FROM PSYCHO TO PRO

‘I got started when I was in high school on the Gold Coast. From about 15, I used to tattoo pig skin from the butcher that I ordered online, randomly. Mum thought I was a psycho until I started tattooing professionally,’ Ruby explains deadpan.

It would be several years before she got that start to relieve her concerned mother. Ruby stuck with it, testing her determination to break into a difficult industry for someone so young to crack, let alone in a very male-dominated industry back then.

‘I kept drawing and looking for an apprenticeship, moving to Melbourne when I was 18 and finally getting one. It was more of a foot in the door, because the place wasn’t very reputable. I didn't get paid for the first three years, which was pretty rough. Thankfully, I think that sort of thing is more uncommon these days – people getting used for free labor.’

Cut to over a decade later and Ruby is now at Tattoo Rosies, after relocating cities once again to follow dreams etched on pig skin all those years ago. She’s grateful to be in an inspiring space where people are as passionate as she is, pushing their own practice and each other meanwhile.

A COLLIDER OF WORLDS

It’s through engaging with these challenges that Ruby has developed a firm personal style, bringing together disparate yet linked conventions.

‘I've always really liked vintage and traditional designs, bold lines, clean-looking imagery redrawn with respect to elders that paved the way for me. Lately, I’ve leaned more into the decorative and ornamental tribal designs. They’re some of the oldest standing art forms, dating back to at least 1,500 BC in many places around the world. The problem with that is to not appropriate certain cultures; I try to come up with my own unique style, always looking to improve.’

Juxtaposing styles to flip them on their head: this is what made Ruby the perfect collaborator for our IWD beer. A helles lager, we used this highly traditional beer style to draw attention to the outdated status quo of inequality in brewing – a craft with a rich history where this has not always been the case.

Despite evolving tradition in her own way, honouring the past is important to Ruby and her practice. ‘Trying to change something so good too much is a no-no for me. It’s about paying respect to the people who came before me, because the art of tattooing is timeless. The recipe works, but at the same time, it’s ever-developing. Our inks, needles and machines are all getting better with time.’

The same can easily be said of brewing; Ruby even uses the term ‘recipe’ to describe her own space. Beer, too, has a firm heritage that continues to shift shape with modern technologies, techniques and sensibilities. And, like the world of beer, Ruby has watched as tattooing slowly but surely changes for the better.

‘When I started tattooing, there were far less women tattooing. Now, it’s way more diverse. We’re going in the right direction; I’m pleased to see there's lots of kind, all-inclusive people supporting each other in the industry. I hope it continues to become more diverse in the future.’

Forming a visual metaphor for the rise of women in these fields, Ruby merged two vintage designs to create her beer decal designs, just as our two worlds of tattooing and brewing collided for the IWD collab.

‘I do that a lot in my work: combining things to try and change it up a bit. I’ll take two different, traditional references, then mash them together. This design was a combination of flash sheets from the 1930s, the woman’s face from a Cap Coleman sheet and the wings from Bert Grimm.’

Originally showcased as part of one of Ruby’s own flash sheets, once again the past takes new form in the future with the transformation of the designs into a beer artwork. ‘There are a few people walking around Melbourne with this as a tattoo who could now see it on a beer, which is pretty cool. I think they’d love it.’

INKING POSITIVE

Women’s increased participation isn’t just a positive about the trajectory of tattooing in and of itself. It’s also what women are able to do with the space that’s significant, Ruby shares.

‘There’s a broad range of people tattooing now, which is really exciting. Tattooing is a way women can empower themselves. And ultimately we as tattooists are there to help people feel good about themselves and their bodies, too.’

Beyond the imagery, there’s an art to where a tattoo is placed – something that might be lost on the less savvy person yet Ruby prides herself on. It’s a platform that she can use to help improve people’s lives. 

‘As well as style, I’m also big on placement. I like how it can make people feel positive about their bodies. You can help them cover scars, and it can change the whole composition of someone's body if there’s something they don’t like.’

LOOKING BACK, MOVING FORWARD

During her beginnings, buying tattoo mags from newsagents and scaring Mum with her practice methods, one wonders whether Ruby could’ve known the big-picture implications of what would become her livelihood. Yet here she is.

It would be tempting but wrong to say she hasn’t looked back. For although she keeps an optimistic eye on the future, Ruby hasn’t lost sight of where she came from – nor where the artform she loves came from, for that matter. 

If she could say one thing to her younger self, the words she chooses are, ‘being kind is being tough.’ And that could just as well be the tagline for Raise Helles, the latest iteration of our annual beer raising money for women’s charities.

Try it for a limited time at the brewery and select Sydney watering holes or read more about our work for IWD here.