The world of queer tattoo artists is pretty small; made smaller by the internet. 

From starting to follow her on IG, I have always felt a kinship with Caitlin Cordell, as her statements -- political and social, in instagram stories and captions always felt resonant to me. And her tattoo art is captivating. 

The thing I didn't know about Caitlin is how deeply she cares about the young people. Having worked in social work for almost her entire adult life up until very recently, she transitioned to tattooing a lot more while still keeping a lot of her energy tied up in a local alternative school. Speaking of local, Caitlin and her (very gay) partner live in Twisp, WA, which is a small rural town. 

Together we decided that she is clearly one of the village witches and aunties to the young ones, and a niece to the elders. I was struck by how community oriented this beautiful human is. Many of us are, but Caitlin takes it to another level. 

Our conversation was flowing, fun, snappy, full of laughter and beautiful imagery we conjured together. It's an honor to get to imagine a better world with a kindred spirit. 

Listen in and then check out Caitlin's fine line black and grey plant and animal tattoos, which are delicate and gorgeous. 

Find Caitlin on instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/caitlincordell23/

Micah Riot: 0:00

Hello darlings, micah Ride here this episode. I present to you the conversation I had with Caitlin Cordell, who is a magical, witchy tattoo artist who lives in Twist, washington, small community on a river. I know Caitlin through the internet. Caitlin tattoos in kind of a fine line, black and gray style, mostly plants and animals. I knew that we would have an amazing conversation because Caitlin often helps posts stories on social media that really resonate with me and, of course, the tattoos Caitlin posts are absolutely gorgeous. Hear us talk about things about being in tattoo community, being older tattoo artists working with youth, appreciating youth, being support for youth and intergenerational love, intergenerational connection and also relationships across political lines, belief lines, value lines and rural life versus urban life for queers. It's really a beautiful conversation and Caitlin has the most infectious laugh. So here we go. Hi, caitlin. 

Caitlin Cordell: 1:55

Hi Micah. 

Micah Riot: 1:58

Why don't we start by you just giving me some identity markers that are important to you, that you would like the audience to know about you? 

Caitlin Cordell: 2:06

Okay, so Caitlin Cordell I use she her pronouns. I don't identify as cisgender, just like gender non conforming feels like the right one. I'm white, I live in rural Eastern Washington, my group in Seattle and come from, yeah, pacific Northwest educators and teachers and definitely identify as queer. I have a partner. We have two cats and an artist and a social worker both of those things youth worker. 

Micah Riot: 3:02

So yeah, I know that you transitioned. Sorry to interrupt. I know you transitioned from social work to tattooing. How long has it been since that transition happened? 

Caitlin Cordell: 3:15

I did that in September. I turned 40 and I had been doing youth work for close to 20 years, 25 years and, yeah, I just felt like this time in my life was time to give space to the artist that had not gotten a lot of attention. 

Micah Riot: 3:38

So, yeah, I feel like I've been seeing your tattoos much longer than, like what, four months, so are you doing that at the same time? 

Caitlin Cordell: 3:49

Yeah, yeah, I was doing that pretty part time. I started tattooing or hand poke, teaching myself hand poke tattoo in 2018 and then transitioned to mostly machine tattooing in like 2022 with support from a mentor. And then, but yeah, I was doing that, working like two days a week tattooing and four days a week doing social work. 

Micah Riot: 4:16

Yeah, and since you live rurally, how does that work with? Well, socially work agencies and also tattooing, like are you near a big town? Like where do you do all kinds of work? 

Caitlin Cordell: 4:33

Yeah, I'll try to. I'll try to paint the picture of where I am. So I'm actually in. So I'm in central, central, eastern Washington and I'm in a valley called the Met Howe Valley which is named after the indigenous people that were here before white colonizers. And some of them still do live in this valley, but many of them have been displaced and now belong to the confederated tribes of the Colville Reservation, which is 12 tribes and it is a valley of like three, four small towns and they kind of become progressively more affluent as you get further north, and it's a tourist center in Okanagan County. 

Caitlin Cordell: 5:25

It's like truly one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen. It's like land before time. You know when like he comes out and there's the valley there, like sometimes when I'm driving, I feel like I'm in the land before time. It's like green hills and then the river flows through it and then there's white mountains, there's the cascades that kind of hug us in here, and the town that I'm in called Twisp, which is a Met Howe word for pollinator, I think it's for yellow jacket is like 3000, 4000 people and I'm in the unincorporated part, so. But it's pretty affluent, it's got a lot of second homeowners and they kind of help this economy. I mean, help is a really interesting word but they feed money into the economy, the tourist economy here, and there's a lot of local working people that are really supported by other working people and people who care about this community. 

Caitlin Cordell: 6:36

And there's a really fantastic nonprofit organization called Room One. That's where I was working for many years and we actually focused my job, focused primarily on sexual health, violence prevention, work in the schools, but also around Okanagan County, and then there's just like a ton of other nonprofits in the area that like support people here and bring in money to support the nonprofit. Surprisingly, there's a lot of people that really resonate with I mean not surprisingly, but like Flora Fana fine line tattoos and a lot of my clients are like 50 plus first tattoo people that just were like, oh, I didn't know you could get a tattoo that was of a fireweed illustrative style. You know they have a very different perspective on tattoo art and what it means, and so I have a lot of those clients. So, surprisingly, I have a lot of clients and I feel like I've got great work here which is amazing. 

Micah Riot: 7:40

That is amazing. And I love when you live in the big like urban area, like I do, and there's two artists here and that sometimes it just feels like I'm just like clawing my way through this, like oversaturated, yeah, a little bit like there's just so many options for people and like, yes, I have enough clients. Like is that always going to be the case? Like am I still relevant? There's just like a lot of these things and, you know, I'm like what if I go somewhere more rural, because that's what I really would like to do? 

Caitlin Cordell: 8:13

And like, yeah, what makes you want to go more rural? 

Micah Riot: 8:17

I mean the hustle here is a lot and I miss her. Like I mean, I think I'd like to go towards the East Coast because I miss changes in weather, I miss living, I miss the city. For instance, it's quite sunny here and really it's like all the driving, all the it's just so. It's just the energy here is so intense and I'm just closer and closer to being like I can't do this anymore. 

