Meet Lindsay Miller

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Lindsay Miller. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Lindsay below.

Hi Lindsay, thank you for being such a positive, uplifting person. We’ve noticed that so many of the successful folks we’ve had the good fortune of connecting with have high levels of optimism and so we’d love to hear about your optimism and where you think it comes from.

I think it’s common in any creative field to have a mindset of “how hard can it be”. Once you adopt a self-learning method of approach; new skills, obstacles and pivots begin to appear more attainable. That mindset provides me with a lot of comfort and grace for myself as I navigate throughout my creative journey, while it also reminds me that everybody starts somewhere. It’s these constant reminders that bring me back to my ‘why’ for doing what I do – because it brings me joy and allows me to connect with others on new levels of understanding for one another. With these grounding repetitions, I find comfort in my growth and setbacks because I believe it all leads up to where I’m supposed to be going/doing.

I do think optimism and positivity have always somewhat lived within what I do – it can be easy to foster these feelings when you don’t have anyone looking. Because I started my art journey for myself and because I enjoyed working with my hands to make an idea into something physical, I did not feel the pressures of comparison or self-criticism. Almost as if I myself was working in a vacuum. This gradually began to changes as I enrolled in classes and took to social media to share my work but that foundation of creating for myself really helped to support me in combatting negativity. While it can be challenging now to ignore comparison of myself to others (especially now that I’ve entered the tattoo industry), I always find grounding myself by looking at how far I have come and focusing on my own journey helps – everyone is on a different path – at their own pace and it’s so important to remember that your journey is just that – yours.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

Let’s start from the beginning – my love for art, how I try to immerse myself in creative endeavors while walking a business line. In high school, I developed an affection for painting. My process was to collage aspects of my life using photographs and reference images in a scenic self-portrait manner and transition those to an acrylic painted piece. Therefore, starting my ongoing fixation with trying to articulate ‘who we are internally’ as humans through various interpretations. At the same time I was engrossed in classes for film/tv video – all which lead me to want to choose a more creative career to pursue through college.

Graduating from RMU with a concentration in graphic design – all of my favorite classes however were studio ones. For the first few years post college I lived simultaneously in a corporate design role and painting in my free time (nothing substantial to start). My collection of completed canvases grew – which launched me into the creative community in Pittsburgh. I thought “If I could sell some of these, I could have more space in my studio room to paint, and use the profits to buy supplies”. So it really became a cyclical thing. I was vending at local festivals and tabling in different boroughs around the city – reaching out to anything that was happening to see if I could participate. Vending days were long but so fulfilling. I’d pinpoint that this is probably where my want for more connection in art began. I loved the whole process of these festivals and getting to meet so many new faces.

Inevitably there came a point where I began to feel burnt out – that my motivation to create began to started to shift towards making money or even just creating for the sake of having an inventory. When I noticed this pattern develop I decided to take a step away momentarily and get back to being intentional with my art. Goals shifted, how I wanted to pursue my creative endeavors had changed. In my hiatus (about a year or so) I missed that interaction with new people – finding common ground in appreciation and love of art. I am so thankful and fortunate that my solution to this came swiftly and I began a tattoo apprenticeship. Trajectory wise – it all was clicking. I could work with my hands, draw, and get to work closely with people again. Since then, I’ve completed my apprenticeship and have been tattooing clients for about a year and a half now. I’m a single-needle artist – dipping between pools of illustrative realism and conceptual custom designs. While I am still building my books and fostering new relationships – I am most excited to take the themes I love to paint and transfer them to tattooing.

I think at my core (and college helped too) I do walk the line between business minded and creative minded. I find so much joy in finding solutions to designs, planning events, and ironing out a process. My love/admiration of so many different creative facets will always keep me occupied and I love jumping between design work, painting, tattooing, and social content creation. How can we create more time in a day to include even more!

Coming around the bend, I’m looking forward to spending more time on creating more custom designs to build out my flash – hopefully incorporating some more color and architectural concept work (my ongoing fascination), planning a new painting series with the goal of holding a show in the coming year. I’ve got a lot of aspirations, and I am just so thankful for everyone that has given me an opportunity. It’s all about how you want to spend your time and prioritizing what’s important to you.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

• Advocate for yourself. Especially when starting out it helps to be your own hype-woman(man). If you’re excited and passionate about what you’re doing – share it and others will reciprocate the energy. That kind of energy is contagious so also make sure to surround yourself with people who inspire you. And back to the advocating for yourself – if you want something – ask. If you see a potential opportunity or something you want to try – ask. Worst case they say no. Be your loudest advocate and create doors you want to open. By putting yourself out there and believing in yourself you can move so much faster towards where you want to go. If this is new to you – my advice would be to start small. Simple introductions to people in the community you’re trying to enter – once you get comfortable representing yourself like this it can be an easy flow to asking for opportunities.

• Something I’m still learning; value your time. Easier said than done when trying to put a price tag on your time. There are so many facets to this though. I’ve experience this when charging for freelance design work; being unsure of what others are willing to invest for a certain quantity of work I felt I would undercharge greatly. And while I understand the “paying your dues” and accepting whatever work you can while getting started – look at the other side and make sure you hold value in your time to take breaks if this is the case. I know balance may come down the line but it all comes down to how do you want to spend your time – what is worth what to you. Another big note off of this is to not be afraid to talk about pricing. It can be perceived as taboo to talk about pricing but I think it’s more helpful by being open about it – especially when getting started with anything because you’ll receive immediate feedback that you can adjust based off of.
• Going off of the previous one – its important to take a step back and reflect. This can be on work you’ve done, a project, how an event went. This is such a good way to grow and improve. If your nose is always to the ground and you’re worried about just grinding all the time – you won’t get to see the bigger picture. By temporarily removing yourself or taking a pause to refresh your eyes – you’ll be able to come up with solutions you might not have otherwise thought of.

What is the number one obstacle or challenge you are currently facing and what are you doing to try to resolve or overcome this challenge?

Being new to the tattoo industry, I’ve had my fair share of self doubt. Social media is a tool – but it can be so hard putting blinders on and not comparing my work or worth based on it. This has gotten a lot easier, the longer I’ve been doing it and I imagine with more experience it’ll diminish even more. But I think it’s important to note that this is a normal trajectory for most people when trying anything new. And that everyone who you think now is great at something started somewhere similar to where you are. So I give myself grace, and try to use any uncertainty and pour it into focusing more on how I want to get better – whether that’s drawing more, coming up with more designs, or even just strategizing in general. While I still have some days where get anxious or nervous about ‘surviving’ in this industry – I remind myself of all the lovely people I’ve met so far and who have trusted me to tattoo them.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lindz_and_needles/
• Other: [email protected]

Image Credits

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