5 Questions with Creatives

VICTORIA BILLINGSLEY

BY SKY RIVERA

With the Pensacola Tattoo Expo fast approaching, it only seemed appropriate that we shine a light on one of our local tattoo artists this month. Tattoo artist Victoria Billingsley at Sacred Grounds Tattoo Studio is a young tattoo artist bringing a little something new to the tattoo scene here in Pensacola. While some may describe her work as neotraditional, she likes to describe her work as “cutesy traditional.” Feed your tattoo curiosity with a trip to the Pensacola Tattoo Expo from April 30 to May 2 at the Sanders Beach-Corinne Jones Resource Center. In addition to tattooing, Victoria also creates painted wood art. Check out her artistic repertoire on her Instagram @vicbits.

What got you into tattooing, or was there a specific moment when you realized it was what you wanted to do?

I was 13, and it was when all of those tattoo reality shows started. I saw all of these tattoo artists put really cool permanent art on people. I’m the middle child, the “black sheep” you could say, and the tattoo career was just really calling my name.

I see you sell art. Can you tell me a little bit about that?

Do you have any tattoo heroes now, or someone you look up to in the industry?

Obviously Shauncey Fury, but also another good friend of mine, Carrie Daniels over at Hula Moon. She [Carrie] has the cleanest lines of any tattoo artist I have ever seen. Locally, definitely both of them, they are both in the American Traditional tattoo realm. Shauncey helped me to get where I am now. Without him, I would not be tattooing at all. He was and still is a great tattoo teacher. With Carrie, I love sitting and watching her tattoo. It blows my mind. I have no idea how she tattoos the way she does.

The wood pieces were inspired by this page I found on Instagram [@blackliningwallart] because a lot of these tattoo artists I follow were getting a lot of crazy traditional designs cut out of wood to hang up on their walls. It was like tattooing your walls with pieces of wood. He was who I got all of those wood pieces from. Everyone was doing them black, and because I was bored during quarantine, I decided to get funky with some colors.

What draws you to the neotraditional style?

I fall in a weird in-between. Sometimes I fall into a more neotraditional, other times a more traditional. I call it more of a cutesy traditional. There are a lot of rules in traditional tattooing that make total sense, but at the same time I didn’t like that it is so heavily rule-based, and I don’t exactly like rules per say. There are a million amazing tattooers in town, but I felt like I haven’t seen a lot of artists in town doing some of the weird cutesy type of stuff that I like to do. I draw stuff that I like and I post it. That is probably the coolest part of being a tattooer. A random idea that appears in my head will be on someone’s body because they like it so much.

What is some advice that you have for people who want to pursue a career as a tattoo artist?

You need to admire who you apprentice for. You need to admire them as a person and their work. Tattoo artists want an apprentice who is someone that is committed to the lifestyle and has a love for tattooing. You have to show that you want to learn and admire what they are doing on a day-to-day basis before you begin to learn what they do.