Caitlin Cordell: 8:42

Totally. Yeah, I think that's very much where I was at when I was living in Seattle was like driving and the hustle and just feeling like all your time was dedicated to like working your job and driving to your job and then trying to fit in outside of that, the time to do things that felt rejuvenating or connecting to place and culture and community. So yeah, I'm with you on that too, and there's a lot of challenges to living rural. 

Micah Riot: 9:15

Yeah, I'm sure it's not, you know it's like. I'm definitely not Like, oh, this, you know, city person being like it's so easy. Like I know it's not, I know, but there's a you trade something for something else, Like there's bosses and this is to everything. When did you transition from being in Seattle to being like out in twist area? 

Caitlin Cordell: 9:37

Yeah, we moved in 2018 out here and it's a growing. It's a little bit of a boom space. There's a lot of interest in living out here from people on the west side in the Seattle and the I5 corridor. A lot of people visit here and want to live here full time or have parents that have second homes out here and that kind of thing. So it was pretty amazing that we were able to find this place. It is unique. 

Caitlin Cordell: 10:12

We live in a post and peer yurt, so it's got walls, but it's very much a like. It doesn't have a foundation. It feels like a. It feels more like a cabin and it's on shared land. So we live with two other families here and share it's like 13 acres. That's a conservation easement, so it's not able to be developed. It's zoned for farming. We live with a seed farmer. So it was really interesting. We had to be vetted and voted on to come and live in this place from our community and I was totally like a city mouse. I was super naive about what it meant to live rurally, but my partner Easton she grew up in Montana and so she kind of had more understanding knows what irrigation means. I had no idea what irrigation was, or like when and how to cut firewood and, yeah, just like tons of other stuff that have to do with living out here. 

Micah Riot: 11:23

Okay, what's the biggest, most drastic like thing that you were like? Oh my God, this is something I wish I'd known before. 

Caitlin Cordell: 11:35

Gosh, what's something I wish I had known. 

Caitlin Cordell: 11:39

I think it's like a mentality when you live in a city there are so many people that you can call on to help you do the things that you don't know how to do so like plumbing, electrical work, fixing a thing on your house or whatever that is, and out here there's just so there's so fewer people and a lot of them are tapped by the various more like higher class people and so and they can pay more money for it. 

Caitlin Cordell: 12:16

So just having that mindset of like you're going to have to do most of this yourself and like that means a lot of YouTube videos and a lot of time and having patience and reading manuals Like I never read a manual before Like you just plug it in and it works and you hope it keeps working and if it doesn't, you call somebody come fix it. And it's like if your dishwasher doesn't work, you got to fix your dishwasher and that's been awesome. Like I feel very empowered by that. But it's also definitely been a shocker and super humbling too, because my perspective on rural people and community and ways of being in America has definitely shifted from what it was like for me living in Seattle. 

Caitlin Cordell: 13:08

That makes sense. 

Micah Riot: 13:09

The perspective shifting that makes so much sense. How is community? It sounds like you have quite a big community there. Are there a lot of queer folks around you? 

Caitlin Cordell: 13:22

You know, there is actually a really interesting like older queer community here. 

Caitlin Cordell: 13:28

So like a lot of older lesbians that, like both, they moved here early on and kind of built some of the like community nonprofits and like social movements in this Valley, which has been really neat to get to know, like an elder lesbian community that I didn't have a lot of connection to elders when I was in Seattle but that has been really powerful here. 

Caitlin Cordell: 13:58

And then I would say more like queer, trans and non-binary people have been moving to the Valley, probably very similar timeframe that Easton and I moved here, and those folks it seems like, yeah, really are queer people that found that their nervous systems were just way more supported by living in a rural Valley. Like the stimulation of cities was not supportive of that, and so and that's true of a lot of people out here too they're just like wanting out of the hustle of city life. Yeah, that's small but it is very present here and like we have a thriving I mean we have a pretty thriving pride here the community really shows up. We have a small organization called Mid-How Valley Pride and they are trying to do more work around here. Our schools support gender, non-binary young people. I work at an alternative high school and I would say like probably a third of the students there would identify as either gay, lesbian or gender queer, non-binary trans. 

Micah Riot: 15:17

It's definitely where the young ones are going. I always said that, you know, as I was like in my 20s and one of the very like people were just like gender, what you know, and I was a gender studies minor, but I was like if people thought about their gender for a second, they would realize there's as many genders as there are people and you can't just like categorize us into two different categories and be done with it. Yeah, yeah, people actually realize it, because they're thinking about gender more. 

Caitlin Cordell: 15:42

They are, and they're just like they're thinking about their gender. I think in ways beyond that is just like expansive of even the box you know, of like even thinking that masculine to feminine are the edges you know they're like. No, that's like not even the edge I care about. Like you know, like I have people here who really they're much more interested in sort of eco-regional like queerness in nature or queerness in animals and so like that edge is being pushed, or in like bio region queerness, like how does our gender become connected to place? So that's been really neat about being here. Is that kind of exploration beyond human social constructs. 

Micah Riot: 16:31

What's the? You mentioned the alternative high school that you work at. In those kids like what's the alternative piece? What? How is it structured? That's different. I'm like happy to hear that's happening in like more rural areas too. 

Caitlin Cordell: 16:42

Yeah, it's so. It's like I've always worked with alternative high schools and I like grew up going to alternative schools, so they're very much my people. This school specifically, it's called a big picture school and that means that they mostly set their own project deliverables and then they do a lot of work in internships that are connected to goals that they have. So young people like I've mentored a lot of young people. 

Caitlin Cordell: 17:10

I just did a like a seminar with three young people on hand poking, Like how do you do it safely? Like here's some of the like things that you wouldn't want to think about when you create a design, how do we work with stippled texture, that kind of thing, and that's part of their learning plan. So they come to me for four weeks I do a class and then they just give a presentation that kind of tells you and like both the mentors and their teachers, how they met some of these deliverables. Some of them do like crazy cool things, like metal work or working at a vet's office or teaching themselves how to crochet, Like it doesn't matter. It's a really beautiful culture, very supportive, and you just see young people go from like struggling to majorly thriving over the course of like two to three years their time there, and it is it's special for a rural place to have that for sure Do you feel like you're like a village witch, Like you're like you wanna be like a village healer so people can come to you for like? 

