With the exception of her time at Rhode Island School of Design, Erica Flannes has spent her whole life in Jackson, Mississippi. She’s a fine artist (“if you can call it that,” she scoffs), a tattoo artist and to many people in our small city, an anomaly. Rather than know Erica, it seems you know of Erica. Mythologies form around this girl. I have a friend who used to spot her at the mall, peering at the sickly-yellow world behind a thick veil of dark hair. For some reason, he decided that she is essentially Allie Sheedy’s character in The Breakfast Club—which makes her awesome in his book. She has a shy-tuff thing going on. When you see Erica out at night, which is rare, she’s an elusive figure in heavy eyeliner and killer hairpieces, a girl who seemingly speaks only in response. Yet the photos (often self-portraits) that create her morphing online persona depict a vampy starlet, a burlesque queen, a storybook heroine, or dozen other archetypal femmes that ooze, in various parts, danger, surreality and sugary-sweetness. But this online persona also seems disarmingly candid and loyal. She promotes her friends’ bands, their artwork or, through her own photographs and paintings, her friends’ themselves. During the day, Erica keeps things flowing at The Inkspot Gallery, a hip tattoo-parlor-cum-pop-art-space. She covers frilly dresses with gingham aprons before aiming her gun at others, and often she tattoos in heels.

She’s also the only artist in the shop with a prep school education and study abroad (Italy) decking her resume. Both her personal work and her tattoos share illustrative sensibilities, but I’m most impressed by her profusion and her range of styles and mediums. She spans the spectrum from macabre to whimsical, referencing among other things, art-deco, French royalty and Tom Waits. Erica’s work is accessible and often humorous. And for all the swirling hype, Erica comes across as genuine, friendly and, for a girl with 40-odd tattoos, surprisingly wholesome. She loves her dogs, she goes on mission trips, she wants to do well at work, and basically she’s just living and creating as it comes to her.

C: When did you first know that you wanted to be an artist?

E: I’ve always drawn pictures and my mom was very encouraging of that. In junior high I had this amazing art teacher and around the 6^th grade, something just made sense. That teacher, Bill Watkins, really opened my eyes to being an artist, so I pursued it through high school and decided to study art in college.

Can you remember the first artists that really affected you?

Walter Anderson was probably one of the first, because my mom always had prints, I was always surrounded by his work. But also Jim Henderson. The Muppets didn’t seem as artistic, but the Dark Crystal and stuff like that…and I’ve always been interested in puppets and how all that works.

Are your parents creative?

My mom paints and sews, she’s really crafty. My dad had wanted to go to school for architecture…so there’s drawing talent and interest on both sides.

And you went to Rhode Island School of Design for illustration. How did you end up back in Mississippi?

Good question! It was an accident. I graduated and had no job, and I sent out feelers all over the world for random things. I was looking mostly in the field of puppetry, and there wasn’t a big demand. It came to the point where I had to get some kind of job, and I was here [Jackson] at my parents’ house and decided I didn’t want to be at my parents’ house anymore. I got a job at an office and got my own apartment while I looked for other jobs. Ten years later, I’m still here.

Are you happy in Jackson? Do you want to stay there for next ten years?

It’s okay…It’s hard because I’ve been here my whole life except for the college years. I’d like to get out. Everybody here knows who you are and what you’re doing. It’s just too small, it haunts me. I’ve become very much a hermit, I rarely go out. I don’t want people knowing what I’m doing all the time. I don’t know if it’s special to Jackson or what. I could stay here, but I don’t think I would be happy here. I’ve been waiting to know to leave or stay or where to go…the guy I’m seeing lives in New Orleans, so maybe there. Maybe not New Orleans forever, but it seems like a start. [Update: Since this interview, “the guy” has been upgraded to a fiancé—congrats!—and Erica is definitely planning a June move to New Orleans. Know any tattoo parlors that are hiring?]

What are your goals for your art?

I finally found a job where I can get paid and function and survive off of art, which was exciting to me. Within my field, I just want to be respected, not looked down on by other tattoo-ers. I’d like to do it justice, I guess, serve the field well so I’m not a big disappointment in the tattoo community. Any goals and ambitions would be just to keep making art and keep being satisfied with the process of making. I don’t look to be famous or rich or anything like that, I just want to do a good job.

Do you think there’s some kind of larger purpose behind your creative drive?

I guess it’s all in how we were made and what we were put here to do. I’m a big believer in everbody has a reason for being, all things happen for a reason. I think I was definitely put here to be creative, and why, I’m not entirely sure yet. I’ve done some things that are part of it, I’m sure. Tattooing kind of helps me reach out to people, its almost like you’re a therapist when you’re a tattoo artist. People will sit and talk about if something’s bothering them, some people talk about God, all sort of different things.

Do you talk back or just listen?

It depends on the situation. Sometimes people just want to talk and get it out, sometimes people want advice and interaction.

Thoughts on being a female tattoo artist?

It was strange at first. There were some female tattooers but I didn’t know many when I started [in 2007]. There have gotten to be more now, in the last year or two, but there are still some closed doors. I haven’t run into anyone who’s against me because I’m female, but there are little cliques in the tattoo community that hang out, and it’s kind of like a guys’ thing, without it being said. Our shop [the Inkspot] as a whole is friends with other shops, one in Arkansas and a few in New Orleans, and that’s kind of like our running circle. Mostly I hang out with the guys from my shop and my boyfriend tattoos as well, so the guys from his shop.

Something else that counts against me in the tattoo world, I went to art school. There’s that whole stigma, that I didn't know right out of high school that I wanted to be a tattooer. I actually had formal training in art, and some people are kind of like, ew, she’s one of those.

Now that you’ve come to tattooing, do you think it’s your career forever?

It is. I actually would have considered it earlier, had it not been so male-dominated. It didn’t seem like an option for me. Ever since high school, I bought tattoo magazines and wanted tattoos, but tattooing just didn’t seem like something that was accessible to me.

Because you went to a prep school and then an expensive private college?

Kind of, yeah. It just seemed like a completely foreign world, filled with big burley biker men. That was totally my misconception of it, but then when I met Jason [owner of The Inkspot] and he told me he was going to open The Inkspot and what he wanted it to be, I realized it was a way to put my school training to use and make a living off of art. I jumped on it.

Is Inkspot an all-custom shop or do you have tattoo design books?

We started out not having any, and we found that we lost a lot of business because sometimes people have an idea of what they want, and sometimes they have to see things. So we have a bunch of basic designs, and if they pick something out of a book, we try to convince them to let us redraw it and not do it directly like it is.

Did everyone at The Inkspot go to art school?

I was the only one.

That surprises me. It seems like such a “hipster” tattoo parlor.

I guess because we’re mainly custom, and we started out only custom—we would draw the design from scratch, and we refused to repeat designs unless two people came in to get matching tattoos.

What do you like about working on skin?

I like the challenge. Skin is a stretchy, unpredictable oily canvas. When I paint with acrylics on canvas, I know what’s going to happen when I do certain things, but with skin, each person is different. Some skin, like freckle-y skin, won’t take black as well. It’s harder to put lines in some people, and body parts are all different. So it’s really unpredictable. You don’t know until you start working on somebody what it’s going to be like. People with olive tone skin, black kind of sucks in. It’s so easy to do the lines and shading.

Part 2 here...also, you can find her work at her facebook page.

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