Interview with Pifa Alarcon

I was born in Morocco but raised in Spain, in the south, in Malaga. I moved there when I was three and stayed until I was 22. In college I studied fine arts, and my teacher told me about a friend of hers who went to Ireland to study animation. I was looking for animation schools in Spain, but everything was 3D and private. I wanted to do 2D. I wanted to draw. So I ended up in Dublin for four years.

Irish people are warm and welcoming, but the weather was hard. Very dark. They say summer is on a Wednesday. You get one week of sun and that's it. Eventually I was done. Irish people kept talking about Vancouver, so I came over on a working holiday visa. That was May 2014. Twelve years now. I was telling my mom today that it's really nice here, 16 degrees, and she's like, what are you talking about?

I tried when I was 22. My mom is very traditional. I remember leaving her place thinking, I'm going to come back with something you don't like. She said, I'm gonna remove whatever you put on your face, because I already had a piercing. I was like, Mom, this thing you can't remove.

So I went to the only tattoo shop in my hometown and got a circle on my back. The guy was like, what do you want inside the circle? And I was like, no, no, no, I just want a circle. He couldn't understand. A week later I bumped into him at a party. I told him: hey, you tattooed me, I studied fine arts, I love drawing, I love tattoos, will you take me as an apprentice? That's how it was back in the day. He laughed in my face. Said he'd been tattooing for 14 years and how did I have the balls to ask when I only had one tattoo.

Years later in Ireland, same conversation with a guy tattooing me: you don't have enough tattoos. OK. I moved to Canada. Somebody gave me the contact of a guy at Main and 16th. I went there with my drawings, and he said, no, your drawings are not tattoo content, and you don't have enough tattoos. Another studio here said the same. My work wasn't tattoo designs.

It goes with personality. Catholic family. You shouldn't bother people, you should be polite, you shouldn't take too much space. Some people would have said, fuck it, I'll do it my own way. For me it was, I don't want to bother these guys, I want to be part of their club. How do I do this?

I had a friend who would say, I love going to tattoo shops, it's my safe place. And I was like, I'm so uncomfortable whenever I walk into a tattoo shop. I feel not welcome. I feel I have to apologize because I'm walking in there to pay them money to give me a tattoo. In a quiet way, I kept trying. I was really curious. I really wanted to do it, but it felt like it annoyed people, and it shouldn't. Now I try to give the opposite experience to my clients. I don't want to be a gatekeeper.

I've used a machine from the very beginning, but I got more attracted to hand poke. I tried it myself and was like, fuck, this is fun. It felt more in control. Quick and easy. Less setup, less things to do. The machine feels too fast.

A lot of the hand pokers who started when I started aren't doing it anymore, so there's a side of me that wants to keep it alive. I enjoy the interaction with the client. It's very different. I enjoy the challenge. It's not as versatile as a machine because you can't work with the same speed and power. But I wanted to do 2D animation, not 3D. There's always something in me that gets attached to the classics.

If you come to me wanting a realistic dragon that covers your entire body, I'm probably going to say it might be better with a machine. There are limitations. It's just me and a needle. You've got to come up with different solutions, which I enjoy. I don't think it's better or worse. They each give different results.

I design whatever I would get tattooed myself. Black and red ink, simple lines or dot work or a mix of both. What inspires me is art history, movies, books, culture, people. Portraits I started doing because somebody asked me to, and I had so much fun. It was such a big challenge. I love metaphysics and existentialism, so I also enjoy space stuff, sentences explaining specific things, and puns. Trying to make life a little more playful and find the sarcasm of life.

The red actually comes from being in love with the singer of Incubus. He has a big red-only tattoo, and I was like, wow, I didn't know that was possible. I kept getting black and red. I'm not a very colorful person, even when I draw. Red was always my favorite color.

Only recently I started drawing for fun without pressure. It doesn't have to be sold, doesn't have to be a tattoo, doesn't have to be liked by anybody. I'm just playing. So who knows, but right now that's not part of who I am.

At the end of the day, I'm another client. I can see the gaps, and I know how I've felt in the past. I don't want them to feel that way. Which would actually be good for me, it would make me money, because they'd be uncomfortable with that gap and come back to fill it, or go to somebody else. But I'd rather have them happy and ask, what's your plan for the future? Smaller pieces, bigger pieces. Let's think that way. Sometimes people don't know, so I ask them questions like, do you want to see your tattoos? Do you want other people to see them?