Micah Riot: 18:17

Oh Mike, I love that term so much, in a way, Old school kind of sense, you know, like when you get to be that age where, like, yeah, people send their young people to you and, like you do like healing rituals for them and that kind of thing. 

Caitlin Cordell: 18:33

Mm-hmm, it's actually. It's so lovely that you captured that idea. Cause, like, some of the work that I do with young people is also around tarot. So tarot has really been an important healing modality for me for the last couple of years and I'm actually working on this tarot deck that I've been, yeah, trying to publish for five years and part of the. 

Caitlin Cordell: 18:59

So I do these classes with young people and their focus primarily on self-defense and like violence prevention. But then we explore identity and we explore like development and coping mechanisms to deal with stress, and I always, every year, I always do a tarot, like a tarot workshop, and I'll bring in other people from the community to do tarot readings with them too and like set it up for them and it is kind of their favorite piece of it. And I've done mentorship with young people around tarot reading too. So, yeah, I would say there is sort of a village witch orientation in that of like working with young people and I just I like identify with young people pretty majorly feel more comfortable than sometimes I do with adults. 

Micah Riot: 19:49

Have you always been like the big sibling, kind of like as you roll in life, like it sounds like you work with kids for a long time, so have you always placed yourself like in kind of a young mentor type of positions? 

Caitlin Cordell: 20:05

Yeah, that's a pretty apt observation. Yeah, I'm an older sister to a younger brother who struggled pretty deeply and loved being an older sibling to him and his friends and started doing camp counseling and youth work basically since the age of 13. So, yeah, youth work and mentorship has been a huge part. And I'm a Virgo, so I just like love. I like love teaching. I'm a Leo rising, so I like being at the center of attention and making people feel really good. And I have a cancer man so I'm also very sensitive. I'm good yeah. 

Micah Riot: 20:48

Do you feel like you're? Like we're the same age. I'll be 40 in the month. 

Caitlin Cordell: 20:52

Oh congratulations. 

Micah Riot: 20:54

Oh, thank you, I guess it's yeah right Instead. That's a I like congratulations instead of happy birthday, like you made it to some next age. 

Micah Riot: 21:05

Like you know, we all make it anywhere. Really, do you feel like you're an elder now? Do you still feel like where? How do you? You know, I've just been thinking about that lately. Yeah, I'm becoming an elder because I'm I had my first apprentice since she's 23. And I feel very connected to her and also very like, very much older than her and it's something to be for the really the first time in my life, the older one, not the younger one. 

Caitlin Cordell: 21:37

Yeah, and I have a few questions I'd love to like turn around on that, cause I also think there's some interesting things around age in tattoo industry and culture that I'm not as familiar with, but I've been observing. Yeah, I so elder is such an interesting word. I think the young people I work with don't see me as being 40. They deny that I am 40 most of the time, which I take as a compliment. But it's also been very consistent through my life that people don't see me as old as I am, and so I feel like I have sort of a young energy and so, connecting with young people, I don't feel older and I also don't love being both perceived and acting like somebody who is older, cause I think there can be a tendency as we become older to kind of do this distancing culturally with generations younger than us, like oh, I don't understand that, or oh, kids these days, kind of attitude, and I find like young people's culture and passion and criticism of systems in the world to be really interesting and engaging, and so I don't want to separate myself from that. 

Caitlin Cordell: 23:03

So I don't know yet that I find myself feeling like an elder and I just have so many elders in my life that I was like, oh, you've lived like you are an elder, that I still feel so young in some ways and growing. But yeah, so I've that question for you about like feeling like an elder, particularly how long have you been tattooing for? Micah, 15 years, okay. So you've been tattooing for a while and like how have you seen that? Has there been a shift for you and how you see yourself or how other people see you as you get older and tattooing? 

Micah Riot: 23:46

I mean there's so many layers to that question and answer. I see the trends shifting. You know, like when I started it was still the age of, you know, and different areas are different too, but in the Bay Area there was still the age of walk-in, like walk-in shop culture. There's stuff on the walls that you can pick from, and when I started I did some of that stuff and then, very quickly, as I started, and that was at a very popular shop, like a very popular walk-in shop in the city in San Francisco very quickly we took that stuff off the walls because people wanted custom work and that's kind of like where it began to be, you know, and people still looked at like books on the tables, they would still look at photo books, but then they came Instagram right, and so I went from big, busy shop, smaller, quieter shop, private studio, all because of Instagram, because people started looking for tattoo artists online instead of walking in the shop, so I could have a private studio and like be fine. And then I felt really like in the prime of it, people weren't doing like watercolor stuff and I started to do it because I was interested in, you know, just expanding, like pushing the bounds of what a tattoo was and pushing the bounds of what, like the older dudes would say, was okay to do. No, and so I started doing that work and then it became very popular. 

Micah Riot: 25:06

A lot of people started doing it and now we're back to like stickery, looking like line workie, small pieces, a lot of like flash, a lot of sleeves, that like nineties pokey, what we used to call tribal. We don't call that now. We call it now they call it neocigitalism or something. But you know, these like pokey looking black designs, people put in their lower backs and stuff, like the shit that I've covered up so much for the last 15 years. So in that way, you know, I have that like, oh my God, the young people are doing this thing again. Yeah, but I think it's interesting what you said about, you know, having that attitude towards young people and youth and their trends and their culture. It's like separating ourselves from it and I think we would do it because of feeling defensive, like I feel, or like feeling insecure like are we still relevant? 

Micah Riot: 26:09

Do they still care? The youth don't realize how much power they have in culture and in acceptance and like in who gets to, who gets a bigger slice of the pie, like who gets more followers or more whatever, you know. That's now how the pie I feel like is looking like is like a lot of online attention and followings which I've never been able to achieve. Much of my clientele is sort of I feel like my clientele is kind of similar. It's a lot of middle-aged women who kind of wake up one day and go I've given so much of my life to like my husband, my kids, and now I have a bit more space in my life and I have a bit more disposable income and I'm gonna go do something for myself, kind of like. A lot of my clientele is that type of person. 

