From Clowning to Cosmetic Tats

Interview with Holly Pugsley, Portland based cosmetic and medical tattoo artist, also known as Skittles The Clown…

Holly Pugsley

Hi, Brian. How are you?

F&F

I’m great. How’s your day going?

It’s going great. Thanks for asking.

F&F

If you could start by telling me a bit about your professional creative background and your work, and the clientele you serve and how you kind of found this specific corner of tattoo art and how you landed there and what keeps you there.

Okay. Well, the first part of the question I started on, I don’t know, I never ever really had an interest in tattooing, to be quite honest. But I had spent quite a bit of my early teens and early twenties and mid twenties clowning, work, doing clowning work, just balloon animal artistry and face painting and the act of being a clown.

And so I have extensive a background in face painting. Oh, this is very temporary. Yeah. You know, it washes off. Yeah. But when the pandemic hit, I was just kind of thinking about stuff that I could do that transferable skill, and I came across a woman in Portland where I grew up, who tattooed eyebrows on people’s faces.

And then I just had this idea pop up in my head that thought like, well, yeah, you know, if I could do that, if I could do what I do now that I can do that, it’s like tight roping and, you know, walking at like five feet instead of 5000 feet. So the I understood that the stakes would be higher, but I was really interested and intrigued by the work. So that’s what kind of led me to that.

F&F

Could you break down for me kind of the work that you’ve landed on. And then I want to unpack what that was like transitioning from clowning to it. How would you describe for me kind of the work that you do and the people you serve and what kind of resulted in that light bulb moment?

The work that I do primarily for its cosmetic tattoo work. So just bringing just the natural human canvas, the natural face, and then just enhancing what features they already have instead of making it very obvious I have a more natural approach. And I guess that was the lightbulb moment is when I saw that it could be very natural because I myself am not a very I don’t particularly put a lot of emphasis on like glamorizing myself or putting on a lot of makeup myself.

I tend to air on the more natural focus on the inside out. And I found that that was something that connected with my personal philosophies on beauty and then also the art that I was doing at the time transitioned into that sort of lightbulb moment as well. So it’s kind of just I never thought I’d ever tattoo. And then now I’m a tattoo artist.

F&F

And who comes to you for cosmetic tattoo work?

The clientele that I serve primarily would be people who have had either an accident where their eyebrows have a scar on their eyebrow or they have like a scar on their lips that they need to be hidden or covered up. Like their Vermillion line was slightly adjusted for older clientele that have lost a lot of appreciation and volume in their lips, or have lost a lot of their eyebrow hair or, you know, especially with trends, younger people who have followed this whole Y2K trend where they’ve over plucked their eyebrows and now they don’t have any.

So kind of all over the board, it’s like a very wide range of clientele.

F&F

What what reactions do you get? It’s such a unique corner of tattooing, and to come at it from clowning. What are people’s reactions when you help them with the scar? Or you have somebody older get get volume back in their lips or their eyebrows.

What is the emotional result of of the work that you do?

It’s kind of all over the board. That’s my favorite part of the procedure is when you’ve done you’ve done all the planning, you’ve done all the consultations, done all the artistry and then it comes to showing them. And most of the time it’s just they’re kind of in shock because it’s just like their face and it’s a new face.

And so once the shock subsides, they’re like, they’re pretty happy with it. And then when they come back for their touch up, they’re super excited and they’re they love their look and they’ve come to know it as their own and they’ve come in. And then also there’s a much darker looking when you first get it done.

So it starts to subside and then they see what the natural result will look like. So at first, usually they’re a little in shock and then they come back and they’re a lot more excited and happy and willing to do more work.

F&F

So that that fading is by design?

Is is, in the sense that the principle of tattoos, when tattooing settles in the skin, when you first get a tattoo, it looks way darker. Yeah, It’s still settling into the second layer of skin. So it does look darker. But that is the point, is that it will you pick a color that looks a little darker because it will fade to be a more natural color?

F&F

You said you’re you’re that it kind of fits in your philosophy of beauty from the inside out fits with the work you do. Can you say a little bit more about that?

I believe just taking care of your canvas in the first place as the first principle of beauty, because you can always take on like makeup every day and it will fade off, it will rub, it will run, it’ll kill your pores. It will cause your skin to look worse, or degrade in the long term, because you’re constantly putting chemicals on top of your skin and not treating it from the inside out.

And for cosmetic tattooing, you are eliminating that whole stuff from their beauty regime altogether. So they’ll go wake up, have a natural, flawless look. They go swimming. They have a natural, flawless look. For my beauty addicts, my makeup addicts, I give them a flawless natural look, and if they want a more bold dramatic look , you can add makeup on-top of this if you want to.

But just have a nice, beautiful, very clean and natural looking look right when you wake up is pretty paramount to my philosophy.

F&F

Has as the work that you’re doing now as a tattoo artist affected your relationship to clowning and face painting and to kind of everything that was Well, was that?

Would I say that it has affected my relationship to clowning? That’s an interesting question, because now that I think about it, I have done a lot less face painting work over the years. But I still do balloon animal work. It’s just that possibly now that I would experience this new medium of facial cosmetic tattooing, maybe I have just maybe transcended the the oil paint of the face oil painting faces.

But I still do clown work. I still teach clowning classes like more like the hybrid acting class with basics like face painting, tutorial and balloon animal artistry.

F&F

How did you come to do clowning originally? What was it about the the performative aspect of it, the entertaining aspect of it? How did you how did you come to clowning?