It is, yes. You definitely learn a lot from it. But there are other ways to learn. You can learn by watching the people around you. You can learn by doing it, making mistakes, practicing. It's helpful, but you can also be in the room with another tattoo artist without getting tattooed if they're kind. There's no one way.

The traditional apprenticeship usually helps you build a really good technique. Somebody walks in and asks for anything, and you can do it. Now, because a lot of artists are self-taught, you focus on your own style and what you want to learn. So you can't do everything. Different techniques, different outcomes, different experiences.

With Instagram and social media, it's definitely become more mainstream. Back in the day, you had bikers or heavy metal or punk people getting tattooed, and walking into a studio wouldn't be welcoming because you weren't part of that. It became more accessible.

When I started 9 years ago, people were already saying the market was saturated. Then COVID happened, a lot of people started tattooing themselves at home, and now people are complaining because the market is even more saturated. It can be true, but there's also more people getting tattooed.

Becoming a tattooist is fantastic, but be aware. It's not as profitable as it used to be. It's a lot of work. You have to run your own business and, unfortunately, you have to have a social presence. But I'm never going to tell anybody, don't do it. If you're willing to put in the hours and the effort, who am I to say no? Especially after what I went through. Do I want to be another white man gatekeeping this shit? No, not at all.

When I started, it almost felt like tattoo artists became an elite, and I was like, bitches, we're not surgeons, we're just marking skin. We're not saving anybody. Yes, it feels like therapy. Yes, it feels like a really good rush. Yes, it makes you feel better about yourself. But don't take it that seriously.

For the longest time, people asked if I was taking an apprentice or teaching, and I was like, I don't know shit, I learned all this on my own. Eventually I was like, I think I can actually do this. I did the online one first. Then people kept asking for an in-person one, so I did one in Spain at my friend's studio in my hometown, and another in Canada in November.

The whole purpose of the workshop is: people are going to tattoo themselves anyway, so I'd rather you do it safely. It's not a workshop to become a tattoo artist. It's a workshop to start tattooing. When I started poking, I bought an online kit and wasn't sure if I was supposed to touch this or that. My phone, my keys. Then I'd go to the bathroom, do I use the same gloves? I just want to give people the chance to do it safely without going through an apprenticeship. I really love doing it. I try to do it every few months.

That's a hard question. Sometimes I feel like I could learn more, but I've been learning for so long that I think I need to pause and just enjoy what I have. With this job, the creative side got shrunk. For the longest time, all the creative stuff I did was for tattoos, for merch, for print. To sell it in a way.

In the past year or so I started drawing for fun. On paper, iPad away. I'd find myself drawing and thinking, this is undo on the iPad. I can't undo this. Just grabbing markers and enjoying. So now I'm starting to enjoy my creativity for myself, not just for income. I think I'm starting to be at peace with that.

It's a way to connect with people and express myself. Last year I started writing, which I'd told myself my entire life I couldn't do. And I realized I enjoy that too. I'm a tattoo artist, but I don't think that's my identity. It's a way to connect, and it's just one of the ways I express myself. Right now, luckily, it's the way that pays my bills. I find myself very lucky.

Honestly, I don't really look at my tattoos. Do you look at yours? Most of mine are trades or pieces I did on myself. People love this Hamu, by my friend Batu in Madrid. I really like the one on my hands, "the here and now." It's a good reminder. I have a few from my hometown. My mom's teapot. My favorite cake.

Come to my workshop. Draw a lot. Learn about the body, learn about composition. If you love getting tattoos, look at how your tattoo artists work. See what you want to bring to the current culture. There's a lot of everything out there, so figure out what interests you. Be curious. Be open-minded. Be kind.

Connect with your cohort. The people starting at the same time as you. You're going to learn a lot from them. It can be very isolating, and trading with them, you'll see what they're doing. Yes, we have Instagram, but it's really good to find your community. That's how traditional flash started. People would meet at conventions, exchange addresses, trace designs from magazines and send them by mail. That's why you'll walk into a tattoo parlor and see the same panther, the same eagle, the same profile woman. There was always a community within the cohort.

For the longest time, when people came to me wanting a tattoo that wasn't my style, I'd send them to other artists. That matters. Be part of the community. Be nice. Be kind. The industry has changed. Before, I had way too many clients. But that's the thing. Just be kind.