Like me, most of Hobrecker's clients take their time selecting what designs they want permanently etched into their bodies. They'll flag a couple pages and discuss their top three picks with the tattooer, and some even settle on one completely at random. "I feel like that's actually a great method because even if you pick the one you like less, you immediately know you like the other one more," he says. "If you have that sink in your stomach, like, 'Oh I was hoping for the other one,' then you know that's the real choice."
I find way more meaning in taking a moment to sit with my body and think about my relationship with it.
If you ask Hobrecker, determining whether or not the image "means" something to you should be secondary. Instead, he believes a tattoo's significance could be found in the tattooing process itself. "I find way more meaning in taking a moment to sit with my body, think about my relationship with it, and have that hour or two where you're really forced to think about yourself and have this very physical sensation associated with that," he explains. "For me, that holds way more meaning than a rose that you get for your mom."
Becoming a tattooer
Although Hobrecker set up shop in The Living Gallery in December 2016, he's unsure of when he officially became a tattooer, mostly because it wasn't a career goal of his. (Note: Hobrecker never refers to himself as a "tattoo artist," which stems from feeling like tattooing isn't an art practice.)
About three years ago, 25-year-old Hobrecker graduated from school for photography but realized he didn't want to take photos anymore. Selling his camera equipment and buying a tattoo machine became his next option. At the age of 16, giving "horrible" stick and pokes with sewing needles to his friends and friends of friends became one of his regular extracurricular activities. From this, tattooing became less about the art of it to him, but more about helping people assert control over their bodies. As a trans man, this discovery was crucial to Hobrecker.
"When I was younger, I was always very involved in queer and trans communities," he says. "The people I was surrounding myself with, myself included, didn't feel super at home in our bodies."
My first tattoo was a very permanent reminder of the ownership I had over my own body.
In Hobrecker's case, he didn't feel like he had control over his body when he was younger either, having attended an all-girls Catholic school where he was required to wear a uniform and barred from dyeing his hair. In this controlled environment, all Hobrecker could do was get a tattoo in secret when he was 18. "That was something that couldn't be taken away from me," he says. "That was a very permanent reminder for me of the ownership I had over my own body."
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