especially in the work that I do, like therapy with kiddos and adults and adolescents. Especially this time of year, I find it so hilarious because I’m covered. And then if I keep working with them, and they see me throughout the seasons, they’re shocked that I’m covered in tattoos. So I made sure that my profile picture, that like I’ve got a shorter-sleeved shirt on, and it’s showing at least some of this.”
“And sometimes people are not cool about it. Or are shocked, and I don’t want to be the topic of conversation, especially in my line of work. I want it to kind of be like, ‘Here’s who I am,’ at the beginning. I’ll even, during the winter months, sometimes wear capris or intentionally roll up my sleeves.”
Amber got her first piece at age 19, a black outline of three birds on the back of her shoulder. “I got it because my sister was going to get hers touched up, and I was like I really want something. I liked her tattoos and I was like, I will never regret this one because it has to do with my family. So it’s my mom, my dad, and my sister, and then the house that we grew up at had those orange day lilies. I was like I’m just going to pick three birds, because I love birds, that represent the qualities and character traits of my family. And I drew it initially, and then the artist barely did any edits, which I also liked. I was nervous about that, of having something on my body that I would look at later and be like, I don’t like that.”
She didn’t expect her collected ink to grow as exponentially as it did, but found deeper meaning in her tattoos as her body grew into adulthood and changed as well. “I thought I would be a person with like, four. I thought this was going to be my biggest tattoo [the birds on the back of her shoulder]. And then I fell in love with it. Especially growing with my body and getting used to my body and all of its changes. Like, these are permanent things that are really cool, that I can look at and enjoy no matter what my body looks like or does.”
Her favorite piece is the tangle of pumpkins on one arm, inked by Sara Bell at Lucky 13 in Richmond, who has done most of Amber’s nature-related tattoos.
On her opposite arm are two examples of the same species of newt at different stages of life. “The orange one is an adolescent version of the same one on the back, the back is the adult version. It’s an eastern spotted newt. I grew up catching them in my backyard. They’re an amphibian, so whenever it rained in my backyard, they would come out and walk around, and you could find them really easily because they’re orange. And then as adults they live in bodies of water, so I had to get the adult version too. They’re so fun. They’re so beautiful.”
She has a similar story tied to the blue-tailed skink wrapped around one knee. “Our cats would grow up catching them and biting off their tails, and their tails always grow back. Which I thought is just incredible. Even now, my cat brings them to me. I’ll find them in our rain barrel so I’ve covered up our rain barrel so they can’t get in there. They’re just really pretty. Something that has that vibrant of blue.”
Many of Amber’s nature tattoos are designed with the animal’s habitat and life stages in mind, the most impressive depicted down the entire length of one leg—the full life cycle of a monarch butterfly also inked by Sara Bell. “The caterpillar’s down there, the eggs are here, the chrysalis, and then him coming out of the chrysalis, and then him full grown.”
“That is the swallowtail butterfly,” she says of the piece on her opposite thigh. “And all of the things that she either feeds off of or the caterpillars lay their eggs on and eat. Queen Anne’s lace, thistle, fennel.”
All of Amber’s nature tattoos are chosen from some sort of personal attachment or experience she has with the species, like the box turtle on the back of her leg. “I grew up in the woods, and I would also catch them along with the newts. When I got my license, I would always stop and get them out of the street. They were always crossing the street where we grew up because we lived kind of in the middle of nowhere. So much so that my sister and my dad made this vest for me. It’s like an orange vest, like a safety vest, and it has ‘stops for turtles’ on the back of it. Because they’re like, ‘You’re getting out of your fucking car on 81 to like get a turtle out of the road, can you at least wear a vest?’”
I have a lot more of Amber’s tattoos and stories to share in a second post coming soon, including work commemorating loved ones and identity. Thank you for reading, you’re beautiful.