Micah Riot: 26:59

Not all you know have a lot of young queer folks too. And then I see like who Sailor is getting as an apprentice. You know what her clientele is like and she's like she's very to her like alternative music culture and like she looks very. She's got a big piercings in her nose and like eyebrow piercings and she looks very cool. You know she wears giant clothes Billie Eilish style giant clothes. 

Caitlin Cordell: 27:27

And I love that. That's the trend right now. It's awesome, it's so great. 

Micah Riot: 27:32

I totally agree. I love it too and it also makes me because I have a very like familial feeling around her. It makes me feel like safer for her, like it was weird, like you know. 

Micah Riot: 27:45

Remember in the nineties, when we had to show our entire torso from like here to here, because that was the trend. I didn't do that, but that was the trend. I couldn't either. But yes, yeah, but I'm like she's covered up. I love that. I love that she's not getting like attention in the way well, she is still getting that attention. Yeah, like a girl dad, this is the thing I'm just like. I wanna like sit on the porch with my gun, being like anybody come near my kid I'm gonna shoot them. I feel like inside, very defensive. 

Caitlin Cordell: 28:16

And that's. I think that's like beautiful too to have you know. I imagine that you're not like pedantic or like minimizing in that love and kind of. 

Micah Riot: 28:30

I try, I try to check in with you. I try to be like is this okay, is your boundaries good? And like and we'll check in about it. So it's fine, we'll joke a lot about it. She calls me grandpa, so you know. It's like I think about age a lot in this context, because I agree with what you said. It's like I also don't wanna separate myself, but I also feel like I have to position myself somewhere where I can like kind of observe, be part of it, but not cross boundaries and like, but we all wanna remain relevant, right. Like the cold moves so fast and trends. Myself I'm not gonna go back to what I thought of in the nineties was like not that interesting of tattoo work and do that now because of the trends. You know like I'm still gonna do my thing, yeah, but at some point is that gonna be completely not what anybody wants, like it's scary. 

Caitlin Cordell: 29:25

Yeah, that's so. I think when you were just talking, I was thinking about you know, I've definitely felt influenced by trends and you'll see clients who are. I think that's like the biggest thing is you see clients introduced by trends, so they bring some of these ideas to you. And I was just reflecting, like I don't even know if I could, if I wanted to, in some ways like change my style because it's like so I've been drawing since I could and that is like how I draw, and I don't even know if I could do. I don't think I could ever do what you do, like I just my concept of color. I could maybe work really, really hard, but your composition, your creativity, the way that you think about those things together, if that was the trend, I couldn't do it. 

Caitlin Cordell: 30:24

But I do think that there's something really interesting about tattoo art, which is also like deeply part of the relationship that we build with people in community, and I think I've heard you talk about that on your podcast, about how you still have this client base, that it feels okay, and I imagine part of that is just that, like you, both the color and the vibrancy and the interest that your designs bring for people. Those are the people that gravitate towards you and like I'll do black and gray, delicate floral work, you know. And then you know I like to play. But people also in my community like spending time with me. You know that's part of the draw, is like there's very, there is a comfort that we create together, and so they want to come back time and time again to get tattoos. 

Micah Riot: 31:24

It's that village wish thing, you know. Yeah, totally. That person is so important to the inner, like economy, like the inner, the energy economy of the community. 

Caitlin Cordell: 31:38

Yeah, yeah, and there's. I think the Medhav Valley has a love for those village witches, like you said there's. I'm located in a area that has many artists and makers in it. It's a nonprofit called Twispworks, and across the way from me is a woman who does plant dyeing of material. She's been doing that forever. She's totally a village witch. 

Caitlin Cordell: 32:07

And then over on the other side is my friend, laura, who does just crazy amazing screen printing like plant animal. I mean like just straight up witch over there and is very interested in like queer youth culture and like wants to cultivate that over there. And I have an illustrator and printmaker next to me and there's a woodworker and so there is kind of this place where all of these people have been around and cultivating relationship for such a long time and when you build relationship with them, you tattoo them. They bring that into the world and that community. I mean that is one of the things that's really interesting. We'll see if I get to like at some point everybody will have enough tattoos in this community that I won't have enough people, but they keep coming back. 

Micah Riot: 32:58

Yeah, I mean you know how hard just to cover a body like that's that would take forever, that's true. You have like new people coming in, people moving away or leaving in some other way, like there's always flow, but so you're. So your shop is a private studio, I'm assuming. 

Caitlin Cordell: 33:16

Yeah, it's a private studio. It started off just like a small chair. In my friend Batania Lady Ursis is their tagline who is a traditional skills broommaker. So like literally, I am in a broom shop, which is perfect for the witch that I am, and that the space that they've cultivated is like incredibly beautiful. So I have a small corner space back there that I get to use. 

Micah Riot: 33:44

Yeah, okay, so you are with. I'm like trying to imagine this, because I'm imagining in a very villagy way now, like now I can't stop. It's like a street and there's like the different little. 

Caitlin Cordell: 33:58

It's a horseshoe. It's like a horseshoe. There's a little green plaza in the middle. It's old Forest Service building that's been refurbished into studios that go along. So like old Forest Service Washington State, old Forest Service buildings are like dark, brown and they have like shingled roofs. And that's exactly it. 

Micah Riot: 34:22

That's perfect, yeah, exactly, yeah, exactly. Please send a picture so that you know this can be visual. Yes, I've heard of many people when they listen to podcasts they like want to go and see what the person looks like and what the space looks like, and so now I'm like I get. People have told me enough times that they want to see that I need to put in, like, more pictures into the episodes. 

Caitlin Cordell: 34:46

Okay, I'll try to remember to take some photos of it or send you pictures of from Google what the space looks like. 

Micah Riot: 34:55

Yeah, yeah, that is beautiful. So, like what's? What's it like to try to publish a tarot deck? 

Caitlin Cordell: 35:06

This is the question of the hour. So I've been working on this tarot deck for five and a half years. It started off just as a project to get me drawing again. I had just finished my master's program in social work at the University of Washington. I was not a witch, I was like a very practical Virgo. I was like so classic, like give me the facts and like astrology, whatever. And then I met Easton and she just, yeah, flipped my world. And how did you meet? How did me and Easton meet? Yeah, yeah, who does it? 

