Cattoos: How This Tattoo Artist Helps to Immortalize Beloved Pets | Short Film Showcase

[Music] My first cat tattoo was on my 18th birthday. Then came Patches, and then came a lot. [Music] More like a lot of teenagers, I suffered from depression. The best part about being a teenager, uh, was Patches because she was always there.

I would walk in the house after, like, doing whatever. If I was doing something bad, if I was doing drugs or if I was out late or if I was partying or whatever, she would just give me the same look every time. Like, "Oh hey, I'm so glad you're home! Let's hang out and cuddle." It was like consistent across the board; this would always happen. That was really awesome because I needed that, and I had her for about 14 years. I just knew I had to memorialize her with a tattoo. So, um, she's now on my arm and with me forever.

Hello! In the tattoo industry, cat art, feline art, is really popular right now—more popular than I've ever noticed. I’ve got deal withs like I always knew, since I started seeing tattoos, that people love to memorialize their pets. I have them myself, so I don't know; it was natural to do them.

Okay, do you want to take a stretch for a minute? Yeah, the cat tattoo thing really started after I did the cat kitty in a teacup on my husband's leg. I started to paint cats and then I got commissioned to do some cat art. Then I got a request to do another cat tattoo, and then it's just these things happen, you know? They spiral. Once you do something that somebody thinks is great, they get it, and then they tell their friends, and the friend gets it, and then another friend gets it. Pretty soon, you have a whole portfolio full of cat tattoos.

It took about a year of doing tattoos sporadically to now do them weekly. Yeah, hope it never ends. I found you online, like, I was—awesome! What platform? I don't even remember. I was just looking around, and I saw Google tattoo. You might—I think you might have coined that term! People are constantly asking me for them, and I am never tired of doing them. I will forever be grateful for anybody who lets me tattoo their pet on them because I know how much it means. I really like to be able to share that with them because they usually tell me their story of how awesome their cat is or how awesome their cat was.

I then can do the same about Patches and my cats now. I think he’s beautiful! Yay! I think it turned out amazing. Like, can you see it from the—? Yeah, well, I can partially see it. I'm partially interpreting. Yes, the top—the top third! Yeah, just picture that the whole way through. Exactly! I'm extrapolating, but I'm going to assume that the whole thing looks great.

A lot of them are really special, and a lot of them—some of them are just super fun. The person gets a cat tattoo because they just want something that feels good. That’s what I love about tattooing. You don’t have to get a tattoo that's so super meaningful, and it’s like so serious sometimes. It just makes you feel good when you look at it.

When I'm not tattooing, I'm drawing and I'm painting, and I'm focusing on learning new techniques and how to improve. A lot of times there's deadlines because you're commissioned for things. You're commissioned for paintings or you're commissioned to do a tattoo, so you have to draw the design for the tattoo, and that could be stressful.

So the best part about having the cats around is, uh, you know, if I'm just freaking out, like, and I’m over here painting and Dummy over there in the corner sleeping, I just—I don’t even need to touch him. I can just look at him for a minute, take a breath and go, "What?" People are very surprised when they hear I only have two cats because they hear me talking about cats and they see my art, and they're like, "She must have like 14 cats!" No, I mean, I have two.

I think two is a great number! Hey, PE! I think that's what's changed—the typical cat lady from what it was. It used to be one woman alone with like 20 cats. Now it’s like no, it's anybody! You’re in a relationship, or you're single, or you have a roommate and you have a cat— a cat or two cats, maybe, you know? It's not like this big thing.

Oh, life's [Music] tough! I would love to be a cat for a day; just a day. I love it! Little me looks so great! I gave him a very useful look! Yeah, so he'll be like forever 9 years old. That works for me.

Oh, so thanks! Thanks! Bye-bye, be safe! Okay, yeah, yeah. [Music] Know? [Music]