Meet Bee Sue

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

Bee Sue, so good to have you with us today. We’ve got so much planned, so let’s jump right into it. We live in such a diverse world, and in many ways the world is getting better and more understanding but it’s far from perfect. There are so many times where folks find themselves in rooms or situations where they are the only ones that look like them – that might mean being the only woman of color in the room or the only person who grew up in a certain environment etc. Can you talk to us about how you’ve managed to thrive even in situations where you were the only one in the room?

Being exceptionally heavily tattooed has definitely come with its challenges. Yes, I did make this choice for myself and I did know that it would place some roadblocks in front of me, however I would NEVER change the decision. Roadblocks are meant to be overcome, right? How I look has no reflection on how I actually am as a person and what I’m capable of. I’m just decorated for the occasion.

While its kept me from jobs and earned me more than my fair share of judgment from potential employers and strangers alike, being heavily tattooed has also graced me with a lot of opportunities I wouldn’t have had otherwise. Things like to chance to work Farm Aide behind the scenes and meet the likes of Willie Nelson, Neil Young, Dave Matthews, and others. Teaching art classes for high schoolers and explaining how tattoos age in the skin and why design is so important when you have to keep that in mind. The opportunity to help create part of an exhibit for our very own COSI, all examples of how not only being heavily tattooed, but a lady tattooer as well has made such an impact on my life and community in a constructive and amazing way. I wouldn’t change it for the world even if it garners me a sideways glance every once in a while. I feel more like myself as I collect each piece and have the honor to carry them around with me for the rest of my life.

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

Hi! I’m Bee Sue, a 38 year old lady tattooer residing in Columbus, Ohio for the last 20 years! While I was born here, I was raised in Phoenix, Arizona until I moved back to the heart of it all in 2005 to attend the Columbus College of Art and Design. After only lasting a few years in the college circuit, I decided to work instead, sometimes up to three jobs at a time. Anything from bakeries, restaurants, catering, and bartending to retail, driving as a courier for a law firm, refinancing homes, and painting cars. The one thing that remained consistent through the entire ordeal was tattooing.

When I was 14, a freshman in high school, I got a job under the table working the desk at a super seedy tattoo shop on the Arizona State University campus. I did all the things no one else wanted to do. Taking out the trash, answering the phone, filling out paperwork with clients, and cleaning all the reusable tubes the artists tattooed with (before the days of the now widely used single use tubes, amen for those). Should a 14 year old be handling and cleaning biologically contaminated tools with little training? Absolutely not, but I loved it! All I’d ever wanted was to tattoo, be around tattoos and tattooers, and be as tattooed as possible. And here they were willing to give me a shot! I would’ve done nearly anything they asked. So I was there every single day after school, telling my parents I was hanging out with my best friend at the time, doing homework, when in actuality I was doing everything but.

Jump to the summer after senior year and I’m moving across the country back to Ohio. I’d gotten a scholarship at CCAD and was set to start not even two weeks after settling in with my grandparents in Grove City. I hated it. While photography had earned me a full ride, school made me never want to touch a camera again. I started looking for jobs in local shops, seeing if anyone needed a counter girl, secretly hoping that maybe someday I’d get to learn how to tattoo too. They’d told me at that very first shop to never ask anyone about an apprenticeship. To work my ass off and eventually someone would notice and offer me the chance. I just thought that was the way it went so that’s exactly what I planned to do.

I stayed at CCAD until the end of my second year and gracefully backed out, relinquishing my scholarship in hopes it might help someone who actually wanted to be there. That definitely was NOT me. I traded textbooks for release forms, working as a manager for a few different shops around Columbus, working other jobs in the evenings to make ends meet. I would paint and draw and get tattooed a much as I possibly could, doing everything possible to get that offer of an apprenticeship. Along the way I also landed a opportunity as an assistant for a local tattooer who organized a convention in town and helped with that as well. For the next 10 years I worked that convention every single summer, only falling more in love with the craft the entire time.