Caitlin Cordell: 35:49

We met in 2015 and through the magical portal world of Okay Cupid. At the time, back when Okay Cupid I don't know was relevant. I don't even know what's going on with Okay Cupid these days, who's there but it was great. It felt authentic as a place to meet people and, yeah, she reached out and the Gemini and the Virgo we just love talking about ideas and she's total cutie and pretty magical and it was like, yeah, it was probably one of the only times in my life where I really felt like I dated somebody, like we went on dates, we cultivated dates and like cultivated getting to know each other, and that was super special and, yeah, and she was like she's like a river mountain nymph, like maybe I think you've seen her called plunges. 

Micah Riot: 37:03

We've like made some contact. Yeah, we like had a zoom point last time. 

Caitlin Cordell: 37:08

Super sweet, yeah. And she also she's used tarot and been interested in astrology for a long time and so she brought those things into my world and as I've gotten to know, those like tools, those metaphysical tools, the social worker and me and sort of that like practical strategist around like how do we work with the world? It all really makes a lot of sense as archetypal things that help us feel connected to the collective and seasons and time. So I started drawing this tarot deck and I just couldn't stop. But just like each piece it started to evolve from there and people were really interested in the illustrations and it's. I finished most of the illustrations about a year ago and now I'm doing the writing and that is just like not my energy space and so it's kind of like fell flat a little bit. But we're working on Easton's helping me work on publishing at least the cards or getting a test print of the cards in the next month or so. So we're on the path of that but it's been long. 

Micah Riot: 38:29

So is that a self publishing thing? Did you find somebody to okay? 

Caitlin Cordell: 38:32

No, yeah, no, working with a publisher they get to control so much of it and you don't actually make a ton of money, but it's a great way to get out there if that's what you're interested in. But no, I'll probably do a Kickstarter or whatever way to raise money for it or interest for it in the next year or so. But becoming a full-time artist was also trying to create space to make this tarot deck happen in the world. But work the places where you make money. Take precedent. 

Micah Riot: 39:11

Yeah, no for sure. This is like your big passion project. 

Caitlin Cordell: 39:15

Yeah, yeah. I feel like when this tarot deck comes out, it's like the child that I'm not, that I am gonna have, but not the human child. It's like that kind of energy. 

Micah Riot: 39:27

I feel that for this tarot deck. I was curious about that when you were talking about the youth. So, shifting a little bit to a question of children, like I very much was clear that I wasn't gonna birth kids. I was open to step parenting and I did get to for a while. What was your path with it? Like I think it was queer. So it's like people, as you like, as we get older, what's your world around that? 

Caitlin Cordell: 39:57

Yeah, gosh, such a big question. There was something you said. Did you say snap parenting or Steps parenting, steps parenting? Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely very clear and enthusiastically child-free. 

Caitlin Cordell: 40:20

And I think a lot of that comes from working with children most of my life and seeing the complexity of young people and caring for them and seeing also the complexity of caring for children and then feeling like there's not enough time or energy for other things in your life and I just that was not going to be in the stars and fortunately Easton's also on that path pretty clearly. 

Caitlin Cordell: 40:48

So you know, I think down the line we live in a very small house but it would be lovely to be able to create a space for young people to land. I helped start a program in the Medjab Valley which is called a host home program and that is alternative to shelter, because in rural communities it's really hard to sustain shelters for young people or transitional housing, and so you try to work with local community members to open up a room in their house to house a young person who's in an unstable housing situation, and I think Easton and I would love to probably do that down the line, but I think that I'm digging that village witch, you know, maybe moving into like crone, you know, like getting I have a lot of crones in my life and I love being the young person in their life that wants to take care of them and like be. You know, a lot of them don't have children of their own and I would love to be the niece, you know, to those aunties. That feels like a great deal. 

Micah Riot: 42:04

That's the aunties about, like the intense urban living, like sure, there's neighbors here in this neighborhood and such, but it's really hard to like. Yes, I know some elderly folks, but they live across town, across the bridge, there's a lot of traffic, like it's. You know, it's just like not very sustainable and I would be in a smaller community being able to just I'll walk to your house, I'll be there in 10 minutes. Let me drop you off some soup Like that type of. Thing is something that I really wish I had in my life. 

Caitlin Cordell: 42:33

Do you want to move to the Mejow Valley? You can come up here. 

Micah Riot: 42:37

I mean Easton and I were talking about getting together to do some cold plunging, some kind of retreat. You know we did a lot of that. But when we hustle it also feels like so insurmountable, like how do we plan something like that? How do we make it doable for us and for participants? But yeah, I have, I have thought about coming to visit you. 

Caitlin Cordell: 42:59

Yeah, no, I mean it would be. I would love to have more queer, community oriented people here. I think that would be amazing and I think this place is deserving of and people like you are deserving of being together, because you know, the places like this should not only be accessible to the wealthy class of people in this world and there's ways that this community is working to make it more affordable. But, yeah, if Easton and I can like support people coming here who want to come here, who don't have a lot of access to being in the mountains or being in relationship with rivers or being in relationship with Sage Step, like that's something we would love to cultivate and help people have access to, however we can. 

Micah Riot: 43:56

Yeah, I love a community oriented queer. 

Caitlin Cordell: 44:03

Yeah, how's how. I'm so curious. How is like, how has the tattoo community been for you in Oakland? Like, how do you connect with folks out there? 

Micah Riot: 44:12

The tattoo artists here. Yeah, my god, any community, especially when it's small, there's just always drama, right, some, there's always some. Yeah, that doesn't mean it's like life ruining or anything, but it can be. And tattoo the tattoo industry has shifted so much from being that like old dude, old guard, really masculine, really tough right, to being much more like how do we like take care of our clients' needs across the board, not just their actual tattoo needs? Yeah, they have blankets in the shop and tea and like music and candles and right like shifting from your piece of skin with a wallet to like and I was never in that environment so I you know. 

Micah Riot: 44:59

But I remember being at my first shop, which was an old women all queer shop, and here in the city I was like I'm going to go to a queer shop and going on a date with some like random woman who was like all tough and like tied it up and super budge and her being like ah, those, yeah, the like the, the reputation of black and blue in the community is like you're just like a bunch of little soft girls who like do little soft, little cutesy tattoos and I was like thank you, like we're on a date, okay, really you're not interested in getting in my pants, that's fine, yeah. 

