Haven provides a safe space for all women and LGBTQIA+ people to get tattooed in a historically problematic industry.
Getting a tattoo can be an intimate experience. From choosing the design to the moment the needle touches your skin. As the owner of Haven Tattoo Brooklyn, Jessica Valentine, notes on her website, “your tattoo is not the only thing you will have forever; you’ll remember the whole experience as well.”
Haven opened in 2019 and is nestled in the heart of Bushwick. It serves as a safe space for women and LGBTQIA+ people to get tattooed. The studio’s maximalist interior features a pink and blue color scheme with everything from wallpaper printed with animations of vibrators, perfume, and underwear, multi-colored walls, a leopard print rug, and a plush blue sofa accented with a Megan Thee Stallion Cardi B silkscreen pillow. The decor speaks for itself as the antithesis of the typical sterile boy’s club vibe that archetypal tattoo parlors tend to exude.
By nature, getting Tattooed is based on trust, so while creating a comfortable environment might seem intuitive, the industry has been spotlighted for discrimination and abuse of power. A 2018 Jezebel report brought light to the industry’s own ‘wrenching, revelatory #MeToo moment’ in which hundreds of women came forward to report sexual misconduct while getting tattooed.
During one of her first attempts to get tattooed, Valentine was laughed out of the studio and made fun of for her idea. She never got the design tattooed. Unfortunately, this was not the last negative tattoo experience she had. “Another experience was having to take my whole top and bra off to receive a tattoo that really didn’t require that. I just sat there in the middle of the shop while people came in and out. It was uncomfortable, to say the least.” She tells Mission, “I have often simply walked into a shop and received poor customer service. A lot of people working in shops will be rude to people who don’t appear to be heavily tattooed.”
Haven is a private female-run studio that allows no more than two clients in at a time. The studio has a clientele of 99% female, trans, or nonbinary people. One of the ways the artist now tries to make clients feel comfortable is by communicating every step of the process and asking for consent before doing anything. The studio also offers pastie covers for clients when tattooing more intimate areas and tongue-in-cheek breast-shaped stress balls.
It is not just clients that face abuse in the industry; female tattoo artists often face discrimination. “From sexual assault/harassment to hazing, you name it, I have experienced it all,” Valentine tells Mission. “I have made it a point to cultivate a work environment that is the complete opposite of any work environment I have had in the past.”
While sharing some of her past experiences, she pinpoints two particularly traumatic examples; the time she was forced to eat canned dog food and the time she had her week’s pay in cash torn in half and thrown into the ceiling fan just for the owner’s entertainment. When it comes to Haven, Valentine aims to create a completely safe, comfortable, and judgment-free environment for everyone involved.
Although Valentine has been working in the industry for over a decade, every shop she’s worked at (prior to Haven) was owned and run by men. In 2018 Valentine worked as a consultant at Nice Tattoo parlor, who dub themselves ‘A tattoo parlor where everyone is nice to you.’ However, she left shortly after to open Haven. “I did not appreciate being the face of a “female-owned” shop that was in fact run by (non-tattooer) men, she tells Mission, “Besides it being an insanely toxic work environment, I did not wish to be portrayed in a light that was false.”
Despite the historically toxic industry, the artist has hope for the future. While she maintains that it is still very straight, white, and male-dominated, Valentine believes progress is being made via the rise of private studios and the inclusion of women and queer people.
When it comes to Haven’s future, Valentine announced an exciting expansion where she will be able to hire more like-minded artists and increase Haven’s client base.
Photos courtesy of Jessica Valentine