Eventually in 2017 I was offered that coveted apprenticeship and dove right in. Now I do need to clarify here that my apprenticeship was anything but standard. Usually you’re under your mentor for roughly a year until you’re tattooing, sometimes even longer. Working in shops for so long, being so dedicated to the craft, getting tattooed every possible chance I got (even if I couldn’t afford groceries, do not recommend), put me at a big advantage and I tattooed one of my very best friends the second week I was in the shop. Under supervision, of course. No practice skin, no pig’s feet, oranges, or grapefruits, just straight to the real thing. I was STOKED. Within two months I was tattooing full time (still tending bar at night, working six days a week to make it all happen) for full price and having an absolute blast doing it. About six months later, I quit my very last bar job and went to solely tattooing as my only source of income. It is NOT for the weak.

I’m now looking down the barrel of year ten tattooing and I still love it just as much, although likely much more than when I started. I’ve met my closest friends through tattooing. I met the man I’m engaged to and marrying in March through tattooing. I’ve traveled, bought a home, and been told I’ve changed people’s lives because of tattooing. Its the oldest art form on the planet and sacred for a reason. On the daily I permanently alter bodies for the rest of their lives through pain and sacrifice and somehow get thanked for it. I’m so incredibly grateful for where this path has lead me and I can’t wait to see what the next decade has to offer.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

Persistence: Do NOT give up just because one, two, or five people have told you no. In most cases that is the exact right thing to do (consent should always be enthusiastic!) but this is not one of them. The industry is oversaturated. We get emails every day from people who have never even stepped foot into our shops or gotten tattooed by us to teach them our craft. That’s a hard no.

Devotion: Draw every day. Paint if you can. Do not stop. Drawing is one of those honed skills that will only get better the more you do it. Want to be a tattooer? Cool. Draw. You’re going to draw for every single client for the rest of your career, get used to it now. Get tattooed as much as you can. No one wants to get tattooed by or teach someone to tattoo that doesn’t have any. Why would we take the time to teach you if you aren’t devoted to the craft?

Empathy: You’re going to be hurting someone for a living and you have to be okay with that. That does not mean however that you need to be heartless. Understand that people are going to be uncomfortable, they’re going to move, they’re going to moan and groan and need breaks. That’s okay. Instead of getting frustrated, empathize. What would you want in that situation? Maybe a nice pillow would help, or cold water. Maybe a break once an hour so you can both stretch, ground yourselves, and get back to it. Putting yourself in your clients place is only going to help you in the long run. Don’t be the guy that tells someone to “suck it up,” you’ll find yourself with less and less clientele over the years as folks favor someone with more kindness.

What has been your biggest area of growth or improvement in the past 12 months?

In March of last year, I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. It wasn’t until I was forced, medically, to take a break that I realized just how hard I had been going for years beforehand. About a year before my diagnosis, I started scheduling myself one week off every two months. I know a lot of folks don’t have that kind of luxury, especially in the US, but I was punishing myself before and after for doing it. I’d schedule myself large appointments back to back every day the week before and after, “making up” for the time I’d missed instead of doing what the break was meant for, decompressing and taking some time for myself. If I knew I had a break coming up, I’d book out further than normal, not wanting to tell anyone no because that could potentially be missed income. I was never truly taking any kind of break. Until I didn’t have a choice.

I’m still currently fighting my cancer, and while things are much better now than they were this time last year, its still not great. But one thing I’m way better about it taking the time for myself. Some days I just don’t have any gas in the tank, and that’s okay. Sure I might have a great excuse for being so exhausted but that shouldn’t matter. Every single one of us needs a mental break and some Me Time, and THAT’S OKAY. Its normal. Working ourselves to death in the hopes of maybe one day getting to retire and enjoy some time off when our bodies can no longer do anything we enjoy just isn’t how life it supposed to be. And personally, I’m doing everything I can to enjoy my time now. Especially since a scare that shows me I truly just do not know how much time I have left here.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://beesue.com
• Instagram: hamburgerdill
• Other: https://bsky.app/profile/hamburgerdill.bsky.social

Image Credits

Aaron Doster, @doster