Email newsletter and a few words about instagram
June 2026: Thanks for being here on my website, especially as I have been trying to disentangle my tattoo work from Meta’s exploitative and extractive platform, instagram. The latest infuriating thing — on top of shadow-banning and the like — was instagram’s ‘auto enhance feature,’ which changes the skin tones of the uploaded photos and videos without consent/without any way of turning off that horrifying ‘feature.’ It’s a shame to leave that community, but it is getting more and more challenging for me to stick around there. That said, I am so very appreciative of all of the folks I’ve gotten to make tattoos who found me via instagram. Thank you all heaps and leaps! Nearly 12,000 people in that community, and I am so grateful to you all for being there with me. But the corporation behind IG is soul-crushing, and I’m working to move away from giving my/our data to it.
So, *it would help me a lot* if you signed up for my email newsletter via Substack! It’s free and you don’t need a Substack account to add your email to my newsletter list :) Thank you!
Now, onto ..
Some important things to know about my work process
Tattoo can be a radical act of self-care, a deeply important personal undertaking, a reclamation of sovereignty over our own bodies. I try to be as transparent as possible about these processes, so folks can best understand/plan for the project they are looking to have done. Ultimately, my goal is to help people *live in the bodies they want to see in the world.* If we start a large project and your budget shifts during that time -- that's ok! Just let me know, and I'm happy to work with you. We can spread out appointments over many months for your budgeting, or go other routes to help you reach your body goals. My day rate is offered on a sliding scale. All of this financial stuff becomes an important act of trust between you -- the person getting the tattoo -- and me, the person making the tattoo. I deeply believe that although we live in a capitalistic world, we can begin healing ourselves/our communities/our societies if more of our "commerce/transactions" are rooted in trust and compassion. Commerce is an ancient practice, but capitalism is not!
Wherever/whenever I am tattooing I strive to create a safe, comfortable and welcoming environment for all people, regardless of their race, ethnicity, gender identity, religion, accessibility, sexual orientation, or economic means. My tattoos are made to be tattooed on all bodies, all skin tones, all ethnicities, all genders, all orientations. I do not tolerate hate speech or hateful actions of any kind, in person or online. Language or actions toward artists, clients or other guests that are/perceived to be racist, sexist, anti-LGBTQ, body shaming, hair shaming, or any negative or violent behavior/speech will not be tolerated.
Consent is important, and I do consultations to make sure we're both on the same page. Consultations are free (although you are welcome to make a cash deposit during your consultation; more about that in the rates section). If you are interested in getting a small/medium-sized piece from my design book, we can go ahead and put a date on the calendar to make a tattoo or to do a consultation -- whichever works for you. For larger pieces from my book or custom work (full sleeves, chest, back, etc), I recommend that we do a consultation to chat more about what you have in mind. In-person is preferred, but over-the-phone is ok if you are not local to Pittsburgh. I schedule consultations at 10am Tuesday-Saturday; however if that time slot doesn't work for your schedule, let me know and we'll find another time that works for you.
Designs: I don't send out my designs from my flash books in advance, but you can view some of my currently available designs here. My books contain repeatable designs and one-of-a-kind pieces, designs, including: palms/palm-sized pieces, embroidery, lace, weaving, mourning & hairwork designs, Ogham 'tree' designs, and other forms of folk art, moon & sun figures, botanicals interwoven with folk art/ornament, half & full sleeves, chest pieces, tops of hands, backs, etc. You can also check out my work on substack.
Rates: I typically do day rates, rather than hourly, which can be more economical for people who are working on large projects like full backs, chest pieces, half & full sleeves. For palm-sized to medium-sized pieces (or short days to wrap up a large project) I do hourly or half-day rates. Keep in mind that the timeline for a project can have many variables -- including size, complexity, placement, and more -- which determine how many hours a piece will take to complete. So, I do not typically give estimates on how long a large project will take before our first session because it is like trying to answer, "How much will a bag of groceries cost?", which, of course, depends on many factors -- size of the bag, what's in the bag, and so on. That said, I tattoo as fast and efficiently as I possibly can. As you'll likely hear me say in the studio, "There's no time to f**k around." :)
Here is the breakdown of my rates for 2026:
Full day sliding scale rate (11AM - 5PM; ~six hours of work) : $900-1200.
My day rate breaks down to roughly $150-200/hour.
Palms and palm-sized pieces start at $200.
My hourly rate is $200/hour for medium-sized pieces.
A $200 deposit is taken for booking a full day appointment.
A $75 deposit is taken for booking a palm-/medium-sized tattoo.
Keep in mind the deposit is in place to reserve that appointment for you, and will be subtracted from the total for that day.
Deposits are non-refundable and are only applied to the original agreed upon project. All deposits are for the agreed upon project; changes may result in forfeiture of your deposit. Additionally, deposits will only be returned in extremely special situations. Please think before you commit. If you need to reschedule your appointment, your deposit will continue to be applied to your rescheduled date, provided that you give 48 hours advance notice. If you are a no-show or cancel without 48 hours notice, you will need to put down another deposit to reschedule. For full transparency, your deposit is used in many ways: to keep the lights on at the studio; to pay a portion of my chair/supply fees; and to offset a portion of my design time. Each design I create takes hours of planning, researching, and drawing work.
If all of that sounds good to you, please reply to the following questions in an email to: ematropatattoo@gmail.com
1. What is your preferred full name (first & last)?
2. What are your pronouns?
3. Have you had tattoo work done in the past? / Are you heavily tattooed?
4. What is your phone number? / Is texting and/or a phone call okay?
5. Are you local to Pittsburgh, PA? If not, where would you be traveling from?
6. If you are thinking of a larger project (full sleeve, half sleeve, chest piece, back, legs, etc) please send over photos of the area(s) you would like to have tattooed. Please have a friend take the photo so they are not distorted and not taken from a 'selfie' angle. Include a photo from a front, side, and back angles of the area; use your camera app to circle the area you'd like tattooed. Please note if there are tattoos that you do not want covered up, business lines, etc. Feel free to censor the photos as you see fit. Feel free to censor the photos as you see fit. If you are getting a small/medium piece, no need to send photos -- it's often easiest to figure out placement and sizing in-person :)
7. If you are requesting a custom project, please send 4-6 picture examples of my work that you like/are the closest to what you are looking for. My portfolio (the most complete one) is on my website. Second best is substack. You can also pull from instagram @em_atropa, which is not a very complete picture of my work. In just a few words, let me know what you like about those pieces. Please do not send references of other tattooers work :) Please do not send images from instagram labelled "tandem project" or "tandem Nathan Mould piece" etc, as these tattoos are designed by my mentor, Nathan Mould, and tattooed in tandem by both of us simultaneously.
Thank you for taking the time to read through all of this information. Feel free to ask me any questions. I'm looking forward to speaking with you more and making a tattoo for you!
