In pursuit of my most recent tattoo – a steampunk bee – my friend Kash and I hopped on public transit with urgency, having just spent two hours learning about the inner workings of one artist’s practice in a graduate class at the OCAD University. While this was far from my first tattoo, it was my first with the artist Sam from Tattoo Haus in Toronto. It was also the first time Kash witnessed the tattoo-sitting process. As she listened intently to Sam’s explanation of the stencil process, I began to get comfortable in an unfamiliar space, knowing I was about to spend numerous hours in a fair bit of pain with a person I had just met. The initial tension and excitement dissipated as the first lines were drawn on. Yet the sitting remained a space of dialogue as we spoke across the divisions between the hands-on practice Sam engaged with on my body, and the often isolated intellectual debates of the Master of Fine Arts program Kash and I are both currently immersed in.

Tattoo Haus in general – and Sam’s workstation in particular – was the kind of welcoming space that I look for when getting a tattoo. Not only did I feel safe sitting in Sam’s chair as a non-binary trans...