Tristan Crane would like to be a heavily tattooed person. They would love to have a collection of tattoos from all of their favorite queer iconic tattooists all around the globe, but besides
money and time Tristan is currently limited by a chronic auto immune condition. Psoriasis affects about 125 million people world wide, or about 2 to 3 percent of the population. It can show up in
different ways, but often affects one's joints and skin, appearing as big scaly painful itchy patches all over one's body. Because it often shows up on skin that's been injured, getting tattooed
becomes tricky for someone affected with this condition.
How does one live with something so uncomfortable and also so very visible?
And how do you get tattooed not being sure of what healing would look like or what would happen afterwards?
Tristan Crane speaks to all of these topics and more. We dive in to everything from the social stigmas of having a skin condition to technicalities of tattooing, to self acceptance and love, to
lifestyle choices.
Living with a chronic illness can be a challenge. But it sure does help when we talk about it openly and honestly.
You can find Tristan Crane, their gorgeous photography, etc at:
https://www.tristancrane.com/
Their Queer Portraits Here project is:
https://hereportraits.com/
You can connect with me, Micah Riot, as well as see my tattoo art on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/micahriot/
Micah's website is www.micahriot.com
The podcast is hosted on Buzzsprout but truly lives in the heart of Micah's website at:
https://www.micahriot.com/ink-medicine-podcast/
Transcript for the episode:
Speaker 1:
When I started the podcast, you know, I went on like I had some recs about what to use and the software or whatever. And I went on Reddit to like look at podcasting groups to just be like, you know, just like, have extra community or whatever, and it was all like a bunch of dudes arguing about whose microphone was bigger.
Speaker 2:
I love those arguments too, because it's literally always like you're using the XT04. Oh man, dude, that's weak. You got to use the Z452, man, it's so boring.
Speaker 1:
It's like it's so boring and my microphone's been doing just fine. Hello, my darlings, Welcome to Ink Medicine Podcast. I'm here with my friend Tristan Crane, who is a quite famous queer photographer.
Speaker 2:
Feeling like an exaggeration, but I appreciate that.
Speaker 1:
I mean, you know, fame in the queer community is very subjective, but I would say people know your name. So some folks might know your name and some folks might not, but they should definitely go and check out your work on the internets. But right now we're not going to be talking about that. We could talk about that too. We're going to talk about tattoos and skin, but why don't you introduce yourself, your name, your pronouns, where in the world you are and what is your favorite beverage?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, so my name is Tristan Crane. My pronouns are they, them or he him. Where I am geographically at the moment is north of Mendocino. I kind of split my time between there and Oakland's, kind of decamped during the pandemic, like a lot of other folks. So I try and spend my time resting up here as much as possible, and currently my favorite beverage is coffee, because it's what's getting me through my life. How do you take your coffee? Either black or an oat milk latte.
Speaker 1:
Okay, and what kind of do you like the coffee Like? So my partner and I have this battle of coffees where she likes the sour coffees and I like the bitter coffees. Like, where are you at in that regard? More on the bitter side, like the earthy kind of French roast type of bitter.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, kind of dark. There's this one. We actually my partner and I both love the same kind of coffee, which is lucky because we don't have a lot of other things. So we have a subscription from Sightglass Coffee because that's how kind of intense our coffee need is.
Speaker 1:
Listen, it's, you know, whatever helps right. People have wine clubs. You have a coffee club. That's all good. That's so funny because I feel like I've tried Sightglass a lot and I haven't found well. This was a while back when I used to drink more coffee, but I haven't found the roast dark enough for me. So I have to ask you which one is the right one, because I like their whole thing. You know. Yeah, they have some good sour ones too.
Speaker 2:
We like their blue boon, which is definitely on the darker side, I think. But I'll bring you some next time we hang out. You can try. It Sounds great. We'll see if we can find it.
Speaker 1:
Sounds great. I'm like a tea drink over here and I've been mixing my. I have a bag of random teas, like I think a lot of people have a bag of random teas in their house and I think they're like I don't know. So I've been like, oh, let me just pull out two random teas and mix them together and this is like a Earl Grey and then like some sort of a German chocolate ginger, something like whatever random tea I've had in there. So it's like a surprise beverage.
Speaker 2:
That actually sounds like an amazing combination. I love Earl Grey.
Speaker 1:
It's really good. Yeah, it smells like chocolate. It's good. So tell me. You've not been my client yet, so I don't know a lot about your tattoo journey. Please tell me you know. How did you start getting tattooed, how old were you and what led you to getting your first tattoo? Yeah, as much of your journey as you want to share.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, so my first tattoo was, I think, when I was like 14, my friend did stick and pokes and so I still have a couple of little stick and pokes, mostly on my feet and my toes, and I managed to actually conceal those from my parents for many, many years. And then I think at one point when I was 18, my mom looked down at my ankle and was like what is that? I think it was like a scratchy little anarchy symbol or something like that. Very cute, very teenage Perfection, right. So I did a lot of nostalgia and then I actually didn't get tattooed for a really long time. I was really broke throughout my 20s doing the artist thing, living in San Francisco, you know, working office jobs, the economy tanks. So I, yeah, I just didn't really get tattooed until I turned 40, actually, and then I had one of the stick and pokes was kind of embarrassing and I thought, you know, I want to start getting tattooed as part of I always knew I wanted to get tattooed as part of my own journey towards kind of reclaiming my body and being comfortable in my skin and customizing my body. I did that through piercings when I was younger. I kind of always knew I want to get tattooed, but I didn't really have a vision of what I wanted to get and I wanted to wait until I had a more cohesive vision. So of course I don't have a cohesive vision yet, but I just was. I turned 40 and I was, like you know what, like F it. This piece on my ankle has always bothered me. I'm just going to get it covered up and see if I can get tattooed, because basically, in my 30s I started developing psoriasis, which is an autoimmune disease which presents in a number of different ways, but for me it presents, as some, a lot of like joint pain. And then I get these kind of scaly, painful patches on my skin and a lot of times it shows up where the skin has been injured. So I'll get patches where I had like an old cut Something that happened even when I was eight like a psoriasis patch showed up there. So there's kind of a I don't know, like a comorbidity with anything that happens to your skin and psoriasis. So I wasn't sure if I even could get tattooed safely or if it would actually cause a flare up. So I found this artist I really liked on Instagram, you know, and decided I'm going to go get a cover up piece as kind of like a test, just to see how my skin took the ink Did you tell them about what you were thinking as far as like psoriasis and yeah. Yeah, it's pretty obvious Like I have. I have it, you know, it kind of comes and goes, but it's tied to stress, it's tied to diet. I've tried diet stuff, I've tried everything for it and we can kind of get into that too. Anybody listening who has psoriasis I'm sure has a similar journey of you know you kind of tried so many different things to deal with it because as an autoimmune disease it's in you and it's kind of like your skin and your immune system is attacking itself.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, well, I'm wondering what I was wondering about. You know, whatever people look like, right, whatever people come in and how their skin looks, my, you know, I'm not concerned about about that, unless they tell me to be concerned, right, unless they tell me there's something to watch out for. I'm wondering if I can take getting tattooed. If you know, of course, I've had people with autoimmune conditions of all sorts, and so, yeah, I'm curious about if the person had any thoughts when you said to them you know, this is a test. I wonder if my skin can even take getting tattooed, if I'm going to have a flare up because of it, like how it's going to be reactive, wise, and you know, if they had had experience with that before. You know, I think all of us are constantly trying to learn about the different things we might encounter with different folks, and then, like the next person who comes in with the same condition, I would have something more to say about it, right?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, this person hadn't, you know, was, I think, a little less experienced than you were, than you are, and maybe, having hadn't encountered it before, we definitely talked about it. In terms of placement, we also decided to not do color initially and just see how things sit with, you know, just with, with blacks and grays, or just black tones.
