Queer people love tattoos. We love wearing them on our fingers and feet, down our necks, and between our boobs. We love getting them in plant-filled studios and cozy living rooms. We love giving them to friends at the end of slumber parties, when the only glimmer of entertainment left is a pot of India ink, a needle or two, and the will to poke. And, of course, we love scrolling through endless pictures of them on Instagram, where our ink-riddled feeds brim with the hashtag #QTTR.
The acronym stands for “queer tattooer,” yet anyone who’s received a tattoo from a queer artist knows the designation also reflects something more: a unique sensitivity to the needs of queer clients, many of whom have had complex, even traumatic experiences with their bodies. That’s all the more reason to be tattooed, though all the more reason for the tattooer to maintain a culture of informed, enthusiastic consent while working, too. Tattooing involves trust, and lots of it. Understandably, a shared experience of queerness helps many feel more comfortable when allowing someone to inscribe something into one’s skin forever.
I learned as much for myself on a recent grey afternoon in Bushwick, when I visited the new queer tattoo studio smallshop. Founded by self-taught artists Emma Anderson and Zachary Robinson Bailey, the pair met earlier this year when Emma visited Zachary at their home studio in New York. After spending five days together tattooing and vibing over their shared devotion to their medium, they realized their flourishing friendship could be the start of something more, and decided to open a studio together. Emma went back to Chicago, where she was living at the time, to pack up her life. Six weeks later, she was back in New York, moving in with Zachary and their husband, Sonny. smallshop opened in September.
“We had a very good creative dialogue, so we wanted to create somewhere it could live not just between us, but between everyone working in this space,” says Zachary.
Emma agrees, the glimmer of a jewel peeking out from between her lips. “Since leaving art school about ten years ago I have hunted for that person who I can sync up with 100%,” she adds. “When I show Zachary a piece they understand why I did what I did without my telling them; they understand how my system of internal logic functions, how those pulleys and levers naturally interact with each other.”
