Today we’d like to introduce you to Meira Yael.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I’ve been drawing since I can remember! I was born in Jerusalem, raised Jewish, and so tattooing was never something I even thought about until I was a teenager, and fell in love with tattoos. I eventually met my first mentor at 18, and realized tattooing is a viable way to make art for a living. After a couple of years of (heavily annoying) hanging around, getting tattooed and picking his brain about tattooing, he finally told me to just go find any shop that will let me learn there. So I did. I was working in restaurants and at another shop. I was still scraping money together to continue getting tattooed by my (at the time, future) mentor. Eventually we both realized I was being used for free labor at the other shop and that they weren’t willing to help me learn. He finally took pity on me and agreed to apprentice me. That was almost ten years ago now. I came to Savannah almost six years ago for a guest spot, was offered a job at a brand new shop (White Bluff Tattoo, my home shop now still), moved to help get the business started and never looked back!
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
The first few years of my career in tattooing were difficult. Learning to tattoo on it’s own is extremely challenging, all consuming and really requires you to have a strong passion, love and dedication to tattooing in order to grow and improve. Many of us have sacrificed a lot to be where we are now.
As a young woman in a heavily male dominated environment, it was definitely a struggle to be taken seriously at first. I’d often get overlooked or told I didn’t “look or act” like a real tattooer. Things seem to have changed a lot for the better the past few years though. Femme and queer folks are much more visibly represented in tattooing now and it’s so wonderful to see!
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
Firstly, and most importantly- tattooing is a service industry. We’re here to help people make permanent additions to their only body. I think that’s a really important concept to drive home. Tattoos means a lot of different things to everyone. Not only do they give us the ability to physically represent ourselves more outwardly, they can help us heal. To memorialize or mark significant moments in our human experience. To accentuate part of us that we love, or to help us love parts of us we may not love quite yet. To get more in touch with our unique identities, or sometimes as a rebellion toward those same identities. There’s so many different reasons people get tattooed. I firmly believe the experience of getting tattooed carries as much as, sometimes even more, significance than the tattoos themselves. It’s definitely an exchange of energy. Getting tattooed can be such an intimidating experience, so it’s always been extremely important to me that anyone I work with feel respected and comfortable.
Artistically- I’m heavily inspired by anything derived from nature- people, plants, animals… life and death. The past few years I’ve also been focusing in more on imagery inspired by art I grew up around- lots of pottery inspired work, ornamental patterns and accents. It’s been really special, I’ve been finding a lot more people have been responding to my personal work lately and that is such an interesting thing for me- marrying the service aspect of tattooing with my own artistic expression.
Stylistically, I’d say my tattoos fall into the neo-traditional category.
So, before we go, how can our readers or others connect or collaborate with you? How can they support you?
You can find me at White Bluff Tattoo Co here in Savannah GA! My partner and I have also been traveling and tattooing more lately, but Savannah is home.
Email is the only way I handle my booking currently. When you email me, there is an auto reply detailing all of the information I need from you in order to book you, as well as explaining my current booking process further. You can also follow me on Instagram for updates, some of my work, travel details and pictures of my dogs!
Email- [email protected]
Instagram- @Meira_Yael
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/meira_yael
Image Credits
Kesha Shonet Photography @kshonetphoto
