words DOUG GEYER  |  portrait photography DEOGRACIAS LERMA

Part Three: Robyn Roth

For many artists, pursuing their creative impulses is like breathing. The need to express themselves is essential to their survival, humming alongside the blood that courses through their veins. For Robyn Roth, she slowly warmed up to the idea of art being a part of her identity, of being her career. She was more keen to experience the world through travel than to explore and share the gift inside. Like a nomad, Roth kept moving, discovering what various cultures offered until she had a clearer idea of what she could.

“I could draw at a young age, so through my parents and grandparents, they were definitely encouraging me. They had me at Covington’s Baker Hunt [Art and Cultural Center] as a child. I hated it, but I went for a little while. So they pushed me. Honestly, in high school, art was on the back burner. I did mostly music because the art program where I went to high school was so terrible I didn’t want to take any classes.”

While at Northern Kentucky University, Roth realized that to continue playing the violin, she’d need to take private lessons, as they didn’t have a string program. It was here that she gave art another chance.

“I think my first major was graphic design because it was like, ‘Well, that’s a job’. But during my first semester, I dropped all those classes and went toward drawing and painting. But towards graduation, I’ll be honest with you, I had no idea it was going to be a career. I got a job at Delta Airlines as a baggage handler. I was just going to do that because you got great benefits. I could travel and was just going to make art on my own time.”

Even after she began getting tattoos she’d designed for herself, Roth didn’t see herself inking others. It wasn’t until Craig Moore, the tattooist who did her pieces, encouraged her to pursue it because of her talent for drawing. Moore was an artist working in the shop of local legend, Dana Brunson. Brunson was impressed with Roth’s skill and eventually took her on as his apprentice for a short but instructive time.

“I learned a lot from him. At the time, it was when you had to make your own needles to the tattoo. A lot more to learn. It’s pretty easy to pick it up now. I was lucky that I got to learn that old-school skill that really isn’t happening anymore.”

Not long after, Roth put tattooing on hold to see the world. After loading and unloading other traveler’s bags, she started packing her own. Roth soaked in the sights and sounds during her many trips, which included Asia, Central America, Europe, Africa and the Indian subcontinent. She particularly loved the diversity and spirit of indigenous peoples and their relationship with animals. She has incorporated symbolic souvenirs from her many journeys into much of her work, whether on a canvas, skateboard, or arm.

“With traveling around the world, the drive for me was seeing other cultures and people that were not like me. Maybe, in a sense, I had to go and experience these other places to become more comfortable with my insecurities. It’s a very vulnerable position, especially when you stick out like a sore thumb in some of these countries. And you’re on your own. We never booked through a travel agency or had a tour guide, so you’re just on your own figuring it out. It can be stressful and scary, but it made me a more patient and understanding person where I could come back and become a tattoo artist.”

After gaining more confidence tattooing friends and friends of friends, Roth finally earned an official spot on the floor at Covington’s Mothers Tattoo in 2007. She’s been there ever since. She Moore with providing her with an accommodating and understanding space.

“It still took me about three years to get my confidence up. It’s very stressful and you’re working alongside people who are doing amazing tattoos. And you want that so bad but you just can’t do it [right away]. I always tell people who ask me about tattooing that even if you’re a master artist doing oil paintings and you decide to be a tattoo artist, you’re back in kindergarten, whether you like it or not. A lot of it comes from the people you work with who kick your butt a little bit. Somebody came in and wanted to do something that seemed hard to me. I think it might have been a fancy name. They wanted the script to be really flowy. And one of the artists who I was working with at the time was like, ‘Just do it. Who cares if it takes you three hours. Just do it. Don’t pass it up, you gotta jump in there.’ I always kept that in mind. There’s no time limit. Work to make it right for you.”

As you can see from the bulk of her work, Roth has an affinity for pieces drawn from nature.

“It probably started with trees. It just felt very natural for me to sketch a tree out on paper and transfer it to the person’s body and make it flow and fit so perfectly with their form. And then it transitioned to flowers. Everybody loves flowers and those are very easy to put on somebody’s body so they just compliment their figure so beautifully. So I felt I didn’t even need to draw it on paper, I could just draw it directly on them. And then with mandala and geometric tattoos, the first time I was asked I was scared to do it because they’re so intricate and busy. If the stencil fails while you’re doing them, it can make a mandala a disaster. I had to make sure the stencil, the maps I used, were perfect. When I accomplished one, I loved doing it. I love the sense of freedom. I never have a finished mandala for them to see, I just have the line work, so I’m pretty much able to do what I want. They just see the final product. I started doing that with flowers.

Instead of always copying how a flower looks in an illustration or a photograph, I just started breaking it down into what would make it look like a good tattoo. Using certain techniques like hatching or dot work.”

Like her many trees, Roth’s art has grown with and through the seasons of her life. While the winds of what’s popular and profitable blow capriciously, she remains rooted in a fertile space. She celebrates, with her growing base of satisfied clients, the feeling of a job well done and takes on the next project with a well-deserved sense of peace and purpose.