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Olivia Britz-Wheat
545 Plays9 months ago
Mortal Emblem owner Olivia Britz-Wheat is a multimedia artist who has been tattooing for over 15 years in Portland. She hails originally from Colorado, attended college in Missoula, Montana until learning how to tattoo under Phil Roberson and Jed Dillon.
Enjoy this wide-ranging conversation and regale in thoughts about art, Depeche Mode, Portland, The Lloyd Center mystique and VHS love.
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:01
Speaker
You are listening to something rather than nothing. Creator and host Ken Volante. Editor and producer Peter Bauer.
Guest Introduction: Olivia Britt-Sweet
00:00:16
Speaker
Hey everybody, this is Ken Vellante with the Something Rather Than Nothing podcast and I have the wonderful guest Olivia Britt-Sweet, owner of Mortal Emblem, artist and VHS enthusiast had to throw that in there. Welcome to the show, Olivia. Thank you so much for having me, Ken.
Ken's Tattoo Experience
00:00:35
Speaker
Yeah, just a little context. I got to chat with you. I got a tattoo as well. I have a
00:00:44
Speaker
owl cave Tattoo from Twin Peaks and at your shop. I got a Nice Douglas fir tree placed under it when I stopped by the store My partner Jenny and I had been to like like a little scene fest over there in Lloyd Center and I was so jazzed about what I had I saw all the color and all the stuff and I think I kind of went up to you say hey look at my comics because that's what I
00:01:14
Speaker
Yeah, why not? Why not? But, um, uh, so I've, uh, you know, I go over to floating world comics and, uh, I actually recorded an episode, uh, with, uh, uh, an artist, uh, Marush Mazmanyan, um, outside of Lloyd Center. So I've had this, um, deep attraction to the location of the Lloyd Center and what it, what it is right now.
Mortal Emblem Anniversary & Lloyd Center Transformation
00:01:40
Speaker
And then I'm like,
00:01:42
Speaker
Holy shit, there's a tattoo shop down there and they have a VHS playing outside and you are there and just a wonderful shop and I got a tattoo and Recently you celebrated the one-year anniversary of opening up mortal emblem So I wanted to that reminded me to get back in touch. We say living we need you on the show, but tell us some
00:02:06
Speaker
Tell us what that's been like and about your business, the immortal emblem and your tattooing.
00:02:13
Speaker
Thanks. Yeah. So the one year anniversary of our grand opening party was January 13th. So we're going to have a party to celebrate. Instead of on that day, we are going to be celebrating February 2nd. It's a Friday from 4 to 7 at our location in the mall. And we did our soft opening December 6th last year. So that whole month between December 6th and January 13th kind of felt like this fog of like
00:02:42
Speaker
being able to think about like what it was like opening up last year with nothing on the walls and just a few appointments and just me and a couple counter people and then slowly kind of building this crew that we have now that feels like a full fledged team and it's just really incredible to kind of think that this leap of faith that I took mostly because I loved the idea of
00:03:08
Speaker
being in the mall, being in Lloyd Center, kind of being part of this new wave of tenants that are more small businesses, artists, people that could really benefit from a lower cost retail space in a location that I find iconic. I've always loved the Lloyd Center and there's so many reasons why I think Lloyd Center
00:03:30
Speaker
was the best mall in Portland. And now I feel like there's a whole other set of reasons why I think it's the best mall. So it's been a really amazing journey. And some of it is just seeing the transformation of the mall in the last year, what a year can do. It was, you know, obviously very
00:03:50
Speaker
quiet the last year when I moved in and it's really come a long way. I think we get a lot more foot traffic now. I think the community is excited now that they know that Lloyd Center is a thing and it's still a thing. I think there were a lot of rumors that it had been
00:04:07
Speaker
condemned or abandoned or just was closed ever since COVID and so kind of combating those rumors with you know just events and positive feedback about the mall. It's a wonderful place that is one of the very few
00:04:24
Speaker
kind of third space options in the city where you can just walk around and be out of the elements. You can be social. You can meet people there. There's not a lot of places left in the city to do that, to just be existing without being like in a business or in your own home. Yeah. Yeah. I, uh, I know it's, um,
00:04:45
Speaker
I'm fascinated by the extended life or new life of malls. I'm
Cultural Significance of Lloyd Center
00:04:51
Speaker
so fascinated by commercial industrial space. I've dropped into documentaries about abandoned malls and all this social and economic and very American things about a mall.
00:05:09
Speaker
the develop seen them all develop in a way where You know, it's still growing. It's still kind of this mix in the Lloyd Center, but you have a an ice skating rink you have a floating world comics, which is a publisher great supporter of all sorts of art and comics and people will make an independent art or all the brilliant folks in Portland and um, and of course noticing your business, um
00:05:39
Speaker
Like how you'd set it up with this kind of like really kind of groovy lights in in color. It's like a place you want to uh, hang out like sit down and hang out and uh that that's a welcoming vibe and um, so That's part of like in seeing your art and seeing um, uh your energy towards, you know, what you what you create was definitely um
00:06:04
Speaker
uh why i wanted to link up with you and chat with you about on the show um i saw uh that around the time that the pesh mode uh played in portland which oh my gosh i didn't see them but there was even uh gorgeous tattoo designs the pesh mode tattoo designs uh personal jesus uh some of the western iconography from that song and things like that
00:06:33
Speaker
Uh,
Depeche Mode's Influence on Mortal Emblem
00:06:35
Speaker
you want to drop in a little bit on the pesh mode and like you summon that art. Yeah, absolutely. So, um I think since we opened the shop for some reason
00:06:49
Speaker
just started listening to so much Depeche Mode all the time. I think there's something about that space and like the reason why it's so colorful and so inviting is because I wanted it to be a place where it feels kind of like a beacon, like a beacon of art, creativity, energy. I've been in places that
00:07:15
Speaker
In my opinion, it doesn't feel like a space where art is made, if there's nothing on the walls, if there's everything white. And that's subjective. Everybody has their own opinion. But some of my favorite shops that I've worked in are the ones that have so much to look at. There's so much stimulation. Everywhere you look is something to decipher or pick apart or just to observe.
00:07:42
Speaker
And I don't know what it is about Depeche Mode exclusively. I think my husband Craig and I were having this debate about sad music, and he gravitates more towards music that's overtly sad, and I gravitate towards music that sounds happy, but is sad. So I think that's why I really love Depeche Mode. And I think music like that, a lot of that 80s new wave post-punk is similar to that.
00:08:10
Speaker
It is kind of like a hair metal new wave sort of fantasy, all that color scheme and the zebra and the neon lights and stuff like that. And so listening to so much to Pash Mode over the last year, and they're a band I've always liked and admired, but just really kind of just had it envelop me over the last year when I heard they were coming to town. Initially, I was discouraged just by the ticket prices, of course.
00:08:38
Speaker
But as I kept looking, I noticed they released some kind of cheaper nosebleeds seats closer to the date of the concert. And so I decided I don't care where I'm sitting. I just want to be there.
00:08:50
Speaker
And the wonderful thing about being an independent contractor is that if you are doing something related to your work, you can write it off as a tax expense. And so I really wanted to be able to attend the show, not just to write it off, but to actually celebrate it within the shop because it felt like such an important part of my shop's identity and just the vibes there and some of the music that we listen to.
00:09:16
Speaker
And so when I created the Flash Day a couple days before the concert, I spent a long time preparing kind of all of these designs and ideas and watched all of their music videos again and kind of just tried to re-familiarize myself with, you know,
00:09:34
Speaker
something other than the long stemmed rose which is iconic and everybody loves that icon so of course that was an option but i ended up coming up with like four or five sketchbook pages full of small designs and then had to kind of refine them and make make it so they could all fit on a sheet and have it be size appropriate to be tattooed
00:09:54
Speaker
And then our mall neighbors, secret press, they do riso printing. They turn the sheet into a beautiful riso print, which is available at the shop. And so we were able to kind of collaborate with other mall tenants as well. And so it was a really fun day and the folks who came to get tattooed were just
00:10:14
Speaker
So excited everybody had this common connection yeah and it was really fun and i think like doing stuff like that which is like not trying to appeal to everybody trying to appeal to.
00:10:26
Speaker
Not even trying to really appeal to anyone I think is what I'm trying to do. I'm just really excited about these things and I'm trying to do more stuff for myself than for everybody else. And then when those people are attracted to it, it really is validating because then you do have that shared connection. So I did a cowboy boot with the rose. I think I did a heart that said violator with the long stem rose through it.
00:10:54
Speaker
I did another one. I can't remember, but a lot of people were like very into the personal Jesus, but I think it like has to find the right home. Yeah. That makes sense. I have a Depeche Mode 101. They're kind of black and white road.
