Illustrators with Ink: Lisa Congdon

Pho­to cred­it: Sarah Der­agon.

It’s anoth­er install­ment of Illus­tra­tors with Ink, which is quick­ly becom­ing one of my favorite fea­tures I’ve ever had on Brown Paper Bag. Today, let’s take a look at illus­tra­tor Lisa Con­g­don’s tattoos!

Lisa Con­g­don is a cre­ative lady who prob­a­bly needs no intro­duc­tion. Her col­or­ful work is fea­tured in mag­a­zines, on wall­pa­per, tex­tiles, and in dif­fer­ent gal­leries around the Unit­ed States. In addi­tion, Lisa is also a blog­ger and pub­lished author! She def­i­nite­ly keeps her­self busy, and I’m elat­ed to share with you an inter­view with her about her ink.

How many tat­toos do you have? 12
How old were you when you got your first tat­too? 29 (I am 46 now).
Did you design any your­self? If not, would you ever?No, I don’t have any of my own design on my body, but I have designed many tat­toos for oth­er peo­ple. And I do have a plan to design some­thing for myself soon.
Do you have a favorite? If so, which one and why? My favorite is prob­a­bly my tat­too of my chi­huahua, Wil­fre­do. He’s my soul mate, my con­stant com­pan­ion, my anx­i­ety buffer. I love that he’ll be with me for­ev­er, even after he dies.
Where did you get your work done? I have got­ten tat­toos by a few dif­fer­ent peo­ple, but for the past eight years or so I have been going to Cice­ly Dani­her at Cyclops Tat­too in the Mis­sion Dis­trict of San Fran­cis­co. She’s the best, in my opinion.
Is there any mean­ing behind any of your tat­toos? Any sto­ries?I had a real­ly dif­fi­cult and trau­mat­ic life expe­ri­ence last year and dur­ing that time I got my tiger tat­too with the words Je suis fort — which means “I am strong” in French. Hav­ing a tiger on one arm and a chi­huahua on the oth­er keeps me protected.
Do you see a con­nec­tion between the type of tat­toos you have and your illus­tra­tive work?Most of my tat­toos are visu­al sym­bols of things that I find beau­ti­ful or inspir­ing or sig­nif­i­cant, and so in that way they relate to my work, because my work is often about things I find beau­ti­ful, inspir­ing or sig­nif­i­cant (even dif­fi­cult or sad things). But visu­al­ly they are super dif­fer­ent because I did­n’t design any of them.

Pho­to cred­it: Sarah Der­agon.

Pho­to cred­it: Sarah Der­agon

Pho­to cred­it: Sarah Der­agon

Pho­to cred­it: Sarah Der­agon

Pho­to cred­it: Sarah Der­agon

Pho­to cred­it: Sarah Der­agon

Pho­to cred­it: Sarah Der­agon

Pho­to cred­it: Sarah Der­agon

Thanks, Lisa!

And, here’s some of her work: