We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Ceylin Donat a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Ceylin, appreciate you making time for us and sharing your wisdom with the community. So many of us go through similar pain points throughout our journeys and so hearing about how others overcame obstacles can be helpful. One of those struggles is keeping creativity alive despite all the stresses, challenges and problems we might be dealing with. How do you keep your creativity alive?
Being a hand-poke tattoo artist who likes to specialize in motif and plant designs, while maintaining a general simplicity in the tattoo, it sometimes becomes a challenge to keep my creativity alive and come up with new drawings. That is why I like to look for those inspirations in nature, and approach every-day sights from a different perspective. When I’m walking, for example, I would focus on the small cracks on the ground and see if they evoke a certain design in my mind. Or in the woods, I would look at the tree barks and look for a certain motif hidden within them. Once one starts looking closely, there is actually an abundance of different designs that can come up from just a small portion of one’s surroundings. I’ve also found religious or historic buildings to be a great source of inspiration, as the tiles they use often have beautiful designs hidden all around them.
Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?
I’m a self-taught hand poke tattoo artist based in Los Angeles. I’m approaching my fourth year of being a tattoo artist, and it has been a great journey along the way. I actually have a background in Engineering, but during Covid discovered my true passion and have been pursuing a double-career ever since. I have been trying to expand my tattoo identity for a while now, and am trying to spread out to a more diverse community. Initially, I started my career thanks to my universities’ small fairs and parties, but recently have been traveling to different states and countries, meeting and tattooing new folks along the way. It is a true blessing to make such nice connections with people from all around the US and globe, as they have such different stories and cultures to share.
My tattoos mostly consist of nature designs or abstract motifs inspired either from old architecture or archaic civilizations. My aim is that the person getting the tattoo feels more at home in their own bodies after getting this piece of art, and it reminds them, each time they look at it, of a happy/good time. Because a tattoo, in my opinion, is a way of self-expression and identity, so it is important that whoever is getting it gets it with that intention and knowledge.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
(1) Patience is the biggest virtue as a hand-poke artist, because every single dot requires consistency and alignment. Not only that, the whole process of giving a tattoo is so intimate and delicate that one has to pay incredibly close attention to their clients needs. It is, at the end of the day, something that will remain on their bodies forever. (2) Knowing different skin types (whether it be texture or color) is vital if one is a tattoo artist, because each persons skin can react differently to the style or color of the tattoo. Knowing the appropriate locations and/or the appropriate colors for the clients’ tattoo determines its outcome and how it will look on them forever.
(3) Open communication and friendliness, though can have a very subjective definition, is very important to ensure a nice tattoo session. One must not forget that getting a tattoo can be a painful process and that it requires a lot of trust in the artist. Providing that trust is key.
What’s been one of your main areas of growth this year?
Speed — hand poking can take very long but once someone understands the rhythm it becomes almost meditative to complete the tattoo. When I first started, a tattoo that would take four hours, now takes almost 1.5 hours.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/balkon.pokes/