00:11:14
Speaker
in video that have that on VHS. So I thought of you when I when I saw that. And no, it's just a band I really adore. And I think maybe for, I don't know, maybe a philosopher or salvation minded or what has you go on there is that there's some deep
00:11:33
Speaker
deep, unique thought in the pesh mode, but also maybe those aspects of celebration of gloom or darkness or difficulty. And also it's just as far as fashion and appeal into different genders and kind of an openness way ahead of its time, you know, in popular culture. And
00:11:58
Speaker
And their relevancy just keeps expanding. I haven't listened to their new record as much as the old stuff, but they're still incredible. They sounded amazing at the show. They did versions of some of the songs that were very unique I'd never heard before. And so it's incredible to see how long-lasting that legacy is and how influential they are to so many
00:12:21
Speaker
Different walks of life. You don't just have to be goth or this or that like I think that they permeate a lot of different genres and a different type of listener Yeah, and I see why they freak there, but yeah, there's kind of like dark sexuality seen deviant particularly like in the 80s that yes, I'm High highly disrupted. I've seen them live a couple times and I there's certain concerts I have in my head where
00:12:49
Speaker
I don't remember concerts this way, generally, but sometimes I can feel the sound and feel like know exactly what that song sounded like. And there's not too many bands that have done that when I've seen them live. And it's like, I'd say The Cure. I've had that thing where I can hear exactly how that bass was sounding or
00:13:08
Speaker
with Depeche Mode. My brother Chris Depeche Mode out in Barcelona once and I was like that was such a such a just such such a wonderful experience for him. So yeah I really love that love love seeing that and like I said the the aesthetics of the of the shop and
00:13:31
Speaker
the the vhs thing i had mentioned um we're chatting a little bit beforehand um i love the tv that you have with some vhs there for me um i was uh during the pandemic uh whatever we were doing you know like wherever we were i one time i went out to the recycling bin outside of my place and uh down in albany oregon here and i found a vcr in the recycling and it was like
00:14:01
Speaker
Perfectly functional and at that point I don't know what was sharing like online and you're looking if you were doing video things I discovered this kind of whole tape head VHS culture like media and I was like, oh I didn't know I couldn't do that. Like
VHS Culture & Pandemic Projects
00:14:19
Speaker
I would anyways, you know, I'd play my but I'm like
00:14:22
Speaker
There's some folks who are down with this and it's kind of fun because there's not just bootleggy stuff. There's the aesthetics of watching it that way. There's like, how can you find this weird film or watching a cult film not in any decent type of way.
00:14:42
Speaker
in a gritty way. Like, you know, you're fine static or yes, and fixing the tracking and all that stuff. So I really enjoyed seeing that and
00:14:55
Speaker
There was maybe around that time during the pandemic, a short film video related to tattooing. Could you talk about that film and that was on VHS and what was going on for you creatively and having that VHS in the shop?
00:15:19
Speaker
Yeah, so that definitely, so I have always collected VHS. I still have my same copy of Jawbreaker from when I was in high school, still have our same burn gully that I had when I was a kid. So they're through all of the moves. Our collection has shifted and gotten bigger and smaller. And then during the pandemic, we got a projector for the house and for the garage so that we could watch movies with a couple of friends with our six foot distance and our air purifier and everything.
00:15:48
Speaker
And as we started going back through our VHS collection, we realized a lot of the ones we wanted to watch, we had sold in the Blast Move. And so we started going back out and shopping for some of the same titles, some of the new titles. But then when I created the shop and wanted everything to kind of be curated in a way where I would enjoy working there as much as I would love getting tattooed there, I had this little
00:16:15
Speaker
tiny VCR combo that I would watch movies in the studio on and so I put it in the shop and then kind of curated our little collection but during the pandemic when we were watching all these movies and I couldn't work all the tattoo shops were closed we had no idea for how long um I
00:16:35
Speaker
was non-stop thinking about tattooing, but couldn't actually do it. And so since we were watching so many movies, I was like, you know what would be so cool is to have like a bootleg supercut of all these scenes from tattooing in TV, movies, whatever it is. And I just kept saying like, oh, this would be so cool. Someone needs to do this.
00:16:56
Speaker
And I kind of like the kind of bootleg supercut for me was always like heavily influenced by Vice's TV carnage. And there are like some friends of mine, some local folks like Kyle Reese, VCR TV, Peter from Hollywood Babylon, who like kind of create their own little supercuts and stuff that I was always super into.
