godstooth is a multidisciplinary project based in chicago, born in massachusetts. I began tattooing myself in 2014 to make sense of a body in transition, and in 2019 I began extending that work to others. I’ve since been able to share in the absolute terror and wonder of permanent change with my clients through an evolving practice of abstraction and freehand.

I work from charcoal as a material reference, as a play on permanence. Charcoal is quick, fleeting, and infinitely malleable- as are we. Tattoos are forever, and our bodies are not.

I make this work to wrestle with change and grief, and offer a sliver of autonomy within our battered and changing bodies, in a world where we are afforded very little. It’s not healthcare or a union, but often when I felt most helpless, I personally got tattooed about it. A lot. We make meaning with what we have.

My process is infinitely collaborative and modular for this reason, and often designed freehand alongside my clients. I rarely draw these days unless it’s for and with someone- the relational aspect of this work is critical to me, and often where things get the most interesting.

Beyond tattooing, I make music as Holy Taker. Sometimes I write. These are just as important to me as my tattooing practice, though that’s the most public facing. For a while I worked as a shepherd, which I miss dearly.

Ultimately, I can say as much as I want about myself and what I make, but everything leads back to one truth for me: birth and death are the same, inextricable process. We are always, constantly, inevitably, experiencing both. It hurts in the best way possible, and for me that is God.