Caitlin Cordell: 45:29

Cause that's not the way it's going to happen. 

Micah Riot: 45:32

Like way to insult the like queer women owned and operated shop in the bay, you know, like the oldest, the old way to shop, Cool. But so it was like very much like that. There's a lot of competition. Then the dude started to resent the queers for like taking towel, because people were like, oh, I can have a good tattoo and be treated nicely, Like, and so over time there's just like more and more and more of this type of shop right when they like client experience, forward shop which creates competition and like scarcity mindsets. 

Micah Riot: 46:05

And there's so many of us here and people keep pumping out apprentices like by the dozen every year, so there's some scarcity for sure, and I think this podcast is helping people make connections Me with them and them with me, and sometimes across the board. You know I've talked to a bunch of folks now that are lovely and I know I know that people are generally lovely, but you just have to like, talk to them, Take away the like we're each other's competition where each other's that we should. You know, kind of I think there's an energetic sense of that, even if people wouldn't admit to it Competition between shops and you know who's got the whatever type of perk or whatever type of reputation or following or stars on Yelp or whatever. You know, yeah, yeah. So like literally, talking to people is helpful and I'm also trying to talk to people not just here but in other places, Kind of like interviewing whoever is interesting. And, yeah, yeah, part of the podcast, you know. 

Caitlin Cordell: 47:19

I just really appreciate that. I think having forums where people can talk candidly and and then share their experiences, and getting to listen to folks like I was listening to one of your episodes about like trauma informed tattooing and that person's experience and how they approach trauma work with their clients and as a community social worker, that's definitely something I am working with and and also struggling or trying to figure out how that fits, you know, and so it's really neat to just hear other people kind of exploring what are the edges of boundaries that they use and how they approach that work with clients, not just the like the practicality of tattooing, but like the containers that we create for people to come in and to have this experience with us. Or like listening to you talk about not wanting to take tips anymore and I was like, oh yeah, I felt this way actually for a long time. I don't want to do that anymore. Like, yeah, I'll just get paid what I want to get paid. 

Caitlin Cordell: 48:30

And then you, yeah, definitely, oh, definitely, definitely. So these like candid spaces of talking about how we approach things, you know, as opposed to, I think, some of our like the culture and tattooing that I've seen sort of separate from more of the client focused oriented tattooers and into the like celebrity tattoo spaces is like very much about how do I judge other people who are doing these things that I don't agree with and like put them on blast or be really passive, aggressive about how they're tattooing, how they came up, what they're doing wrong, yeah, stuff like that, because they can get clients, no matter what they're, just like you know they have millions of followers, so they don't really care. But I just don't identify with that at all. 

Micah Riot: 49:24

Yeah, I'm, yeah, my priority is kind of to like, because I can be very judgy and I don't want to be like, I don't want to spend my energy that way, you know. And so I had this little interaction with somebody on threads who said this young woman, she's like in her early mid 20s and she said recommend new glides to me. Like, what is what are people using? I want new glides. And I was like aqua for like why aren't like? I just was like what about aqua? For 15 years? It's working just fine. I was like oh my god, no, I would never use aqua for interesting. Yeah, Then was like well, why like? I was curious. I was like why not? And I thought about it and just blocked her because I was like I don't actually care and I don't actually want to energy around. Oh my god, I would never use aqua for like. 

Micah Riot: 50:17

Oh yeah, who will get into like random ass fights online for good and bad reasons? I was like no. 

Caitlin Cordell: 50:29

Yeah, yeah, and there's a lot of. I think there is that kind of tension that we see, particularly at moments of time where industry or culture shifts, where we're like, why am I holding on to this thing, like, and or why isn't this thing staying? And younger generations will push and say, like, why are we keeping that thing? But but also, why not keep that thing like, whatever that is, whether it's aqua for a particular glide or, as we've been moving into cartridges, or it's like fine line or a disappearing ink, you know whatever the fuck is happening out there. And I think part of a healthy industry shift is when people say you know, like I want to give what I know freely, like my information, because the truth is somebody had to give it to me Also. And so, like, let's create an economy where we give freely. And we know that in an economy, when we have compassion and collective investment in each other, everybody thrives. Or those people that aren't able to carry on in it it's not because the community didn't support them and say like, you're talented enough to do this, and so, yeah, I do think that they're. 

Caitlin Cordell: 51:48

One thing I feel really grateful for is coming into this industry at this particular time where the people I follow, the artists I follow, are so considerate, are so interested in consent, are really like explorative about how to do things well, how to treat skin as like a living, like active part of a human, you know, like an organ that is like deserving of so much, like care and tenderness and like healing, and so those I feel really grateful because when I was interested in tattooing like 10 years ago and was getting tattoos as like there's no fucking way I want to be a part of this like, and I couldn't get into it, like I would have to work so hard and work for free and that just didn't feel like something I could do. So, yeah, so there is like there's always that tension point, I think, in culture shift and I'm really interested in like moving in in the direction where we're like seeing this as something that's not just about a capitalist economy where only the like you know, the most brutal people survive. 

Micah Riot: 53:10

Yeah, yeah, I'm it. As we're moving towards a more gentle way of being with each other, there's also a move towards more brutal ways of being with each other. On the other hand. 

Micah Riot: 53:22

Clearly we see that in Gaza, in Israel, like it's. It's hard to hold all of it right, like on many levels the world is a better place for humans and on, and then we're so like facing every day the brutality that's happening to. But if you look at like numbers, there's more women getting educations, there's more babies surviving, like across the world, life overall, according to numbers, is gentler. But it's really hard to believe that, like, yeah, when you're on social media and you see what's happening in Gaza. Oh, 100%, 100%. 

Caitlin Cordell: 54:03

I was curious. One question I have for you was and I wonder if you're seeing this with other artists but I think one of the challenges of being self promoting, small business, small artists is like always thinking about the presentation of what you know, who you are and how you are in the world, and it's just never felt like an option to me to not talk about or speak about the things that I care deeply for. But it's such a different, it's a different frame now that I'm like, oh, if I talk about this thing or I share this thing, like how does that interact with my bookings? I'm like, damn, I really want to talk about Gaza right now, but also my books are open, hey, and so like there's this very interesting challenge, I think, in being active and responsive to what's happening in the world and being a small business owner. And I'm like I'm curious if you've had to navigate that at all with clients or in community, like yeah, it's a great question. 