00:17:20
Speaker
And I think my husband was like, no one's going to do that. You should do it. Like realistically, nobody's going to make that but you. So I had a lot of time on my hands and
00:17:33
Speaker
So I started collecting clips on YouTube and just kind of making notes of scenes as I saw them. And then going back to work, it was a project that I would slowly kind of chip away at when I had the time. And the last time I'd edited a video was high school or college, maybe. So it had been a long time. But I have some sort of
00:18:00
Speaker
semblance of what that looked like and now all the software is so intuitive. We're editing videos on our phones for reals all the time. We're doing these things like that you used to have, you used to have to have like a very large expensive computer with a large expensive Final Cut Pro software on there and it was not accessible. You had to be taught how to use it and then I figured out basically like all I had to do was
00:18:25
Speaker
watch some YouTube tutorials and boot up iMovie and I was able to make it happen. So it did take a year or two from when I started to when I actually finished the video and it topped out at 25 minutes.
00:18:41
Speaker
And so I had a little bit of help with some of the green screen stuff since that's a little above my knowledge bracket from my husband Craig's brother Matthew. So he helped me kind of superimpose some shots that I had actually created for the video with my friend Abram onto a green screen so that we could have like an intro and an ending.
00:19:03
Speaker
And then once that was done, I didn't really know what to do with it. I wanted to put it on VHS because I thought it would be funny.
00:19:11
Speaker
you know, just have it for my own collection. And then Kyle Reese from VCR TV was kind enough to help me dub it onto some tapes. And Craig made me a beautiful sleeve for my VHS tapes. And then I was able to just create like a little, a small run. I think I only made 30 tapes, so.
00:19:35
Speaker
I still have a few left for sale at the shop but um really it's kind of just something I did for me and then along that process I met so many incredible people who are also really into just tapes and so it's not just people who are into tattooing that have appreciated this video and have bought tapes from me it's just other tape collectors other people who love like bootleg super cuts like that kind of stuff and I kind of made it specifically for tattooers because I thought it was
00:20:04
Speaker
so funny how silly and stupid a lot of the portrayals of tattooing is in the media. And so what started as kind of like a, oh, let's just laugh at how stupid this is kind of turned into an informal case study on how tattooing is portrayed in society. And there's a lot of interesting stereotypes that I found, like, especially once you have clips that are
00:20:30
Speaker
you know back to back and watch them over and over you kind of start seeing patterns in this and a lot of the patterns i saw was like unfortunately a lot of racial stereotypes like a lot of the content that's produced with latino mexican actors is usually centered around prison tattoos or gang tattoos there's not a lot of black representation in film you know just as a whole and so there was a lot less even of tattoos it was like
00:20:58
Speaker
played one through three, like obviously, but it actually was harder for me to find content with non-white actors just because of the imbalance of, you know, just our our media in general, American media.
00:21:16
Speaker
Another interesting thing that I saw was essentially that tattooing is still seen as the butt of the joke in a lot of these situations where it was like somebody got a tattoo in the hangover where he wakes up with the Mike Tyson tattoo. And there were several patterns of scenes like that. And so I tried to group things together. As I was cutting and editing, I would notice
00:21:42
Speaker
Oh, here's three or four clips of somebody pouring liquor on a fresh tattoo. Here's three or four clips of somebody waking up with a tattoo or getting a tattoo that they weren't aware of. And then there are actors who are just heavily tattooed whose tattoos are portrayed in their films, like Danny Trejo. There's a whole montage of exclusively Danny Trejo clips, which I find incredible. I think he's awesome.
00:22:10
Speaker
And and the rock also, you know, he incorporates his tattoos into a lot of his roles as well. And so
00:22:19
Speaker
Yeah, it was really fun. I'm working on the second volume right now. And so there are some additional kind of patterns that I'm seeing in the second wave of clips that I'm looking at in editing and stuff. So I'm really excited to see what else happens because there's like the first version I found was kind of like not necessarily low hanging fruit, but in my opinion, some of the more obvious titles and now I'm kind of going in and.