Speaker 1:
That's very smart. Yeah, because colors more reactive.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, and I've actually gotten a tattoo in color and it did not respond well, interestingly, like further on. But the good news is this particular piece healed really perfectly, it settled really well. I'm really happy with the cover up. And then after that, I think, like a lot of people, I kind of was like, oh, it's on, and I was like, okay. So then my next tattoo is from the same artist and it's like a huge, it's like a big thigh piece that like wraps around the back of my knee and I kind of was like you know what, forget it I'm, I'm just going to go for it now.
Speaker 1:
And that was also fine.
Speaker 2:
That one went okay, I was kind of in between flare ups. That that was probably about two and a half years ago. So I was kind of in between flare ups. My skin was in a pretty good place and then unfortunately in the last year things have kind of been kind of flaring back up again. So I'm back on medications and things like that for it.
Speaker 1:
And does it ever like? As you said, you had a cut from when you were eight and the psoriasis came and attacked that area. I don't know if that's the right language, but you had a flare up on that area. So, from in my experience with my eczema which I think it's eczema, I don't know, it seems like it's eczema, but it will travel around my body and show up, sometimes in places of tattoos, I'll feel the raised edge of it, as it's all itching and getting all wild and burning and whatever. So have you had the experience of psoriasis coming later onto a new tattoo, like after it's healed and settled?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, it's happened now, and then I also in my latest piece, the one that had some color, that definitely happened. So I had a patch kind of near the piece that spread and now has kind of gone into the piece a little bit and it looks interesting actually. I mean, obviously it's not ideal, but yeah, and then occasionally I'll have a little patch that shows up in an older tattoo.
Speaker 1:
And what does it feel like? Does it, you know? So psoriasis is like a patchy-scaly thing, like where eczema is like this intense, intense itching and then it looks so wild and then it goes away, like it will stay for like a month and go away. So very different experiences. So is psoriasis itchy and what's the experience?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I think everyone experiences it a little differently. For me there is an itching Like I can actually now almost like predict when a new patch is going to show up, because it'll start kind of like burning and itching and then it kind of arises and it's so annoying because what's happening, what used to happen for me, is it would show up in sort of big, larger spots, and really common spots for people are like knees, like elbows, back of the scalp and then like in body folds, so people will get it in their armpits and other places. It's very uncomfortable. So it comes up as itching and then the scaling and the redness sort of develops and sometimes there's burning, depending on where it is in the body. When I sweat it will get there. So it makes exercising really uncomfortable. It makes, you know, even going outside on you know when it's warm out can be really really uncomfortable. It'll like crack, so it. You know I have like a pretty intense skincare routine. That's like medications, moisturizers, medications, moisturizer, like rinse and repeat to try and keep the pain down. But when it's if I'm having a really bad flare, it's really uncomfortable. It's really uncomfortable. It's kind of a constant low level pain.
Speaker 1:
So you would. Essentially your body is in this state of agitation like an autoimmune sort of agitation. The tattoos it might come and touch the tattoos, but in general, like you would still have it with or without tattoos. Right, the real tattoos make it worse, so it makes like if you wear more heavily tattooed. Do you think it would be worse?
Speaker 2:
That's a really good question and I've looked, I've done like, I've done research and if anybody's listening and has research, please send it. There isn't a lot of research in this, right, because we don't really know and there's a lot of speculation, you know. Is there certain inks that are going to cause flares, right? I mean, some people respond poorly to certain brands of inks, certain colors of ink, right? Is there something in my skin or that people that have psoriasis where our bodies are gonna almost like attack or try and reject the color? I don't know. I don't think that there's a correlation between me being tattooed and my psoriasis getting worse. I think it's related to, you know, age and stress and just the progression of the disease. And for me, you know, tattooing, getting tattooed, was a way to kind of own and reclaim my own body, because there's been a really big component of mental health for me around having an auto immune disease that's chronic, that's painful and visible, right, it's unsightly, it's kind of embarrassing. People comment on it. You know, if I wear shorts, like you can see, like I have patches on my skin, I have patches on my legs, like I've had people ask about it, really blatant things and Strangers yeah, strangers or people you know, people on set or whatever. You know it doesn't necessarily look sanitary, even though it is right it's not like an open wound, but you know it's an obvious difference, I mean kind of. So people comment on your body the same way people comment on the bodies of people that have a lot of visible tattoos right, and so for me it was kind of For me, it was a way for me to actually kind of take control of what was happening in my body and then even the pain of being tattooed. In a way, there's a link there for me between kind of like choosing the discomfort of being tattooed versus being kind of at the mercy of the discomfort of this condition.
Speaker 1:
Yeah for sure, consent is huge, right, it makes all the difference. What about piercings? Has that been? You know, as you said earlier, it's a matter of injured skin. So, your old piercings? Is that also somewhere it shows up or no?
Speaker 2:
You know it hasn't, mostly because I'm trans and the body parts that were pierced are no longer on me and I haven't gone back and gotten. I'm actually pretty reactive to a lot of metals as well, so that's one reason that I haven't kind of gone back into the piercing world. I had a lot of cartilage piercings and things that never really healed properly.
Speaker 1:
Okay, Do you have any facial? I feel like I have this image of you in my mind of having, maybe like a longer time ago, like before we were people who talked to each other you had facial piercings. Is that not true?
Speaker 2:
Is that just something?
Speaker 1:
random in my mind Just ears.
Speaker 2:
I did the like cartilage stack thing. You know very 90s.
Speaker 1:
And back in the day it was all random metals. It was like stainless. They would say it was stainless steel, but I don't know if it really was. You know, like whatever the cheap metals were, some kind of combination of titanium, stainless steel or whatever. But my old piercings weren't super happy and then I would switch to gold. You know when I would want to keep the piercing and it was fine. So there's some of that, and I've seen, also just like the how trends have changed in the body mod world. Tattoos have changed, piercings have changed. There's so much more emphasis on gold in the piercing world. Have you seen all of that Like tiny little clusters and combinations of piercings all over the ear? Yeah, I love it. What's?
Speaker 2:
happened. I love that is back and some people are doing really creative, interesting things.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, and like gender wise too, I feel like there's more men wearing like earrings and like necklaces and having more delicate piercings, and it's cool. Yeah, it's a cool direction.
Speaker 2:
It's very cool.
Speaker 1:
Yeah. So what are you thinking? So you've had. You're having a flare up right now. No, last year you said do you have plans for more tattoos? Are you putting them on hold? Do you have?
Speaker 2:
I'm kind of on hold at the moment to let my skin really settle down, which really hurts because I'm halfway through a piece which is, like you all know, my pain.
Speaker 1:
What are you working on?
Speaker 2:
It's a nautilus, like on my calf. I'm doing a whole ocean. I love, feel very drawn to undersea deep sea creatures, so I'm doing a whole leg. That's kind of ocean creatures from different artists. So, and hoping to get a piece from you.
Speaker 1:
Yeah.
Speaker 2:
Also I love your work. Thank you, yeah. So I'm on pause and I actually the artist that I'm working with also has a lot of health and kind of autoimmune stuff. So we talked a lot about what her journey has been and what my journey has been and she knew, going in, it's right there on my skin, like I can't hide it, like I pull up my leg and there it is. So again, we talked a lot about placement. We talked a lot about what might happen if a flare up happens. Unfortunately, after we did the outline, we went back in for a second session and did color and my skin did not love that. It was a lot of. The color actually didn't kind of didn't stay, especially the Reds. And it's not my artist fault at all. She's extremely skilled. She's been an artist for like a very, very long time. I've seen a lot of her work and even she said, oh, I've never really seen this happen before, so it's 100% not her fault at all. I want to make that like really, really clear.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, so it's a good thing to make clear from folks who don't know, because it's yeah, there's so many ways in which people can react. We're all different, our chemistry is different, and I mean the other thing is, we know what's in our inks to an extent. There's not a lot of you know. You can buy from the most reputable companies, you can, and you still don't fully know because it's not regulated, and also just the systems, the powers that be don't give us the full access to knowledge of what's. You know what's what. It's so much better now than it was like in the 90s. Yeah, yeah, and there used to be metals and inks. There's not anymore. But, there's still something about reds that makes if you are, if you will be reactive, you're likely to be reactive to red or something with red in it, like a brown or you know a pink or something.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, that's exactly what we were using and we actually took a record of all of the colors and the specific inks that she used to see what happened. And so when I go back in, when things settle down and I go to finish the piece, we're just going to revamp the color scheme and come out in a different way. For sure, and I felt really bad when I sent her pictures of it. Yeah, you know, she felt terrible and she was like I've never seen this before and she felt very apologetic. You know she was, she was great and I was like this is 100% not your fault. This is, this is my skin.
Speaker 1:
Yes, great, I'm glad you guys have such a good rapport and like you trust each other and trust is required in both sides. You know like we we're also. You know it's like if something happens and the person like fully blames you for it, that's really scary. Where you know it's, you know you did the best you could and like shit happens.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, yeah, I imagine on your end too. I mean you kind of lose as far as what? What are people doing in the aftercare Right, Like the artist doesn't have any control over that and that has a huge effect, can have a huge effect on the outcome of the piece.
Speaker 1:
For sure, I for sure that happens and, like you know, I have my little aftercare sheet online so nobody can like say, oh, I lost it. Like, well, it can go and look, you know, look it up and also you can and Google in general, you know, aftercare things and people have different things that they recommend. And aqua, for you know, something that's basic, cheap, doesn't go bad, nice to have on hand. Some people misuse, like they can you put too much of it on and then your skin is not breathing and if you, you know, if you were shaved and like, you could have ingrown hairs because the aqua force blocking the way for skin to like keep healing, you know. So that can be an issue. People like you, you can't control what people are doing, even if they're doing exactly what you're told to do, because still not be done very well, or like they're in the sun or they're wearing a stretch of clothing or their cat scratch their arm or you know a number of things can happen. But also, just like, so there's, like you know, as far as healing and the skin goes, there's the one element of the ink having something in it you're reactive to, but the other is like the way that it heals is essentially your skin takes the that piece of ink and it suspends it in a little sack, right, and it's sitting in your skin. It's a foreign object. And so the skin like good, healthy, basic healing will be like we've surrounded the ink into the little sack and now it's safe. It's foreign, but it's safe. It's sitting there, it can't touch us and that's all. That's all. That's the healing. But maybe your body is like no, it's still foreign, it still keeps attacking it, right. So there's a reaction because there's a foreign object in your skin, or it can come later, right, like with my eczema or your psoriasis, when it's later realizes it's like no, there's still a foreign object here in the skin.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, yeah. What's gonna be interesting is this is the first time that I've had patches show up on a tattoo and as so I have Kaiser. Their dermatology department is not the best. I've had a lot of really mixed experiences with them and again, that's really common. Like people, the narrative that I see again and again is like we just get told the same things, we get given the same medications. They don't really work. The sort of first I would say like stage one is they give you a range of like steroidal creams and things to try and sort of calm the skim down, and that combined with dietary recommendations. Right, like you know-.
Speaker 1:
I'm so curious. What are those? What do they tell you?
