Grace Neutral

  Grace Neutral is a tattoo artist based in London. She's no stranger to body modification- in fact, she's gotten her tongue forked, navel removed, ears pointed, and skin carved in addition to gauges and many tattoos. She is known for having the whites of her eyes tattooed purple. Grace is not afraid to explore the endless possibilities of body modification and has transformed herself to reflect her unique personality.
    She does Hand-Poke tattoos for Good Times studio in East London and tattoos at many conventions. Her art is for sale on her Etsy page, also. Her success in modeling and tattooing has come largely from her charisma, talent, and hard work. A body mod artist must have excellent communication skills because many of these processes are permanent.
   In an interview with Vice, she says her favorite artists include her best friend Hannah Snowdon, Sway, Jemma Jones, Jondix, and Guy le Tattooer. She admits to having tattooed a few "questionable" designs on her own legs while she was still  learning to tattoo. 

Tattoo style: Hand-poke ✨

     Hello again! This week's topic: Hand-Poked tattoos! Hand poked tattoos, also called stick and poke, are a traditional method of tattooing that does not involve any machinery.
Many of these tattoo artists are primarily self taught and often choose to learn the art of stick and poke tattoos before pulling out the tattoo gun on anyone. This method is notorious for being used for making homemade tattoos.


     Hand poked tattoos are prominent in many styles of traditional art. Tebori tattoos originated in Japan in the late 18th century. Although it is now a common practice for Tebori to include a machine made outline, this style has remained primarily hand made throughout the centuries. As with Tebori tattoos, may also ask their artist to use a tattooing machine for the outline of the picture.     


     Some tattoo artists swear by stick n' poke and would rather not use a tattooing machine. Artists like Grace Neutral, Boff Konkerz, and Ferank Manseed are skilled with this method and have achieved a large following in the body mod community. The benefits to getting a tattoo done in this style are that the colors and design can be done more vividly and the healing time is generally a lot quicker. On the other hand, the colors tend to fade more quickly and the overall process of making the tattoo takes much longer. 

 

The Late Hello...

      Hey there! For my genius hour, I will be researching the topic of body modification. My driving question is: What does it take to be a body modification artist? I feel as though the best way to go about becoming a body modification artist is to learn the basics about common procedures. What you can expect from this blog is a collection of interviews, resources, and a summary of different things that can and have been done to modify the human body.

      I guess I wanted to do research about this subject mainly to educate myself about this serious subject. I realize these are not such casual procedures that anyone can do. I mean, you can't just watch LA Ink and expect to start tattooing all your friends (as fun as that sounds), but hopefully shows like that do encourage people to learn how to do things the right way.

     Another subject within this topic that I would like to address in a future post is whether or not piercings and tattoos can be done at home safely. This will include arguments for and against self made piercings and tattoos. DIY piercings and tattoos seems to be a sort of controversial subject.
So if you guys have any questions, feel free to ask! ✌ -kate