00:22:43
Speaker
seeing like, oh, there's a whole lot of kind of like body horror, Cronenberg stuff that does feature tattoos. And there's a whole lot of older movies that feature them as well. So I'm kind of now like volume two, I feel like will be a little bit more rated F for mature, a little bit more
00:23:05
Speaker
not necessarily deep dives because I feel like the more TV I watch, the more I'm constantly adding to this list of clips that I want to keep going. So it could be an infinite title as far as the volumes go. It might just be something that I just keep working on until I run out or lose interest. But I know there's definitely going to be a second, possibly a third if I don't have enough room. I feel like
00:23:32
Speaker
Watching an hour of this stuff would be too much So i'm trying to keep it to under 30 minutes just for everyone's attention spans Yeah, I like uh, you know you're talking about and obviously like particularly with video of of seeing patterns, you know like in sequence, right that I think a lot of times don't notice and there's something about pointing out that I um, I started getting tattoos, uh at 40 um i'm i'm 51 now but
00:24:01
Speaker
Like I just decided and I was becoming more into art. But long before that, a great friend of mine, Sean Brown, who was a great artist and tattoo artist. I met him in the 90s in DC and he was part of the DC punk scene, African American. He taught me so much.
00:24:24
Speaker
At a time where tattoos weren't like talked about like a whole lot, you know And so I would had just great influence. He's done half my tattoos and But related to that too was like he explained me the significance of these things He explained to me the beauty of them like I remember one time like, you know culture people say like tramp stamp He was like fucking don't say that Ken like that's a beautiful part of the body like don't like
00:24:53
Speaker
You know, it's just as a friend, he was like, don't, don't erase, like, like, that's a beautiful part, like, for anybody to get a tattoo and I don't want stupid ass, like, comments, like, you know, and, and just, just really jarring me. And, um, and he had been very, uh,
00:25:09
Speaker
influenced
Art as Passion and Expression
00:25:09
Speaker
by Japanese history within tattooing. So like, I thought it was pretty cool that when I was introduced to tattooing, I was introduced into deep challenging conversation long ago. And I've always fantastic.
00:25:26
Speaker
Yeah, he's out in a tattoo paradise shop out in Washington, DC. So yeah, it's really nice. Um, I'm gonna switch we get to knock out a conceptual question. We gotta we gotta do we gotta do one here. What is art? What is art?
00:25:49
Speaker
To me, personally, I think art is passion and expression. And sometimes when you just feel like you can't be contained in this vessel, this meat suit that we're all piloting, I feel like sometimes you have to be able to
00:26:09
Speaker
unload some of that human experience through art. I think like to me it translates into a lot of different media and that was kind of a weird silver lining of the pandemic to me was I couldn't tattoo, I wasn't.
00:26:25
Speaker
legally allowed to and I also didn't feel like it was safe to and so I started exploring other mediums again that I had abandoned in my search for being the tattooer of my dreams at the time and I think our definition of dreams and success as artists
00:26:47
Speaker
Changes over time too and what initially gets you into it is not an issue is not what keeps you in it once you're there I think that being able to have ambition is great, but if you're
00:26:59
Speaker
Your idea of success is just like being able to make this one thing that's the greatest thing ever. And it's not the daily practice, the grind, the repetition of your practice. I think that you can just get lost in that ambition and it becomes hollow. So I think having art for me is like,
00:27:25
Speaker
I always wanna do it because I know that everything I do benefits it. Everything, no matter what medium, if I decide to work on a film project, if I'm making music again, if I am sculpting, all of it goes into my practice and makes me better at every medium. It all benefits my tattooing, it all benefits my peace of mind, my mental health. Just having that expression and that outlet
00:27:54
Speaker
as somebody who I think like when I first started tattooing I had this vision of what a tattooer was and that to me was somebody who only tattooed. Their focus was only tattooing and I thought that people who did other things maybe weren't as serious about it.
00:28:12
Speaker
Now that I'm older, I realize that a lot of that is bullshit. It's just programming that somebody tells you one time and then you take that as gospel and then you undermine yourself to please others. And so being able to have
00:28:28
Speaker
Any artistic outlet is all relevant and it's all very important. And I think art in any of its iterations and crafts, hobbies, anything is really important. And I think without having that outlet, I think in this society especially, this like,
00:28:47
Speaker
capitalist society with all of these systemic injustices is crushing. And I think we need to be able to have that as a society. And it's sad that art classes aren't valued as much as other classes, because if it weren't for art, I don't know if I would have graduated high school. I think that's definitely something that kept me going back to school was the incentive that somehow somewhere in the day I would get to create art.