Well, when I first moved to Idaho, where I grew up, I met this girl and she she became my best friend. Her name’s Tammy. She kind of grew up in a clowning family. Like all of her family, all four siblings clowned. Her dad was a clown, and so her and her family would always go out and clown for laughs.

That’s the verb you use, which people find really confusing, but it’s not that silly-clown. And I always just thought that was a really fascinating and fun way to spend the day. So I just kind of just showed a lot of interest. So they adopted me as a one of their clowns and they gave me the name of Skittles and the rest is history.

F&F

Help me understand when you’re out clowning, are you in full clown presentation? When you are, is your face painted? Are you in full regalia?

Regalia is the right word, but no, I’m not in full regalia.

Back to being natural, we use a more of a an approachable sort of make up for the clowns. We don’t do what they call white face, which is where you put that white greasepaint on. You’re very unapproachable to children. So we just do the rainbow beads under the eyes. And then we just draw like a red nose and then just wear a really colorful outfit that makes you stand out. But kids are still wanting to talk to you.

Because the white face can be really intimidating. And I suppose I’ve never really thought about that as a as a maybe a reason why I feel that natural is better when it comes to wearing clown makeup.

F&F

You’ve got this new both kind of creative outlet and impact on the world and profession and in tattoo artistry. But you’re still clowning a bit. I’m curious kind of where where you hope hope to to evolve both that that creative personal side and that professional direction.

I want to natural I want to transition more into the medical grade cosmetic surgery from school. What is more like aerial restoration?

Like breast cancer survivors or people who have mastectomies. And about pigmentation and more stuff to do with people with alopecia restoring.

F&F

What would it take to move to kind of get into more medical grade tattooing? Like, what is the process of from where you work now.

Right now for me personally, for the sake of my clients, I would probably just take more more advanced training classes.

And it’s just finding the best in the field and taking their classes.

F&F

Have you ever had opportunity to do more medical grade work? I mean, because the work you’re doing is medical. Scar hiding and some of that kind of stuff. I’m curious if the work that you’ve done, if you’ve gotten a feel for kind of what it would mean to be doing straight medical grade tattooing.

I do have a I have a feel for it, for the practical, technical part of the work. But I feel that there’s a lot more psychological preparation that goes into taking clients like that, that also needs to be considered before you take people who have had traumatic surgeries, a traumatic event and traumatic medical conditions, and so for me, it would have to be like I’d have to know the whole scope of what it would be like to take a client like that.

F&F

I see. So it’s almost more of the emotional work of treating a cancer survivor than the than the actual tattoo work.

Yeah.

F&F

That makes that makes sense. It does seem like it would be come with layers. Is your consulting process now very involved? Does it feel does it verges on the emotional in terms of when when you see somebody, when you take on a client now?

Yeah, Sometimes I feel that they can take on the emotional just because it is a change of their face. But I just have a feeling and understanding from it when I talk to people, like my colleagues that do this, that it is a much more emotional process doing the areola restorations.

The consultations are a lot about just like, you know, feeling out what the client wants. You know, it’s their face, and we have to be on the same page, and meld each other’s ideas, like my artistic style, and then what they want to, like, kind of get them on board and get them excited about it, because, lots of people coming to my office and they’re kind of nervous.

You know, they see your work online and they get a feel for it, they like it. But, you know, they get nervous and they see your work in public and they get referrals. But,, it’s their face and it’s painful, you know? So a lot of them are scared about pain. So it’s a it’s a nice time, the consults, to kind of bring them on your level and get them on board and bring them on the trip with you.

It’s only about 30 minutes, of 30 to 40 minutes of physically tattooing someone. It’s an hour and a half of prep.

F&F

Tell me tell me about kind of finding your place in the community of of tattoo artists and then specifically cosmetic and medical tattoo art.

I actually found more of a community of friends with with the tattoo artist before I found it with cosmetic tattoo artist.

And I think because for me, it took a little bit because I was working on a salon. So I’ve done a lot of before. I might reach out to the PMU community. It’s more of a beauty focused profession. So I have a lot of connections within the salon world and the nails, and everything, the salon world is so vast.

But people in the PMU profession take one class and their done, and that’s really not enough for me. I think it takes continued education. Just cause you see one artists style, doesn’t mean you should explore that one style. You would explore a lot of other artists styles.

F&F

Have you diverged from the cosmetic in the medical into the what would be the word… traditional tattoo. Like, have you. Have you ever done that?

There’s a specific word for it. Decorative tattooing… Thats what an insurance form would say. I can, but I tend to just focus on what I know.

But I tend to just kind of go with what I know because what I do is very different than what a like a 40 tattoo artist, a different sociologist does tend to do with a certain part of the face and the certain part of the face. I have a certain like depth of that in it, and it’s just a different texture to it.

Also a different like pull to it. So I could, but it would take a lot of convincing.

Someone that I knew and you know. Yeah, they would have to really. But you know, everyone wants a free tattoo.

I tell them what I do and they’re like, ‘Oh, can I get a tattoo? I don’t care if it’s bad.’

I’m like, Oh, I don’t know about that.

And if you ask like decorative tattoo artist, they charge more for different areas. Oh yeah. Hands cost more cause it’s part of the harder placement for the stencil or the different the different cause there’s less fat in the hands. It’s like harder to pull. It’s also the hands tend to go through more like physical labor than the rest of your body.

So that tends to bleed out more, or what’s the term ? Wash out.

F&F

Well Thank you Holly so much for taking the time to share your story with me.

Of course. I’m proud of the work, so its fun to talk about.

F&F

Have a great afternoon.

You too.

-Brian Flannery

All photos courtesy of Holly Pugsley

Back to Issue