Tatiana Carrington
Location: Seraphim Tattoo, The Bronx
Interacting With: Wyatt
Tatiana sat there, watching Wyatt and pondering what was going through his mind. If it had been ten years ago, she probably would have choked on her own tongue to be offered something like this. When she left home, she had barely recovered from her injury. Was in a large city that was unforgiving but she had lived through worse than the streets of New York. She had lived through the falling of a nation and the war that broke out afterwards. It made her tough and persistent.
Tatianas ability in art was good but far from that of one of her siblings but years of drawing had paid off and she was able to get into art school. A part-time job at a tattoo parlor helped pay the bills but it wasn't enough; she whored out her knowledge in ballet to teach privately here and there to students who wanted an edge. Just because she had missed a chance to be a prima didn't mean she couldn't teach others.
It had taken her nearly six years to finish her bachelors degree in art, but a few scholarships and a bit of luck had kept her off the streets and in school. She learned everything she could from other tattoo artists, working her way up from receptionist to apprentice and finally having a chair of her own in a shop.
It was a hard journey and while she hadn't taken a dime from her parents, the name Carrington had weight. People would come in to see her, as if she was some piece of pottery in a museum. A Carrington working in a dive tattoo place, it was fodder for the tabloids for a long time. But she worked with it.
Her art was more abstract, so she was able to focus on that instead of portraits or the usual stuff people saw inked on the streets. It gave her a nitch. She never did make what top artists made but she did well enough, enough to not have to teach ballet on th side anymore. She still lived very poor for a time though, saving everything she could until she had bought a partial ownership in a tattoo parlor. More time, more money, more buying the owner out; until she bought the owner out fully at his retirement and renamed the place Seraphim Tattoo.
That was a couple of years ago and she was shocked by the increase in funds that came with it. She hadn't seen a dime of this before, just telling the previous owner to sink it into the shop and her slowly buying him out. Now she was able to see just how much was possible. Her money now wasn't made mainly from her art but from those that worked to her. Standard payout to rent a chair in a parlor was 50% of the tattoo fee. She had six artists now, even their quick $100 tattoos that only took an hour netted her $50. That added up quick in a place with every chair filled.
So here she was now, working little in the shop except when she was in town. The rest of the time, the majority of it was touring to conventions all over to promote the shop, with her as the face. It gave her a bit of freedom she enjoyed and while she was not rich she was well off.
Glancing over to Wyatt she chuckled a bit to the comment about the cigarette and shrugged. "It vas there and it vas lit," she said with a smirk. "And yeah, pretty much," she said in response to the make over montage. "Even Rocky had montage," she teased.
"Okay, let us go. Ve have a lot to do and I have to tell you about me. Can't play boyfriend if know nothing about me," she said as she stood up. "Hungry?" she asked as she grabbed her bag and headed to the door. This was going to be a long next couple of days.
Hailing a cab, she waited to Wyatt to join her and named a place to them to go down in Queens. Over the course of the ride she filled Wyatt in on what she had been up to since she had moved out of her parents home and started life back on her own. She figured she needed to cover that first.