00:29:15
Speaker
Yeah, I love that. It's so important. I think I've had a lot of conversations on the show and I'm still surprised and always surprised at just how pivotal when we're talking about living. Not just people who are excited by art, but the fact that almost anybody I talk to about art can tell a story related to it with maybe positive or negative or
00:29:41
Speaker
you know mr jones says you know like it was terrible at r and that had an impact on me or somebody took me aside um and said yo this is this is you this is what you're doing and what that that does for you um
00:29:58
Speaker
It becomes so important. I wanted to ask you, I mean, you had mentioned a different ways that you would express your art or view yourself as an artist. When did you see yourself as an artist? Did you walk around and say like, this is me? Or was it always like that?
00:30:16
Speaker
I think for me it was always like that and when I was little it was like the Christmas present that my sister and I got was like a big giant set of watercolors or colored pencils or the art set that had like a little bit of everything and or like a hobby kit like a clay or
00:30:42
Speaker
Whatever those little packaging things that you can get for little kids that are like, oh, it's a bead making kit. It's a whatever. We got a lot of those as kids. And I think just keeping my hands busy, keeping my brain busy. I also have ADHD. And so as a child, I was really interested in the hyper focus of a project.
00:31:03
Speaker
And I think that some of my earliest memories are coloring books, crafts, just creating stuff out of sticks, building things, even from like a very small kid was always interested in.
00:31:21
Speaker
making and creating and my parents really nurtured that, which is awesome. And then when I was old enough to know what tattoos were, I was instantly gravitated towards that. And it was different in the 90s growing up.
00:31:39
Speaker
There wasn't a lot of information about it. It was a little bit more taboo. It was only highlighted in very shocking documentaries that were more geared towards...
00:31:53
Speaker
mature audiences There was only one place in town I could get a tattoo magazine and that was the 7-eleven and so everything was really shrouded in mystery and it was hard to find and I think that's another reason why I gravitated towards it because I was so hungry for information and the The kind of secrecy of it all was very appealing to me. Yeah. Yeah, and so just that kind of search for like, you know, how do I
00:32:23
Speaker
How do I eventually get towards this goal, even as a high schooler? I was interested in Flash and would visit my friends when they would go get tattooed. So just kind of building this path towards what eventually would become my life, which is amazing. But even as a middle schooler, I was drawing on my friends after class.
00:32:47
Speaker
putting Superman symbols on their arms before basketball games and stuff like that. At the time, it was really funny, but all these years later, I've been tattooing for 16 years, and I feel like it feels like I was always meant to do this.
00:33:04
Speaker
Yeah, and it's powerful, a lot of that stuff. I mean, when we talk about a tattoo and like, you know, everybody has a different relationship with it, but yeah, I find it to be really exciting. I like them. One of the funny things, sometimes I think about the different ways people approach what they'll get for a tattoo. And I found that in my mind, when I got one, I would say, I have eight, but I would say six of them,
00:33:33
Speaker
I only decided five or ten minutes before I asked when I was at the shop because I felt that's the way my brain works and I was super comfortable with being like, this is where it's landed. So I never persevered it on the what. And I like that it's a strange, you think of the permanence versus
00:33:59
Speaker
But I've always enjoyed, I've always enjoyed that part of things. I was wondering, could you tell just a little bit, I don't want to miss it with regards to the shop itself, but like telling people like what you have there, you mentioned the VHS and like how
00:34:14
Speaker
maybe appointments work or you know the services and that type of yeah absolutely so we are tattoo only we don't do piercings get a lot of questions about that but there is another shop in the mall called euphoria that does tattoos and piercings so cool send everybody there for that and so since we specialize in just tattooing I really wanted it to kind of
00:34:40
Speaker
be a place where you could walk in and you could trust the artists and that this is a place where we can make you whatever you want or you can pick something out on the wall if you feel spontaneous and catering to people in that way where like
00:34:55
Speaker
If you come in for a walk-in, that person, if they don't feel like they can do the best job, they're going to tell you and they're going to give you a recommendation where you can go. So I think just having that kind of ethos where we're not going to take everything that walks in the door. There
Ethics in Tattooing
00:35:12
Speaker
are some requests, like we get a lot of requests for face tattoos,
00:35:16
Speaker
on very young people who maybe it's their face, their first tattoo or they're not heavily tattooed. And that's something like for my principles, I don't want to be the one to do that on somebody who, um, is so young skin on the face ages faster. It sees more sun than everything else. So I think, you know, we kind of have that set up as a, as a system where like,
00:35:41
Speaker
there are things that we turn down because I feel like the kind of question of permanence is so different based on where you are in your life. And I think when you're very young, sometimes you do things that you don't
00:36:00
Speaker
really think about. And then when you're in your 30s, when you're like a full-fledged adult and you know yourself very well, everybody has regrets. But I don't want to be the one to mark somebody with a regret if they haven't really thought through it. And then basically that's just because face tattoos, neck tattoos, hand tattoos, all of those high visibility spots are very trendy right now. And I've seen enough
00:36:25
Speaker
Tattoos over the last decade and a half to know that trends come and go and there's always backlash There's always just like you mentioned with the tramp stamp term
00:36:34
Speaker
I fully agree with you and I think that it's great that your friend pushed you to not think about it in that way because I think we have a tendency as a society to discard things that we are over and I think we have an even higher tendency to discard women and non-men at the same time.
