Love a Little Local: More to it than meets the eye

Love a Little Local: More to it than meets the eye

Writer Elaine Davie

Photographer Taylum Meyer

What? A tattoo studio in Kleinmond? Are you kidding? Yes. And no. Not hiding down some back alley either, but in full public view in Harbour Road, in between the restaurants and coffee shops. And guess what, after the first shock, most residents have embraced the newcomers and even furtively beaten a pathway to their door for a piercing, permanent make-up, perhaps even daringly, a tattoo… or just to check the place out for themselves.

What they will have seen is a neat, attractively-decorated, professional-looking venue run by friendly husband-and-wife team Quintin Erasmus and chef, Ilizse du Toit. Like many others in the beauty and restaurant business, they are economic casualties of Covid-19. Quintin, who has been a qualified tattooist for the past 12 years had to close his studio in the Northern Suburbs of Cape Town as a result of lockdown. At more or less the same time, the restaurant which Ilizse was managing, also shut its doors for good.

But what brought them to Kleinmond? After all, it’s not exactly the centre of surf- or counter-culture, which one might stereotypically associate with tattoos. “Actually,” says Ilizse, “that is a complete misconception. Tattooing is growing in popularity around the world amongst all ages and cultures, not just for beautification, but to hide skin blemishes, or scars. I’ve even got a small tattoo on my inner wrist identifying me as an organ donor.”

But back to Kleinmond. When their livelihoods were falling apart in Cape Town, Ilizse”s mother, who lives in Keinmond invited them and their two little boys, aged eight and ten, to come and live with her until they were able to get back on their feet. It wasn’t long before they had all fallen in love with the town.

“The two boys loved their new school and with granny and the beach close by, it would have been hard to drag them away again,” laughs Ilizse. “Quintin and I also felt it was a place where we could lead a healthy, less rushed life and could grow spiritually.”

So they decided to establish a tattoo studio, without unrealistic expectations of how it might turn out, but simply because Quintin has a passion for the art, dating back to his childhood in Pretoria. “I had been drawing since I was little,” he explains, “and one day when I saw a programme on TV about tattooing, I knew straightaway that was what I wanted to do with my life.”

Click on the newspaper below to read more (see page 13).