About Toni
Fine art • Body Positivity • Inclusive tattooing
Hi, I'm Toni!
Your Self Love
Tattoo Artist
Somewhere along the way I realized I didn't have to carry the things others gave me to hold - shame, fear, embarrassment, unrealistic expectations - and I started cultivating what made me happy.
i've had to sculpt my place in spaces for as long as i can remember. this is my place to celebrate my body, my experiences, my queerness- who i am.
If I was two things from the very beginning,
I was an artist, and I was a fat kid. And I've very lovingly held onto both of those things into my adulthood, where I now get to blend them together into my career.
I'm Toni PNW, and I'm a strong advocate for self love & kindness. I started tattooing in 2022 and have aimed to bring a focus of love, joy, and inclusion of big bodies into my work every day since.
My art history:
Photography:
As much as this sentence feels like a joke, it all started with the Nintendo DSi. That awful little handheld camera had me photographing everything from my pets and family to rocks in the driveway.
In 2014 my parents gave me an Instax mini camera for Christmas and I used it so much that the next year they gifted me one of the most lifechanging things I've ever received - a Canon Rebel DSLR camera - a REAL camera, with an exchangeable lens and EVERYTHING. For the next 5 years, that Canon captured my most precious memories. When my dad passed, it was this camera that allowed me peace because it had been there to capture the moments I held so close to my heart. This stirred a desperate need to document and and enjoy, and I eventually upgraded to a camera that I could really create magic with.
I started taking portraits for others in 2020, right before quarantine. I met so many wonderful people and was trusted to capture some very special moments like coming out celebrations, birthdays, proposals, weddings, sober milestones, and declarations of self love. I didn't know how to find my target audience again after lockdown and took a big step back, focusing on other art avenues and occasional self portraits, but now that I'm sharing my tattoo art with an audience who loves it, I'm bringing this art form back in a super exciting way with Tattoo and Photography Experiences! I'm so excited to get back to capturing self love in snapshots♡
My art history:
Textiles:
I'm still writing this portion about my textile history! Check back soon to hear about my screenprinting, quilting, and sewing adventures :)
My art history:
Visual Art
I used to struggle with perfectionism. I dramatically destroyed my 5 foot tall art final one year because it felt “off”. I’ve kept maybe a single handful of my art since my childhood because I never felt good enough.
I had beautiful things to say and share, and I was standing in my own way. Of course, I had learned this perfectionism in many aspects of my environment, but I owed it to myself to come out the other side of the fear, disgust, and embarrassment and start creating pieces that transcended “good” and “bad” art, and instead, were important. Because it’s been so easy for me in the past to fall into a place where I feel I need to prove my artistic worth, I tend to make physically creating a very easy thing to do. I remove as many barriers as I can. I remind myself often that creating is something loose and fun. My final artworks often have smears, smudges, and stray ink drops because if I started over every time something unplanned happened, nothing beautiful would ever see the light.
Tattooing requires so much focus and ability to multitask with precision, it’s important for me to welcome and appreciate the carefree nature of creating with traditional materials. I care so much about myself, and the things I can do and say with my art process that I know when to loosen up and just enjoy the flow. I often work in ink, watercolor, charcoal, and my favorite soft pencils, Blackwing Pearls.
I had so much exposure to art as a child and I have so many people to thank for helping me build my love for art. Thank you to my dad, who always found time to encourage me. To my mom, who instilled in me that art is in everyone, and that art made with accessible materials has just as much value as work created by those with more resources. And finally, to my grandma, who seemed never afraid to fail in her artwork. Even when artists around her got more recognition, she continued to draw, to write, and immerse herself in art. You’re never only worth what others label you to be.
My art history:
Tattooing:
Tattooing is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. There is nothing that prepares you for tattooing, until you’re in it. I was full of wonder and nerves when my mentor, Santiago @artbysantiago, accepted to take me on as their first apprentice.
I’d grown up in a small religious community and saw maybe 3 tattoos in that time. Despite this, I didn’t ever hold the belief that tattoos were wrong, evil, or rebellious. They simply happened in another lifetime, before people made it to our community and god. They were tucked away under jackets or opaque stockings, and I never paid much mind if I saw one. Another lifetime.
My first few tattoos were small. A record, a seashell, a paintbrush. I had just left the church and the largest support system I’d known at that point and suddenly everything I knew about myself and who I was going to be was swept away. I didn’t have a single idea about who the fuck I was but I did know the things that made me feel alive. You don’t need to think about a 5 year plan when you stand at the edge of the ocean collecting rocks and shells. You don’t need to process a deconstruction of everything you’ve ever known when you use a splayed paintbrush and dollar bin craft paint to capture a sunset. And something about a record needle running across the vinyl surface like your fingers run across the cans on a grocery store shelf makes everything feel like you can keep putting your feet in front of one another.
Tattoos are memories, reminders that we move forward, and that things can be both permanent and impermanent. I am so honored to have learned this truly sacred skill, and that I continually get to meet people who trust me to be a part of their stories. I love tattooing, and I love the community of friends and peers I have in this industry. Safety and accessibility are huge priorities for me and I do everything I can to be constantly raising my own standards of inclusion. May 2024, I launched Heavryspace, a tattoo community aimed at making tattooing a more inclusive environment for plus size people to get tattooed and to uplift fat artists. If you are a plus size artist or client, I encourage you to head over to Heavryspace.com and explore the community building platforms and resources!
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