00:36:56
Speaker
terminology kind of does both of those things where we're discarding the trend and we're discarding the woman who was wearing the trend or whoever's wearing the trend doesn't have to be gendered in that sense. But I think that there are just there are some things that you know like the teeny tiny little tattoos like there are some things that we can do but I feel like ethically we want the thing to last forever we want it to look as good as we can and so
00:37:26
Speaker
You know, that's kind of off topic, but generally, to answer your question, we do walk-ins. We also take appointments. It's myself and three other full-time artists and one of their part-time artists, and then we have a guest station as well. So we do different styles. Personally, I'm comfortable in a lot of different styles I can do.
00:37:49
Speaker
traditional fine line black and gray color soft black and gray illustrative i like doing a lot of different things portraits animals space cosmic weird stuff.
00:38:06
Speaker
Um, and then a lot of my other artists that work at the shop, most of them specialize in bold American traditional kind of stuff, but everybody's pretty versatile and we can also do custom things.
Services at Mortal Emblem
00:38:17
Speaker
So, you know, a lot of times people will bring us something that's on their phone or an idea that they've had and will, you know, make them a version that we're happy with and that they're happy with. So.
00:38:29
Speaker
Yeah. I don't know listeners. I'm, I'm excited for a tattoo right now. I knew that with talking with Olivia Britt sweet and of course a mortal emblem and talk, talk in art. I wanted to ask the wacky ask question because I think I dropped it in there. So it's the title of the show. Um, and you can approach us any way you want. Why do you think there is something rather than nothing?
00:38:53
Speaker
I think every little bit goes towards your goal, your vision, whatever it is. So, you know, even if like in the instance of art, if you're doing something, you're doing a drawing exercise, you're practicing lettering, you're just sketching just to sketch, you're drawing just to draw. It doesn't have to be Instagram worthy. It doesn't have to be your, you know,
00:39:21
Speaker
your incredible statement to the world, just the act of making something is important and provides you that foundation of moving towards the future. So if you're doing nothing, you're not helping yourself at all. I think just that's my interpretation of like, you know, actually contributing something to yourself by the act of making something is better than nothing.
00:39:50
Speaker
Yeah, I dig that. I love being able to talk to you about, you know, about tattooing, about art. And I was really, in my brain, I was really stimulated by the ways you're talking about not just tattoos or like how you're an artist, but how we're artists in a much bigger sense. And what we're sensitive to and what we're open to, I think artists
00:40:30
Speaker
are the ones to
00:40:33
Speaker
garage. I found my old projector and the white sheet on the fence and Blair Witch Project and some Steven Seagal movies. When I go VHS, I allow myself even further for what I want because I'm like, this VHS time and it can be anything. Absolutely.
00:40:52
Speaker
And I think there's a lot to be said about how good a bad movie is and I think how comforting that nostalgia is of like maybe it's something you have watched before but maybe it's not but it reminds you of a time and I think that's a huge reason why I wanted
00:41:07
Speaker
an actual VHS collection in the shop and a TV that is there that if you're lucky enough to be facing the TV, I suppose you could watch a favorite movie. And sometimes if it's just me and a client, I'm like, pick out whatever you want. I've seen them all a hundred times, so I usually will let someone
00:41:27
Speaker
kick whatever they want to watch and sometimes we'll watch it with sound but sometimes we'll just have music on and the movie will be silent but it's still kind of that. The experience of watching it on like a tube TV. I have a 1975 Toshiba with the rabbit ears and it's red and it's got the big knobs on it. It's beautiful.