Speaker 2:
The diet stuff you mean. You know it's. You know things, coffee is supposedly really bad for it. So you know, at some point I might actually try to go off coffee. You know they say coffee anything that kind of drives you out. So coffee, alcohol, you know just things that aren't necessarily the best to put in our body. Right, and I do drink some alcohol. I do drink coffee. I try and offset that with like a lot of water, a lot of you know kind of probiotic stuff. I eat really healthy. Some people swear by like a low inflammation diet. Sometimes people have a lot of like GI sensitivities along with this and then later on in life you can develop like rheumatoid arthritis and things like that. And so as I'm getting older I am noticing some of that stuff. So, like you know, in my joints I can't wear my rings anymore, like, and some of that's aging and some of that's related to this. It runs in my family. So I've watched the older people in my family also kind of deal with this. So at some point I'll have to get assessed for arthritis. Dietary stuff some people really swear by, you know, herbal supplements and things like that. I've tried gluten-free. I've tried a ton of different kinds of diets and just kind of settled on trying to be overall healthy. I'm pescatarian but some people actually say that meat can be really good for it. But you know, I'm kind of like a everything in moderation kind of a person and eat what your body is kind of giving you the signs to eat is kind of how I kind of go on it. They say exercise is really good because stress can definitely increase a lot of autoimmune stuff. So exercise is a de-stressor. Yeah, exercise, you know, taking care of anything, that's where stress is gonna show up in your body. Exercise is really good. Massages, you know, just kind of taking care of yourself, like that is kind of part of my routine. And then you know, when my skin gets really bad, you know, I actually had a really good experience with a dermatologist at Kaiser which blew my mind. It was this guy and he was actually really really great and really kind and put me on this whole new regime of creams. Luckily I work from home, because it's a lot to manage, you know, and you know it's given me a whole new perspective on people that live with more intense chronic illnesses, just in terms of, you know, the medical care, the, just the daily, daily grind of it. It's with me for, like, when I travel, I have to carry all this stuff with me. If I go camping, it's a whole pain in the ass. So it affects, kind of affects you every single day. It's like this background noise.
Speaker 1:
So there's never a time when you're like I'm not having a flare up, I don't need to put on these creams, I don't need to take these medications. It's like never the case.
Speaker 2:
Not in years. Okay yeah, it's every day, damn yeah. It's a lot. So and actually I mean talking about it the more I've talked about it and I'm working in mental health now and I think it's helped me a lot to talk about it because I didn't talk about it for a long time I felt really embarrassed about it. If I felt really gross, your skin is like literally flaking off, like you know, and kind of I hit a couple of low points where you know I like didn't even want to go outside, like I, you know I didn't want to wear anything. You know I would just want to be covered like head to toe and not show it. I'm really lucky my partner is very supportive, you know, really great at like reassuring me that you know my body is not gross and that this is just a condition and things like that. But it's really hard not to internalize that stuff. For sure, I used to work as a photographer, right. It's all about, you know, images and things like that, and ironically, a lot of my work is about body positivity.
Speaker 1:
Well, for sure. I was going to say, like you can find beauty and you show, not that you can find beauty, but when your photographs show the beauty of all the bodies, all the like, all the skin, all the everybody.
Speaker 2:
So yeah, I think it's harder. I think a lot of us are harder on ourselves than we are on other people. Right, we say things to ourselves and feel things about ourselves that we would never put on somebody else, and I definitely was doing that. And things switched for me in the last couple of years because I was like I'm going to live like this for the rest of my life. I've got to find a way to love myself and to accept myself. I thought really hard to feel comfortable in this body and I'm not going to let this I'm not going to let this dominate the rest of my life In a negative way. I have to find a way to feel comfortable and cute, and some days are better than others.
Speaker 1:
So what has it been all about? Talking about it Like out loud, saying it out loud, telling people about it has that been the main way that you felt better about it?
Speaker 2:
So far. So far, talking being tattooed was part of it. Right, I mean walking into the people. So far, the people that I've worked with have all been queer people, queer non-binary people, trans people, women. The studios that they work out of have been really affirming comfortable spaces, and that's another shift. I think. In tattooing, that's just been so amazing. I think when I was younger even before I had the skin stuff tattoo, parlors were like these really intimidating, kind of male-dominated spaces that I didn't feel comfortable in. And now there's all these incredible artists that are queer women, trans people. It's awesome and are creating really safe spaces for us as clients and that opened the door for me to go okay, even though I have this skin stuff, this might be a space and an artist that isn't going to be weird about any aspect of my identity, right, do you want to?
Speaker 1:
shout them out for folks listening. No, I knew you were going to ask that. I mean, you don't have to.
Speaker 2:
So the person who did my cover-up and my piece is Taya Blank at Magnetic Arts, and I love like they have a roster of just really amazing people that work there. I feel like there's so many good studios here in the Bay Area, yeah, and I'd have to like I could like go through my Instagram and like, just I don't know, there's all these people that I want to work with at some point, but I need my skin to like chill a little bit, yeah.
Speaker 1:
yeah, you'll know when the right time will be again.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, and I actually have thought about, in addition to sort of talking about it and I really appreciate what you're doing with this podcast in a lot of ways but I have thought about doing like at some point, doing like some self-portraiture, doing an art piece about it. I've actually I've moved away from photography and I'm working in clay now and I've definitely made pieces about bodies and things like that. So I'm kind of working towards a very vague kind of narrative here, but that kind of incorporates, you know, bodies and shapes and kind of twisted forms and things like that, right, and a lot of that. Some of that is about being trans and like our relationships with our bodies. And then how do we reclaim and sort of take control of the narrative of our bodies right, either through, you know, surgeries or other affirmative things, through tattooing and body modification and, yeah, I haven't quite built. I'm doing a lot of experiments of what it could look like.
Speaker 1:
Well, earlier, when we were starting to talk about it, I had these kind of two things pop up in my mind about the texture of a skin condition, like first, you know you'll see these photos online now where somebody will be like like squeezing their skin together or something and it'll be like just the texture of like the skin wrinkles together, right, or showing like sunlight or whatever kind of skin texture, but in like a really artistic way where it's just like the shadows and the highlights are kind of brought forth in the picture and like it's cut in some in some way where you're not even really sure it's a body. It's just like here's a combination of, or like here's a comparison of, like how the earth looks from above and like how the skin looks from above, right. So I was thinking about how textured skin, from whatever condition, from whatever happens to it, can be beautiful in a matter, right, like if there's a black and white photograph of texture. It was just like shadows and highlights, yeah, I was thinking about that earlier. But also, if you have texture show up on a tattoo that exists, what if it's like a creature and its body is like texture, right, and it's like your skin naturally creates a texture for a creature. But, yeah, like ways to own what's happening and ways to like honor what's happening, even as it is partially suffering and pain, to like not push it away but to say like yes, it's here. Like, yes, this is what we're dealing with in this body, in this lifetime, you know. Or the way that people will take like their stretch marks and they'll paint them like bright colors or like highlight them right with makeup, or something Like what? Yeah, what are what? What is an artistic way, an artful way to show that texture is beautiful. Yeah, celebrating cellulite right Celebrating scars.
