Tattoo Artists Feel ‘Forgotten’ As They Cope With Covid Shutdowns
HALIFAX—Tattoo artists in Nova Scotia say they feel “forgotten” by the provincial government, as they struggle to cope with patchy communication and strict shutdown requirements.
Last week, tattoo shops were forced to close as part of the provincial government’s push to get a surging Covid-19 pandemic under control.
Initially, tattoo shops and other service businesses like hair salons and massage therapists were forced to close completely, while the government left open malls and other retail businesses.
The province has since gone into a complete shutdown as Covid-19 continued to spread, but its initial decision to shut down tattoo shops while leaving other businesses open wasn’t new.
That didn’t sit well with many artists.
Nathaniel Hartley is a Halifax-based tattoo artist who works at several shops in the city.
He points out that tattoo parlours are very sterile environments and have only become cleaner as new Covid-19 measures are put into place.
He believes the risk of infection at a tattoo shop is close to zero and says he feels more comfortable going to work than he does picking up his groceries.
“We’re doing everything possible: cleaning things up bazillion times a day, on top of all the cleaning we already normally did. And then, you know, you see people touch the same bottle of Coke 15 times at Sobeys and nobody bats an eye,” he says.
The Nova Scotia Health Authority has never issued a public exposure notice for a tattoo parlour and NSHA’s Brendan Elliot told Huddle neither he nor his colleagues can recall a time Covid-19 was spread at one.
“That’s why it’s so frustrating. You see these lists of exposure sites and they’re all shopping centres and retail,” Hartley says. “I understand that people need to work and these things need to stay open but, at the same time, we need to work too and we’re not the ones who were actually spreading [Covid-19].”
“It just seems a little backwards and exceptionally frustrating. Because, of course, the piercing shops and the tattoo shops are local, smaller and businesses and we can’t survive multiple lockdowns,” he says.
“I just feel like, I just feel like, ah!” he says.
On top of that, tattoo artists are often unsure exactly which restrictions even apply to them.
Jillian Morris, who’s known professionally as Jillian Dawn, says she often doesn’t know what restrictions apply to her when the government makes new shutdown announcements.
“We don’t even get our own category: we have to kind of guess where we’re lumped in,” Morris says. Do they follow rules for salons? Massage parlous? It’s often not clear from government communications.
“I feel like we are so forgotten,” Rebecca O’Quinn adds. “Like, I haven’t even gotten an email from the health authority or a liaison at all. We’re just kind of completely in the dark about everything.”
O’Quinn runs Halifax’s Heirloom Tattoo and says most of the time she gets updates and information from Instagram accounts rather than government sources.
Meanwhile, she says she still hasn’t recovered from the last time she was forced to shut down and is now being told to close again.
She’s been operating for five years and has two employees. But because of how her business is structured she doesn’t qualify for most government support.
She worries about being able to keep the business afloat through an extended shutdown, and a lot about how her employees will survive.
Last week, she found herself awake at 2:30 in the morning scouring government websites for some program Heirloom qualified for. She didn’t have much luck.
Then, she tuned into a provincial Covid update and heard Premier Iain Rankin give vague promises about giving more help for local businesses through a fund administered by Dalhousie University.
“I’m like, well, that doesn’t help. What does that do for us? We’re out of work, there’s no way to make any money,” Rebecca said. “There’s like so many of us that don’t have anything to fall back on.”
To make ends meet, most tattoo artists survive on a combination of savings, government support programs, and selling artwork.
Hartley says he plans to make a few extra bucks selling t-shirts and stickers. O’Quinn plans to do a few custom drawings.
The projects can provide some financial relief “but it doesn’t really cover everything,” O’Quinn says. Most artists say they will be fine, even if, like Morris, shutdowns have put a “huge dent” in their finances.
O’Quinn says her business will likely survive as well—if the shutdown doesn’t last too long.
“As of right now it’s okay but it’s not great. I mean, I’m going to make rent next month, and probably the next month. But at the same time if we stay closed for more than a month I don’t know what we’re going to do,” she says.
“Mostly I worry about my employees. I worry about them a lot,” she adds.
Along with the financial stress, Morris points out that the whiplash between being closed and open takes other tolls on tattoo artists.
Every time the government forces them to shut down on short notice, artists must scramble to reschedule their appointments.
Booking takes a ton of time and Morris says it’s “very exhausting and very time-consuming” to cancel and rebook dozens of appointments at the last minute.
“A lot of tattoo artists do all their own scheduling, all their booking, they do all their own drawing. It’s a lot of work on our end,” she says.
“I’m extremely frustrated by [the most recent shutdown], if I’m going to be selfish. I’m extremely frustrated and really annoyed because I have about 40 people to rebook with no time to put them in.”
Hartley has felt the same stress.
“Sometimes you’ve got a full week full of people, and then you find out that the next day that we’re shut down. There’s this mix of, you’re worried about your own personal life and finances and then at the same time, you’ve got to worry about all these clients that you’re supposed to get in and all these deposits that they paid,” he says.
He says the “back-and-forth” makes is the hardest part “because you’re never really quite sure of how to feel or what to expect your life to look like in a week.”
While Morris, Hartley, and O’Quinn all expressed frustration with how their industry has been treated during the pandemic, all three said they generally support how the government has handled the pandemic.
Hartley said he understands decisions need to be made quickly and could mostly forgive the shoddy communication tattoo artists have received from the government.
Morris, meanwhile, urged people who want tattoos to be patient with artists.
“Be aware of tattoo artists. I get that it’s frustrating that you can’t get a tattoo right now. I get that it’s frustrating for things to be re-scheduled. But at the end of the day, please remember we’re only one person. I can’t tattoo more than what I can output. I’m one single human being, I only have two hands,” she said.