00:41:45
Speaker
And then in the other windows, I have four small TVs in one display window, a big giant TV in the lobby, and then a secondary TV that's hooked up to the VCR that's watching whatever we're watching that faces the outside. And so every little every TV kind of serves its own purpose. We have media players with flash drives hooked into them. So they're kind of it's almost acting like our
00:42:10
Speaker
bulletin board, our kind of like neon sign type of thing where it has all of our like basic information like shop minimum, the artists that work at the shop, no piercings, like that kind of stuff. They also serve as a very practical purpose for us too. It's not just like the movie aspect. I think having the TVs in the shop is a great way to avoid having like a lot of signs everywhere, just like creates more space for art.
00:42:39
Speaker
Yeah.
Community and Collaborations
00:42:40
Speaker
So I think folks in talking about the physical location where I've been attracted to as a sub theme of the something rather than nothing podcast, but like mortal emblem and like I said, floating world comics over that way, skating rink. You can refer folks to piercings. I believe that was euphoria in the mall. And just just really just really dig talking about all these type of things in an open way, like
00:43:07
Speaker
There's something about the way you were talking about your work in art that was, you know, by the names you mentioned, like community, like based or how do I do this? How do I edit this? And even the interactive piece with, you know, going to get a tattoo of the conversation
00:43:25
Speaker
What are you thinking? What are you looking for and like working with somebody to say? This is the best way to do it or like let's go right ahead or you know like having an interactive conversation So I think it's all like
00:43:41
Speaker
a great creative dialogue. You had mentioned the bits about Immortal Emblem before leaving here. Any other, like maybe the Instagram for you or other places to look for your art or anything else you want to mention? Because a lot of listeners, they kind of just follow up and say, I'd like to check out that stuff. Any other places to go?
00:44:05
Speaker
Yeah, so our website is mortalemblem.com. Instagram is at mortalemblem. We have a TikTok at mortalemblem that has a couple things on there.
00:44:16
Speaker
It's tough kind of juggling all the social media. So we generally stick to Instagram for the most part, just so that we can kind of create like our running portfolio, our links to every artist, and a lot of people communicate via DM. I also have a website, it's just oliviabritsuite.com that the tatertainment video that we were talking about lives on. So you can go watch it for free on my website. And if you do want to tape, they live at the shop as well.
00:44:45
Speaker
I again wanted to give you congratulations for Mortal Emblem and starting a business and working through that, but also spending time on the show and kicking around a little philosophy, a little bit of art.
00:45:02
Speaker
Oh gosh, talking about VHS. Yeah, always happy to. And the patch mode. Yeah, but it's fun to kind of have with the starting my own business came actually, in my opinion, like just more opportunities to be involved with the artistic community.
00:45:24
Speaker
And to kind of have those opportunities to partner with people, to collaborate with people that I didn't feel like I had as much as just an independent contractor working for somebody else. And so that's been a really amazing positive bonus that I wasn't expecting owning the shop. So it's been really wonderful.
00:45:44
Speaker
good good we got uh so everybody we got some into the future but some 2024 excitement uh over there at the Lloyd Center mortal emblems so um thanks for everything you do Olivia uh really great to um
00:45:59
Speaker
to see all the art and all the color and and everything that you do so like It's been a pleasure having you on the show and and great success and everybody if you're in the you know If you have the means and you're in the or you know, Portland, Oregon Check out some of these businesses creating great art and swing by mortal emblem. Like I said, I went there and
00:46:24
Speaker
I got a tattoo, but I was also like, I want to chill here for like an hour, an hour and a half just looking at things. Yeah, I want a place where you feel comfortable. I'm not telling everybody to hang and not spend money for it. I'm about to say very comfortable. There's plenty to look at. Yeah, we've got artists books and stuff and you got tattooed by Stevie, right?
00:46:45
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We have Stevie who's wonderful, Kristen, Cal, Tanya, and then Sarah Cobian who comes and does flash days with us. So we have a wonderful crew. Everybody's absolutely delightful and really good at what they do and just really nice people. So it's a pleasure.
00:47:07
Speaker
Awesome. Well, listeners, we're going to let Olivia off to continue her artwork for the day and into the future. Olivia, a great pleasure having you on the podcast and a great success and hope to stop by the shop and say hello in person soon. Excellent. Thank you so much, Ken. You're welcome. Take care. Me too.
00:47:37
Speaker
This is something rather than nothing.
00:48:08
Speaker
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00:48:30
Speaker
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