🌸🎀💖 Now that we’ve learned what my story is NOT, let’s talk about what it IS + what to expect on this kawaii creative journey, together – unconventionally making my own way.

Bih! I’m SELF MADE. Do you even know what that means?

Most people think of self-made in terms of money. I mean dat too but naw …

But literally from mindset to money, I have had to become a huge pile o’ bricks being torn down so that the ancestors could build me back up. Becoming self-made meant taking the leap to discover, embrace and wholly surrender to my purpose.

That’s the thing that’s ALWAYS hard to find, but thankfully it’s been in my name and all around me all this time. I just had to open my eyes to it.

Before I hit you with some style points, lemme drop the lines of one of my favorite jams –

Searching by Blackalicious

Searching
For everything already there
For every thought already known
For everything that ever was, is, and will be

Struggling
Oh how we struggle
And the more we avoid it
The greater the struggle becomes
Until we realize
The struggle is the blessing
Progressing
Changing
Evolving
Growing
From a seed to a tree
From a child to a (wo)man
From a (wo)man to a spirit
To a god fulfilling his plan

Purpose
No words can describe the unnameable
No beginning
No end
Just always now
Marveling at the miracle
And all of a sudden
It all seemed to make sense somehow

🌸🎀💖 Style Points

style point: Shoppe Gal Unisex Hoodie (my personal fav)

DREAMS x LOFTY WISHES: When I was little, I wanted to move to Harlem NYC because all the great Black artists were products of Harlem … I mean hello Black renaissance times! LAwd that shit was the magical part of my African Art History lessons. Seeing my potential through the greats of artists like Bearden, Van Der Zee, Douglas and Lawrence.

Little did I know I’d one day become that great artist and U Street -bka- Black Broadway would be my very own Harlem.

As the 2nd most prominent Black female tattoo artist in US history and coming up the FIRST and only for DC proper … I knew I was destined to be more than an artist. I just wasn’t sure what. Truth be told I still grapple with what but that’s life – ever elusive and an ever learning, ever evolving experience.

Though I didn’t know the WHAT of what I’d become, I knew it was something important and most of all that my dream of making it in Harlem came true. And the moment I realized that … it clicked! My greatness would be delivered through the art of tattoo what surrendering to celebrating my ancestors and consequently, my Blackness – as both an individual and as part of the collective.

Dreams DO come true. just sometimes not how you intended or expected.

And if I had to circle back to my purpose (to inspire) I landed right where I needed to be – showing up and glowing up on the streets of DC’s Black Broadway.

Buy Shoppe Gal, The Memoir – Embracing Hope, Happiness & Happenstance today

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