Speaker 2:
Stretch marks exactly wrinkles and that really highlight things that you know societies has has framed as a flaw right but, you know, are people that have. Was it called the till ago, I don't know how to pronounce it, but yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:
The light, like with the skin, loses pigment.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, or you know, and yeah, I've seen just some really incredible work. You know self portraits and other portraits you know, really kind of celebrating, you know the diversity of our skin.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, and it's easier to do when it doesn't hurt, you know, and if it does, it's harder, for sure. But there's still ways, even if it's not directly doing it on your actual body, but with a photograph or with, you know, clay, with other form of art.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I was like I've also thought about sometimes like outlining my patches even Exactly Kind of look like topographical maps.
Speaker 1:
Exactly, yeah, exactly. That's totally one of the things I was. I was imagining with makeup or with, like, skin safe markers or something, yeah yeah, that would be interesting.
Speaker 2:
I don't necessarily want, I don't necessarily know that I want to tattoo them, but I mean that, but that might be interesting too. Right Is is create something permanent out of a condition that is both permanent and impermanent in its way.
Speaker 1:
Permanent in its presence, but not in its. It's the way, in the way it shows up or where it shows up. Yeah, there was a. I had this conversation it was a really long time ago with a partner of mine who's gone, who's passed away now, but they were one of those people in my life, you know. That really just made me think about a lot of things in specific ways, and they were a lot older. Whatever I was in my, I think I was in my mid to late 20s and I still had a lot of like acne and like facial skin kind of issues, because I'd had, I had pretty bad acne as a teenager. But we were talking about beauty, I think, at some point, and I was like, well, this is objectively unattractive, like it just is. And they were like, said, said who, like what? Do you mean? Like what? Why, you know, why is that what you think about it? You know, I was like, well, it's just this, like there's like healthy, smooth skin, and then there's like pimples, right, like that's objective. And they were like, no, like there's nothing that's objective about that, like that's an opinion you have based on societal opinions or other people's opinions or whatever about what's what's attractive and what's not attractive and they kept being like but what's the proof? Like you know, there's no proof in what you're saying. It's not objective, right, and I and it, I can still think about that, like 20 years later, or not 20, I guess 15, 15 years later, and they, you know, they've been gone now for a bunch of years. But just yeah, like the things that we, you know, some things we have questioned and said to ourselves like, okay, there's nothing objective about femininity being more attractive than masculinity, or thin bodies versus fat bodies, with questions, those like truths that society gives to us as a given, but some things like skin, I think that's like a harder one, it's like the next level, you know.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I mean, if we lived in a world where, like, everybody had psoriasis, people who didn't have it, that would be weird, right, oh, your skin's so smooth. What's up? What's wrong with you? Right, I mean, it's you flip the script because these concepts are so arbitrary. Right, I mean? For years, the Sanders of beauty was that people with bigger bodies were beautiful and healthy, or viewed as beautiful and healthy. Right, we live in a culture that views people in larger bodies as unhealthy, despite the fact that all evidence shows that that's objectively not true. Right, like, weight and health are not For sure.
Speaker 1:
There's no correlation. For sure, but and also just like the gender standards. You know, again, if you have rougher looking facial skin and you're a man, fine, like there's nothing about that takes away from your beauty. If you're a woman presenting person and you have rougher looking facial skin, like that's bad. You know, you could see the appores, you know whatever. It's so specific, right, yeah, so connected to like the way that our society makes us.
Speaker 2:
Or if you're a woman with big hair Exactly Of any kind, yeah Right, and especially if you want to let it grow.
Speaker 1:
For sure. Yeah, so many double standards.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, yeah. Well, and what's been interesting not inch, I don't know for me it's interesting is the depth to which I had internalized a lot of that and I've been so grateful in my work to have to be confronting that in with the people that I've been really fortunate enough to collaborate with. Right, Like working with people of a huge range of, you know, backgrounds, identities, body shapes, sizes, presentations, gender identities, ways of expressing those gender identities, like again and again and again, I've gotten the opportunity to like come up with my own biases and my own stuff, and then now in my own body, you know, my challenge is like, okay, can you apply that to yourself, right? Can you find that positive regard that I feel for all, for the people that I work with, for myself, and that I think that's that's harder for me?
Speaker 1:
For sure it's harder. It's harder for ourselves for sure. But what I was just also thinking about is, next time I have like a big eczema outbreak, I'm going to call you and you can come and like take some pretty pictures of it.
Speaker 2:
I would love that. I would love that. Yeah, and I would you know and when. I would love to come in and talk about tattoo placement with you and what does it look like, even in a flare? You know, maybe that's not the time to be tattooed, Right?
Speaker 1:
But to like plan or draw.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, we could draw, we could talk about it, you know, kind of plan for the future. And even what does it look like if it comes back and interacts with the tattoo which it is, which it is now with one of mine?
Speaker 1:
So I'm so curious about what all that looks like. I wish you would take some really awesome pictures of it.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I can definitely do that and I actually I want to do that also as a record, because I'm really curious when the flare goes down. I'm just hoping that it will. I'm trying to be sure it will.
Speaker 1:
As they do, everything comes and goes Right.
Speaker 2:
Well, the next level of care is systemic medications, and I have a few friends who have had really great results with it. But it comes with some pretty intense potential side effects because it basically lowers your entire immune system. So the doctors are you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know. Oftentimes you know they want you to do at least six months of topical treatments. There's also like light therapy, treatments that they try to do. I've tried to do that. It doesn't really work for me. It works well for other people. But the next, basically the next level, is if, in you know, a few months, my flare doesn't settle down or if it gets worse, that puts me in a position to be a candidate for the systemics. And that's usually a shot once a week and it's self-administered extra ironic for someone who's also trans and other medications.
Speaker 1:
You're used to it, you're good at it.
Speaker 2:
They're very. You know the differences. Unlike HRT, you know it actually lowers your immune system, so it puts you at a higher risk for infections. It puts you, you know, if you even a regular cold or flu can kind of get out of control. And you know my brain goes straight to. You know COVID and what does that mean to have a lower immune system in a world where now we have this pretty intense virus. I do mask a lot and actually related to COVID. When I went in for my visit, one of the first questions that he asked was have you had COVID recently? Because he said they're noticing a link between I don't mean stuff in COVID, I don't mean stuff in COVID and I had it last June. I've only had it once, as far as I know. I'm pretty careful for a lot of reasons, but I did have it last June and I did notice that my skin started to get worse after that.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I think that is. The scariest thing I think about COVID is that it's presents as a cold but it's not yeah.