Micah Riot: 55:12

First of all, do what's best for your survival, because you are who you are in the world, right? Like that's my unasked for advice. Yeah, if posting about Gaza is interfering with your ability to make a living, like, don't post about Gaza. Like actually Israel does not give a shit how much we post about Gaza. Like I get that people in Gaza are asking people to post, but clearly it's not helped. You know, and on like a personal level, when I've posted about Gaza, I have close, close friends I grew up with who live in Israel because I immigrated here from Russia, right? So I'm from a community of Russian Jews who could not stay in Russia, could not survive in Russia, so I'm a home of queer and for home. The only place to go was Israel, and what they see there, how they're inundated there with information, is very different. So when I've posted about Gaza, I have gotten responses from my people that I grew up with being like you are really hurting me right now right. 

Micah Riot: 56:19

So for me, like not hurting them is more important than screaming about Gaza along with everybody else screaming about Gaza because we're all doing it in different ways, right, like there has not been a day I haven't thought about it or like like deeply been depressed about it. But I'm also not screaming about it online because it doesn't feel right to me for all these reasons that I just mentioned. But in general, I think we should be who we are across the board and everything we do. So the complexity of that is true for me and so I'm not going to be talking that much. I still do a little bit, but I'm not going to be talking that much about Gaza on my social socials. 

Micah Riot: 57:03

But, like you know, when I my intake form includes it's included different versions of this Currently. What it includes it says I'm my business, I'm striving to make business anti racist and you know such human human being first, whole human first. So, because of my and other people's marginalized identities, I ask that you like sign here to basically state that you are of similar politics. I wish not to sit with people who believe different things. Basically, I should have just initialed that I used to say, basically, if you voted for Trump abort this. Please tell me a bit about your anti racist journey and you know where you're at, like I've asked across different years depending on what was happening in the world. 

Micah Riot: 57:58

And currently I'm just like just acknowledge that you're kind of on the same page with me, more or less Like I don't need anything else from you. Because I would ask you know, tell me about your anti racism journey, and people would write me a novel and I'd be like actually don't want that. 

Caitlin Cordell: 58:11

I really just want you to know that. 

Micah Riot: 58:14

You know, because what happened is that I've tattooed people by accident early on that were like I think I threw this guy accidentally who was like maybe a KKK member, I don't know like it was, because people would come into the shop without disclosing anything, right, and then later I'd be like what, who is this person? They were really strange. Being with them was strange. The energy was not good, like yeah, I want to do that. I don't want to give my energy to people who I don't wouldn't want to have tea with, you know. So I started asking very directly and I also got the feedback that you know some people I knew who would be like oh yeah, my ex-boyfriend wanted to get tattooed by you, but then he looked at your intake form and was like no, thank you. And I was like I don't want to touch you, you don't want to. 

Micah Riot: 59:01

Yeah, I have a few questions. I want to know too much about your politics. They must not be that great. So I think it's a line and I feel privileged in that I live in the Bay Area, so most people are gonna kind of more or less agree with me on where I stand on things. I have enough people wanting to be tattooed by me that the people who don't want to be tattooed by me don't really make a difference, you know. So all those things are for me specifically. 

Micah Riot: 59:32

If I lived somewhere where I would could barely get enough work to survive, I would probably drop all that shit and just deal. We all have to make a living and I'd put that energy towards something else. Right, If I can donate more money over here from some asshole that I had to tattoo, you know I would still not tattoo it. I wasn't like, if I don't want to tattoo it, I won't tattoo it. But as far as people go, I can kind of like. You know, I can see like sometimes you have to give a little and take a little. 

Caitlin Cordell: 1:00:02

Yeah, yeah For that. 

Caitlin Cordell: 1:00:07

It's definitely interesting here. We're in a county that's probably like maybe 6535, so it's 65 conservative percent, 35 progressive, liberal, more on the like Democratic side of things, because we have an older population. I have a lot of kind of like libertarian sort of also not engaged in politic people at all out here. Like, when you look at the voting percentages it's real small. I think. 

Caitlin Cordell: 1:00:45

For me, one thing that I'll do is just like be very clear about my values, like on Instagram. I just am like clear about my values and and then people can kind of decide whether or not they want to be tattooed by me and I would say, you know, maybe 20% of the people that I've tattooed, in terms of our politics or values might be not necessarily disaligned but not like congruent and and that has been something interesting about being out here, which is living in close proximity to a lot of different people, particularly like class background, so like access to information, so different access to even contact with different kinds of people, so different. And something that feels important to explore in this kind of community is like what does it mean to live in community with people whose values are dramatically different than yours but who also have values that are incredibly aligned with yours and like, what is what is a value? Is politics the only value that we hold, our ideology, ideologies, only values that we hold? And I mean that's a tension point. I don't think I have an answer for that, necessarily, but I do think my position in Seattle, I think, would be pretty similar. 

Caitlin Cordell: 1:02:18

I'd be like fuck you if you voted for Trump and, honestly, here I'd probably tattoo somebody who voted for Trump, but they would have to choose me, like I'm not trying to like get that many people, but I think it would be an interesting conversation and I'm kind of interested here in having conversations with people across division, because the full circle back to Gaza and Israel is like Are we really that far off from being where they're at in this country with the kinds of ideological positions that we have, of hurt and pain and trauma? 

Caitlin Cordell: 1:02:57

And it is a fine line when we tip into a place where we believe that the extinction of another person or another community of people would help us feel better and safer. And you know, we're at some of those crossroads and I'm like I don't want to be killed by you. Like I don't, like literally, like I just don't. I want to live, and I want you and I want my people to live. And so how do we do that in a way where you can see my humanity and my connection, because I'm willing to engage with yours and I think that's enough. 

Caitlin Cordell: 1:03:33

Sometimes easier than others, but this is a really unique community in that that conversation feels possible more than I've felt in other places. 

