30 Years in the making - Part One
Updated: Sep 5
The Scenic Route
Sometimes the path only makes sense when you look backwards.
I've been thinking a lot lately about Lärka and where it's heading. Tattooing is still a relatively new chapter for me. I'm learning constantly, finding my feet and gradually discovering the kind of tattoo artist I want to be. In many ways, it feels like I've started all over again. But the more I draw again, and the more I design for tattoo, the more strangely familiar it all feels. Life drawing, still life, loose expressive drawing, watercolour, techniques I used to love back at art school are beginning to creep into my work again.
Recently, I've been looking through old sketchbooks and putting some of my university work alongside the things I'm making and drawing now and suddenly I can see little threads connecting one thing to another. Things that felt completely unrelated at the time make much more sense. Which is quite reassuring, because there have definitely been times when I've wondered what on earth I was doing with my life! I don't think I've suddenly started something new at all, I think I might have been working towards it for about 30 years!
Who knew? Certainly not me!
A selection of my work across the decades.
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Perhaps it started even earlier.
If I'm going to tell this story properly, I probably need to start with my dad. Dad has had a huge influence on the direction my life has taken. In fact, when I look at our paths side by side, I've pretty much copied him. He went to Manchester to study 3D Design, then worked as a technical illustrator before setting himself up as a graphic designer in the late 1970s. Years later, I went to Manchester and studied 3D Design too. There was even a lathe in the workshop that Dad had used when he was a student. He used it to make parts for his Jeep (nothing to do with his course ha ha!). All those years later, it was still there when I was studying. I love that connection. The funny thing is, I never planned to become a graphic designer either. When I was younger, I imagined I'd do something more exciting, like fashion or interior design. But somehow, without really meaning to, I ended up following Dad into graphic design too. It seems I copied him there as well! Dad has always been a huge creative influence on me, but more importantly, he's my hero, my best friend and my biggest supporter. Even the Lärka logo has a little bit of him in it. The handwriting combines his with mine, specifically the double-storey 'a', which feels even more meaningful now that Lärka is becoming such a personal expression of everything I love creatively.
Dad. My hero. Lärka jewellery packaging. Dad's gorgeous handwriting.
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1997 onwards...
In 1997 I graduated from Manchester Metropolitan University with a BA (Hons) in 3D Design, specialising in silversmithing and ceramics. Recently, I dug out some of my old university sketchbooks and pieces of jewellery and put them next to things I'm designing now. That was quite a light bulb moment! I expected to see how much my work had changed. Instead, I noticed how much it hadn't. There were familiar colours, shapes, and materials. Organic forms, strong graphic compositions, and an interest in taking something from a drawing and turning it into an object. Obviously, my work has developed and I've changed enormously since then, but some of those instincts seem to have been there all along.
After university, there was no grand creative career waiting for me. Apparently, a degree didn't come with a helpful note explaining what I was actually supposed to do with it! There were the usual jobs; shops, cafés, waitressing, and generally trying to work out what on earth I was going to do. Accidentally, I found myself working in floristry, where I stayed for about five years. Looking back, even that feels strangely relevant now. I spent a few years surrounded by flowers, foliage, colour and composition. I certainly wasn't thinking about botanical tattoos at the time, but somehow plants have found their way back into my work.
Emily and me, ready for our end-of-year final show, 1997. Some of my favourite jewellery from my graduate exhibition, 1997. One of my floral arrangements whilst working at Emma's Country Choice Flowers, approx 2001.
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An unexpected turn into television
My route into television was fairly accidental, which, as you'll probably start to notice, is something of a theme. I was living with a TV producer in Chorlton at the time and, after chatting about what working in television actually involved, I became curious about the Art Department. I started as an Art Department runner on Hollyoaks, did some unpaid film work and a few TV commercials, and eventually landed my first proper job as an Art Department Assistant on the Channel 4 series Shameless, such a cool drama to work on! I also managed to sneak a bit of advertising for my friend's band onto the set. Their sticker ended up centre stage on the fridge in one scene. Did it help the band, Myles?!
From there, one job led to another. I explored Art Direction and worked across different areas of the Art Department, but I kept finding myself drawn back to graphics and props. I loved making things, particularly recreating props and graphics convincingly enough that nobody would know they'd come from the Art Department. I think in another life I could have been a forger! Graphic design eventually became a big part of my working life. Television might seem a million miles away from tattooing or jewellery, but so much of what I learnt, composition, colour, scale, storytelling and knowing when something needs more detail (or less) has followed me into the work I do today.
Supersized props made for Shameless TV series, 2006. 1960s cigarette boxes created for the ITV drama Cilla, 2014. A Victorian-style photograph I created and photographed for the BBC series Remember Me, 2014.
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Then came Lärka.
Lärka actually began in 2015, but not with jewellery or tattoos. It started as a women's cycling clothing brand (I bet you're thinking, what?), which perhaps proves that none of this has followed a particularly sensible route! At the same time, I was becoming increasingly burnt out with television and in 2017 I decided I'd had enough and left. I should probably mention my husband here too. Without his support and the security to let me try things and change direction I'm not sure Lärka would ever have happened. He's listened to all my ideas (and there have been a lot!), helped me make sense of the many open tabs permanently running in my brain, and been behind me through all of it.
At this point leaving television wasn't quite as straightforward as I'd imagined. Freelance work gradually crept back in and I began working more and more on Coronation Street as a Stand-by Art Director. So my dramatic career change wasn't particularly dramatic in the end! Meanwhile, Lärka continued evolving and by 2020, I found myself returning to something much closer to where I'd started all those years earlier. I created my first Lärka jewellery collection and gradually rediscovered how much I loved designing objects to be worn. Colour, shape, pattern and materials all came back into my life.
Lärka cycle jersey prototype, 2015. John: The Lärka support team. Lärka's first jewellery collection, 2020. Photo taken by Holly Booth Photography.
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And then there were tattoos!
Tattooing might look like the newest and most unexpected part of my creative life, but my interest in tattoos isn't new at all. I've been fascinated by them for as long as I can remember. Remember those free temporary tattoos you used to get with sweets?!
I actually tried to find a tattoo apprenticeship around 2004. It didn't happen and, looking back, it didn't feel quite right at the time. I just needed to wait another twenty years. Very efficient! Life went in another direction and I carried on with television, graphic design and everything else that followed, but the interest never really disappeared.
Twenty years later, I found my way back to it. This time I was in a very different place and so was the tattoo industry. There were different routes into tattooing, different styles and much more space for artists to find their own way of doing things. And then I met Tori and El.
El and I did our fine line training together, and meeting Tori gave me the skills, encouragement and confidence to actually take the leap. Suddenly, becoming a tattoo artist felt much more possible. I also had decades of experience in design, drawing and graphics behind me. I just had the rather enormous task of learning how to tattoo...
And I'm still learning.
But something has started to happen… the more I tattoo, draw and design, the more all those seemingly random parts of my creative life are starting to make sense together.
And that's probably a story for Part Two.
Sarah x
My very first tattoo at Tori Tattoo, 2024.
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Lovely to hear your story 💖 looking forward to seeing Jim’s tattoo and reading part 2!