Speaker 2:
I got pretty sick and I'm fully. I was and still am fully vaccinated.
Speaker 1:
Are you getting vaccination shots like every six months or whatever?
Speaker 2:
I'm not old enough yet, even though I'm kind of arguing for it. If I could, I absolutely would.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I know I'm. I like I also had COVID once and it has made my brain feel different, my memory and my grasp of words. My vocabulary is not as quick. I can't grab what I need out of my brain so fast and I can. I really noticed it. But also, every time I've had a shot, my whole. I already have a hormonal system that's kind of out of whack, but it goes further out of whack every time I've had a Vax shot. So I'm like God damn it. You know I can't win with it.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, yeah, I know that's a whole other you know situation, right, yeah, I. So the next step would be to go on a systemic, which I'm actually considering, and what would that mean for getting tattooed? I probably probably not much. You know, I mean I'm pretty meticulous with my aftercare period just because I have to take really good care of my skin, so I don't think it would change anything. And you know the goal, the goal I have a few friends that have are on the systemics and for them it's like like a 95% decrease in their, in their skin, like it's life changing for people. Right, there's people that have, I would say right now I'm at about 30%, 20, maybe 30% of my skin is affected. That's a lot. It's a lot, yeah, people that have it that are much more affected, right, and so shout out to anybody who's really, really affected by it. I mean, for me it's generally it's increasing, but there's people that have really significant parts of their body are affected and those people they're great candidates for the systemics and people have had really great results with it, like life changing. I mean, people have it on their face all over and it's very painful, really uncomfortable. It kind of goes beyond just looks right. It is really really uncomfortable and affects your joints and kind of all these other things, because stuff is happening internally too. So the systemics are kind of the next step and we've got some pretty good ones, but they do all have that immune suppressing effect. So the doctors are pretty hesitant and they cost a lot. So sometimes getting your insurance company to approve them can be really challenging and I don't know. It kind of reminds me a little bit of well, even now in some places, right, getting HRT and other hormone stuff covered can be a pain. But different ways that people do it, like even paying, having to pay out of pocket to go to a private dermatologist who will prescribe it, and then you can argue that your insurance company should cover it. So a lot of this also breaks out around lines of financial privilege, like if you have the money to go to a doctor, if you live in a place where you can pay out of pocket for a dermatologist. But like all chronic illnesses, there's a huge financial toll that comes up, not just the medications but the doctor's visits. Getting there advocating for yourself, all of that kind of stuff can just really grind you down after a while and then, if they won't put you on the medication, it can feel really, really, really disempowering.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I mean. We're so alone in the medical system. It takes so much privilege to advocate to be able to get any kind of help.
Speaker 2:
Something also experienced, like mental brain fog and that too. When they're in flares it's an autoimmune kind of flare up. So people have it's your whole body. Yeah, people have GI stuff, people have had to go on disability because of brain fog and things like that, even as I'm trying to find words here, right, yeah, when I was in my 20s and started to have my eczema flare ups, I didn't know what it was.
Speaker 1:
It was just these intense, big rough patches of skin that itched so bad I would scratch to bleeding. And I was at the time going to I won't mention the name, but a small free clinic that's supposed to trans people in SF, and the doctor there kept being like it's bed bugs, right, and I was like, ok, that's possible, but I don't think it is. I don't think it is. But he kept being like no, it's bed bugs. So I did whatever you were supposed to do for bed bugs, which is like a whole big deal, and it didn't go away. So eventually I paid out of pocket and went to see dermatologist, like in downtown SF, and she was like after I paid the $150, that was so much money to me at the time and she was like it's eczema. I was like, well, thanks, thanks, that's great, that's helpful. Because it was like well, of course it is, there was no, she took five minutes with me and told me that I had to pay all this money. That was really a lot for me to pay, but in retrospect it was like it's just fucking ridiculous, like the medical system and he kept telling me it was bed bugs because I was poor and young and she thought I was dirty or whatever.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, yeah, I think a lot of chronic conditions. Some doctors just don't want to treat it. They don't even want to look at it because they kind of, yeah, I don't know, it's just really they don't believe people Like that doctor didn't believe you. You're like, it's not bed bugs, they don't believe you. Or there's an unconscious stigma, or a conscious stigma. If you have a skin condition, that it means that you're dirty, it means that you're, maybe you're using drugs. They are brain disorders.
Speaker 1:
And sleeping in bad places, dealing with bad people, all this stigma.
Speaker 2:
You're unsanitary or whatever. Similar with tattoos, right? People think, oh, you got it right that it means something. It's so interesting, right, how skin becomes this. I don't know. It's like this canvas of other people's projections.
Speaker 1:
Yes, because that's what they can see. Also, this was around the same time I had met the person I had already mentioned and when I was first taking my clothes off in front of them, we were becoming lovers. I was like I had this giant patch on my leg that looked wild and I was like. I was like, hey, this is not a disease, it's like a skin thing. And I was so different, like I felt so sheepish about it, and they were like I don't care, whatever. And that was so good, it was so good for me to have that. That was the first lover I think I had at that time when I was having that was starting up on my body, and for them to be like I don't care, not to give it a second thought, was so healing.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, yeah, I can definitely relate to that. I mean, I've really held back on dating and being intimate with new people Because, yeah, it can be this whole other thing to explain. I've had people say, is it OK to touch you there? And that's great that people ask, but it just becomes another barrier to intimacy. I have to overcome a lot of that and then do some explaining. But I've been really lucky to have some really really lovely people who can give me a similar to what you got. Like get that affirmation, that like no, no, no, it's OK. Like I get it, like you're fine.
Speaker 1:
It's lovely to be surprised in that way. What is your sort of ideal? So say, you go on this medication. It works out well for you. You feel the expansion of possibility of getting tattooed. What is your ideal outcome in another 20, 30 years, when you are entering the last phases of your life? How covered are you at that point?
Speaker 2:
I want to be one of those like hot older people that's just covered in tattoos. Honest.
Speaker 1:
Just everything that.
Speaker 2:
I don't know. I'm really giving myself permission to have this balance between planning and over planning. I guess I've enjoyed. What I would like to do would be to continue to collect work from artists that I really love and respect. There's like an artist in Berlin that I fantasize about working with.