Micah Riot: 1:03:43

That's good to hear. I mean, the complexity of that is kind of where we need to be. I think you know, like I kind of hate to be, like we have to engage with difference. But what choice do we have? The choice here is false. Like I live in a bubble and you know it's like as much as I can, like self righteously go, I don't tattoo people who are not, you know, way, way, way left, like that's only comfortable for me. You know, like it makes my life easier, but does that make any difference to the world? You know, and that's also yeah, it's as I get older. Those are the questions that I struggle with more and like, yeah, where my tolerance for difference actually becomes bigger right, because I feel like that is a sign of maturity is different with not having it mean something about you is a point of growth. 

Micah Riot: 1:04:40

Like I was able to really hold is a 20 something year old, but yeah, yeah so so those are all really good questions and I have, I mean, deep respect for you, to you know, to be able to work with people and like regard difference with possibility, and like not about like who you are, or like what you know, what you must do, or how you must defend a certain thing, or because, yeah, like respond to be yelled at really turns out it doesn't, and I mean, some of it is just incredibly practical because, like, those are the people that have guns in my community, those are the people that have guns and those are the people that also have the tractors that you need when you need to like move some shit around. 

Caitlin Cordell: 1:05:41

And so there's also this like practical way of perceiving the fact that I think when you get older, you also recognize what it takes to live, and that means being in relationship enough with people who have some of the things that you need to live well, and that you want to be a part of a culture and an economy where we share and we rely on each other in those places. And if I'm adamant that you are wrong and bad, why would you want to come work on my road? 

Micah Riot: 1:06:19

Right, and if you are, you know, if they have a teenage kid who's struggling and you give them a terror reading and help them get out of their deep hole, right then they're like those two dykes over there are actually really great people. I'm gonna my gun and defend them, Like liberals without guns or whatever. 

Caitlin Cordell: 1:06:40

Yeah, yeah, yeah that's a whole another conversation, but yeah. 

Micah Riot: 1:06:49

Sorry to put the label of bikes on you. I don't know if you identify that way, but no, I actually yeah. 

Caitlin Cordell: 1:06:55

Dykes have definitely been something that we identify with, for sure. 

Micah Riot: 1:06:59

Yeah, see, like I'm like at a point in my life where I'm like I want to go rural and I want to be both the like the dyke with the tarot cards, but also the dude with the gun. I want to do both. 

Caitlin Cordell: 1:07:09

You can. So I think, mike, it might be time. I think you got to come up here. 

Micah Riot: 1:07:16

Training first and convince my partner that she can be like I don't know she. She has another partner who is very, very set on living here in California. They've been together for like 20 years. So, no, we're gonna end up with this conversation. Yeah, looking, you know. 

Caitlin Cordell: 1:07:37

Yeah, I mean this place is is really interesting and that it is rural and there are a lot of dykes and and I feel safe. 

Caitlin Cordell: 1:07:45

I mean I feel mostly safe in this place. Like we've had people come and you know a bunch of guys work on a patio and I'm not sure like where they stand and then they're like totally the nicest guys out there and it just like it does. It does a little bit of like flipping in your mind of like yeah, you probably didn't vote for the guy I voted for, but you're so welcoming and like you show up for your family, you show up for community in a different way, but you do show up. And you know, I think to some extent, like you're saying, like the smallness of community, like queer community, can also be so horrible to each other. My values don't align with a lot of the things that, like some people in my queer community, both in Seattle and a little bit here in the younger queer community, do and how they are. So sometimes it's not just like particular identity markers that allow us to see values alignment. 

Micah Riot: 1:08:56

There was a meme I saw today that was like a picture of this, like white man with a mullet, and it said this man could be like the most racist, like gun toting Republican, or he could be a pansexual. The word was he could be a pansexual communist. 

Caitlin Cordell: 1:09:17

Yeah, there's times when I'm worried is like really interesting. You know, I've had to be at school board meetings where people are like really adamantly against sexual health in our schools, like comprehensive sexual health in our schools, and you know, you see the table and people kind of start sitting down and I'm like, okay, these people will be aligned with us, like I can tell it's you're wearing a Patagonia jacket and then they're not. You're like what? Or like the old guy with the cowboy hat is like totally on board. You know it's just like, oh yeah, warping can't make assumptions. 

Micah Riot: 1:09:57

I guess, assumptions yeah, yeah, well, it's been lovely Same, and I'm always like kind of sick, feel so abrupt to be like okay, like we need to finish up. Okay, give me like a very small thing that's been making you happy lately. 

Caitlin Cordell: 1:10:18

A small thing that's been making me happy. Okay, I'll just show this to this goofy. But our cat, our cat, she told she's like the love of my life. She's like my best friend. Easton had her before me and then we built this really beautiful relationship with each other and recently she's been peeing outside of her box and it's been very distressing to both. Easton and I were like even calling the vet to be like is this normal? Like should we be worried? She's got like a cognitive thing. She's even poop pooping outside of her box too, which is like really weird and it's a mess and it's very stressful. But yesterday Easton and I built like a mega cat litter box out of a container plastic container and it's got like a little handle thing and it goes in the side and she's been using her box really regularly and just like every time she gets in that box I'm like she told like how was that? She's like it was great she comes out, she peed inside the box. There's no pee on the floor and so that's the little thing. 

Micah Riot: 1:11:37

I mean that's a great thing and like so nice for everybody involved. You're not worried about her brain function, you're not worried about your floor. It's great. It's great. It's like sounds like a Yiddish name. 

Caitlin Cordell: 1:11:53

Oh yeah, it's it comes from I don't know actually specific, I can't remember the language, specifically in India, but Shishi, which actually means dirty. But Easton met a cat named Shishi in India and she had an untimely death. But then she met this other cat, Sheetal, and she kind of changed the name a little bit. So Sheetal, Sheetal is yeah, that's her name Okay, cute. Thanks so much, Micah. It was a delight getting to meet you and I'm just like really impressed with your engagement in community, with tattooing and having these conversations with people. It's really special, Thank you. 

Micah Riot: 1:12:40

You are so kind, thank you. I am also like so fun to get to actually talk to you about all of our values that you know, I think are just like we don't talk about enough community oriented values and, yeah, I really appreciate your time, thank you.