Maia Bowald — Tattoo Nation apprentice

“My whole life, I've always thought that it was so cool that my dad gets to draw on people for a living and I always thought that I'd love to do that.”

Ms Bowald said it was quite scary to undertake an apprenticeship throughout the pandemic.

“It’s quite a long apprenticeship and I wanted to finish my apprenticeship while I was still young and then head off to do some travelling,” she said.

“I was quite worried that the pandemic was only going to prolong and extend my apprenticeship.”

Ms Bowald said there was no bookwork during the apprenticeship, which meant the apprentices could only do hands-on training experience.

“Being that there’s no bookwork, there’s nothing that I could work on while being locked down at home,” she said.

Ms Bowald said it actually ended up okay because she was still on track with her apprenticeship.

In terms of what Ms Bowald loved about the tattooing industry she said she loved the unique community that came with it.

“You don't have to fit into this cookie cutter mould. You can be a little bit different and people will just accept you and I really like that side of things,” she said.

Ms Bowald said it was an honour to have your artwork tattooed on someone permanently.

“Especially when people trust you to do memorial pieces, it's a very big honour,” she said.

“I just love coming to work and tattooing people. I get to be creative and put my own spin on things and make my mark which is great,” Ms Bowald said.

“Tattooing is not nearly as easy as people think it is, it's actually very hard to do and it's nothing like drawing.

“You’ve got to learn everything from scratch, but there is something about it that is also very rewarding.”