Speaker 1:
I mean, feel free to drop names. I love names. Yeah, I'm trying to remember names.
Speaker 2:
One of my dreams is Fido Pavlov. Who's this like queer trans artist who works on the East Coast. His work is like, even beautiful, and I would love a piece from him. You know, I mean, given endless money, I would just travel the world and get tattoos.
Speaker 1:
Do you have one of his tarot sets? I do.
Speaker 2:
His turn is really great. I've used his deck in session with adult clients adult trans clients where we sometimes will do tarot. If I have a witchy client, we'll do a tarot kind of pull. I just love his work. I think it's beautiful and affirming and inclusive and just everything.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, totally I love his work too. I love I think I used to like stalk his Instagram more, but he just has such a cool aesthetic. He's so like this opulence, sort of Baroque Rococo, like golds, velvet candles, like just so his whole just aesthetic, like how he lives, is very much like the way he draws.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I absolutely love how humble he is and how it's like, even though his house looks very pretentious. But I don't get the sense that he's like a pretentious person at all. He seems like very chill and he also loves Hannibal, which I was very into that show also. So I like kind of just how kind of bloody and kind of gross like some of his work is. I really appreciate that.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, no, I don't get the pretentious thing at all from him. He's also he's Russian speaking, which was fun and interacted at some point. Yeah, yeah, that's pretty cool.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, but I. So my general plan is I would like to at some point I need to start getting tattooed on my arms, because most of my work is on my legs and I just because, partly because of my skin and partly just because of who I am, I don't really wear shorts a lot, so most of my work, like a lot of people haven't even seen.
Speaker 1:
So so wait, hold on a second. The logic there is that you didn't want it to show.
Speaker 2:
It's just how it played out, because I wanted to do kind of ocean and under the sea kind of stuff and I would. I wanted that on my legs and then as I go up, I would like, I want to incorporate like more. I'm also very into plants, especially California native plants and things like that. So I want to do more kind of floral stuff on my arms. And then I've been thinking about kind of chest and torso and I've kind of mixed feelings about that. For me every time I see, I see these like beautiful chess pieces and I'm kind of like, oh, that's really, that's really beautiful, but not not quite there yet. So I'm giving myself just kind of time to. You know, in a way, having a flare up has kind of forced me to slow my role in a little bit with tattoos, which I think is is good. But I I'm think I'm just gonna kind of keep slowly getting getting work, probably for as long as I can.
Speaker 1:
There's no angle. I think I like to imagine what a person like imagines for themselves, if they do, you know, and some people do is simple say you know, I have plans to get a back piece, a chest piece, a sleeve, two sleeves, whatever, but in the end of it all, it's just the process, right it's? Just it's like it's a lifelong process. Mm-hmm, I do.
Speaker 2:
I do want to do. I actually would like to be more visibly tattooed. For a lot of reasons, you know, including I, I don't know. I think they're really sexy on other people. I think they're really sexy on me. It's. I love my work. Like whenever I'm, I look at it, it brings me a lot of joy, it makes me really happy. There's a lot of memories associated with it. The process of getting the work was really positive for me, you know. So it's felt really, really empowering. It's actually helped me Feel a lot more comfortable in my body, similar to how transitioning made me feel a lot more comfortable in my body, and I guess I should have expected that, but I didn't, you know, and so that was kind of an unexpected joy. And so, even in the middle of this flare-up, I I'm still looking at my pieces and they make me really happy.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I love that and that is really. I think that's the case, for you know most people getting tattooed, and that's you know, the people who don't have tattoos who are like why would you do that? It's not something you can really explain, but it does it. It's a way of making your body more your home.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, and they are definitely Contagious. Because after I got I came home and told my partner who he was like very he doesn't have, he's not very into body mods at all for for himself, you know, and he was kind of like I'm not really sure how I'm gonna feel about your tattoo and I was like that's cool, like I don't care, like I don't really care how you feel, like if you don't like it We'll split up and I'll go find somebody who does like. You know, I was like I'm gonna do whatever I want with my body and obviously he's he's very supportive of that. But he was like after I got my big leg piece he was like that's really hot actually.
Speaker 1:
Well, I think there's like an element to people thinking when they think of like tattoos. They think of that like 90s, I don't know, butterflies, what used to be called tribal, like all of that kind of bullshit, you know, and the kind of art we all have access to at this day and age and the kind of people with the kind of skills. It's such a different thing. I mean it's fucking art. I mean, all of it is art. That was our too, but there's a different level to it and to the level of expression self-expression.
Speaker 2:
Definitely, definitely. I'm also really lucky that I've worked with artists who I'll come in with an idea and then they'll bring their own Skill to it and it just becomes something even more beautiful than I had imagined. Because, I'm not an illustrator, like at all. I got into photography because I can't draw for shit, like I hate drawing. So I'm I'm like just in awe of like you and other people's skills in this area, like Working on skin has got to be so challenging and I'm just absolutely in awe of the depth of Images that that come through in people's tattoos. It's just, it's absolutely incredible. It's an amazing art form.
Speaker 1:
For sure it's its own thing very much. You know it's own medium. I don't think it's really comparable to like drawing on paper or painting or watercolor it's its own thing for sure. Well, I wanted to also have you give us your, because you're like it sounds like you're the perfect Carer for tattoos. You're like the perfect client who will take the best possible care of their tattoos. Can you give us your regimen of tattoo care?
Speaker 2:
Mm-hmm. Oh no, I kind of just do whatever I'm told. You know, I've had, I've used what's called Sanaderm.
Speaker 1:
Occasion. Do you do the wet method or the dry method? What's the difference? Like the wet method, it's when you have you send a derma on for days at a time, which I would not assume would be good for your skin, but maybe it would be I.
Speaker 2:
The longest I've left it on is about a day. Okay, right, and then it comes off, and then you know, just a really gentle wash with mild soap, and then I use which what was the one you mentioned earlier aquifer, aquifer. I've used aquifer, right, just a thin, a thin layer. You know, clean hands, always, always, always, or gloves, in those first couple of days, and then I just do a lot of like air. You know, let it just let it be In between treatments, right? Don't touch it, don't cover it, and I heal really fast. So I've, I've, I've had a lot of pain, so I've, I've, I've had really good results, healing For the most part.
Speaker 1:
It's interesting actually, you know, I have noticed that people with skin conditions sometimes heal faster because their skin regenerates faster. It's part of their condition, you know. So their skin regenerates either too fast, no, or just like who learns to Regenerate faster because it's like flake sophomore. Yeah, so be like almost the positive thing for healing.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, that's. Yeah, I've thought about that and I've had very little flaking and peeling actually, and I don't know if that's because I'm really on the keeping it damp, not wet, right, but get moisturized. The most kind of peeling and that I've had is the color work, which I think it's. From what I've heard, that's pretty, pretty common, but I actually don't have that much itching, like a little bit like I've seen people be like oh it's. You know it's for days that that hasn't been my experience, yeah. And then the most color I've lost was in those reds and browns, which I think tracks with other people's experiences. Just there's something in the ink that some of us just our skin just isn't like nope, and actually a lot of the color came out which was really Surprising to both me and the artist, cuz she's just getting pushed it out.
Speaker 1:
It's gonna look like this is not gonna work for us.
Speaker 2:
So you did it right out. So it's, there was really interesting.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, yeah, I tattooed Andy and her family Over Christmas last year, and actually both she and her sister had the action too, because they were. They were similar tattoos. They were slightly different, but they're little sunsets. And they both had reaction to the reds.
Speaker 2:
So, it's like oh, there's like a genetic component to here yeah, when I get really in my brain about this, I almost think about making an art piece around, getting tattooed and have and rejecting it and the body like pushing it out and pushing it out and playing with this idea of like, permanence and and Right, the permanence of a tattoo. But what? What is it when you know that your body isn't gonna respond? Well, but you know, obviously I'm not gonna deliberately harm my body, but I an interesting process and I think the artist that I was working with was afraid that I was. I was gonna be like Really upset about it, but I I had already kind of prepared myself, you know, knowing that a lot of some people really don't respond well to those tones I can, I kind of had already prepared myself for it, so I wasn't really surprised.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I think you know, as long as we know that, you know that it's a possibility and that, like it's, you know, willing to go places, hard places, with my clients, like not Not everybody is, you know, but people, some people are, yeah, those places.
Speaker 2:
It's a consent factor. You know, I do really want hand tattoos also. I've all. That's actually been something I fantasized and thought about Since I was like a kid and saw somebody with tattoos on their hands, and I know that hands bring their own level of complexity In terms of taking ink and holding it.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, somewhat I think you know. I think black will be a good place for you to go. In general, I I've had they. I've had pretty good experiences with tattoo people's hands and also my own hands being tattooed. I've never had any eczema like on my hands Based on my tattoos. There's also something about like your hands are so much more hearty. I think that some other parts of your body right, because the skin there is tougher, it's sees the sun a lot, it's more used to other stimulation, so actually might be, might be, a better place. It's not the case for everybody. Some people do get skin conditions on their hands, for sure, but that also tends to be the palm more than the outside. Yeah, that could be a good place for you to travel travel soon.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, it's been, it's been a goal. Yeah, I do have a little patch on here so I'm pretty hard on my hands too, doing yeah with clay, yeah, all of that. So that makes sense.
Speaker 1:
The last thing I ask all the guests is what's a small thing that's been making you happy lately, mmm-hmm.
Speaker 2:
Is it super gay if I say my cat?
Speaker 1:
No, sounds perfect, but the cat's not a small thing.
Speaker 2:
But you can say you can't it's true in the grand scheme of thing. You know, compared to the world she is.
Speaker 1:
What is she? What is she doing that's making you happy?
Speaker 2:
just being. Sometimes I look at her and I'm like she does this thing where she lays on her. She's very fluffy and she lays on her back with her little, her little white feet in the air and makes little air biscuits, and I'm it just reminds me that in in the chaos of this world, that there are these little creatures that Can be happy in a Sunbeam and that's all they need.
Speaker 1:
Mmm.
Speaker 2:
Because I know significantly more than a Sunbeam it feels. It feels like it reminds me to just like chill.
Speaker 1:
I mean also, maybe if you lay there with her and do what she's doing in the Sunbeam, like, maybe you'll experience that happiness for that moment.
Speaker 2:
Oh, I definitely get down there with her on the floor and we hang out together and then sometimes she just purrs and purrs and it's, it's. Yeah, that's my meditation. I guess I'm not like, not a stillness meditation Kind of a person. I'm much more of a moving meditation person. So it's a good moment for me to just lay in the Sun and purr.
Speaker 1:
That's pretty great. Yeah, thanks for coming on the podcast, thanks for having the idea, because it's often it's me who has all the ideas and I'm pretty you know I'm only one person. So thanks for having an idea and Making it happen so fast, being so available. I I appreciate it. So it's like super fucking interesting and, I think, really useful to a lot of people out there, and I also can't wait to Tatoo you.
Speaker 2:
I can't wait to be tattooed by you and, yeah, thank you for what you're doing with this podcast and, you know, just for the chance to talk about this. I think it's not something that I've seen a lot of people kind of talking about and I I think it's kind of important and yeah, so if anybody out there hears this and, you know, wants to reach out and talk about this stuff or is already making art about this or anything like that, like, please, please, please, reach out to us because, yeah, I think the way that tattooing is changing and being way more inclusive and gives a cool opportunity for, you know, for folks like me who are sort of Living with these chronic conditions, to, you know, just kind of like find more solidarity and find artists in spaces where when we can get tattooed and explore that and not feel like it's a big ask or that it's an inappropriate ask or that it's, you know, something that we can't do, because it is it is something that we can do it is, and as somebody who is Living with the conditions but also is a very thoughtful, insightful person who's also an artist.
Speaker 1:
You know, this is like key combination here of Identities that can come together and like make space for even more, even more opportunities for people to explore themselves and what it means to be alive with all the different ways in which we're challenged and marginalized and also blessed.
Speaker 2:
Yeah right, being in a body is so complicated it is so complicated in a body.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, thank you. Yeah, thank you. Where can people find you and how can they support your artwork? Whatever Other things that you'd like people to support, tell us.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, basically. So my personal website is is a good way to kind of reach me and see some of my projects. I think, like most artists, I am behind on updating my website, but you can definitely reach me through there. It's just Tristan crane, calm, and then I have an ongoing portrait series of interviews and photographs of trans, non-binary gender, non-conforming people. Basically anyone who's not cisgender is welcome in in in the project. And that's at here. H e r e portraits, calm, and I've got, I think at this point, like something like 170 people have participated. So if you're interested in participating or lending, you're adding your voice, adding your story. Please reach out.
Speaker 1:
Okay, and I will have all that linked in the show notes you.