Pearl Lorentzen
Lakeside Leader

Amy Van Rompaey doesn’t look like the tattoo artist in movies.

One of the most common comments her clients say on first meeting her is “oh my God, you look so normal.”

In January, Van Rompaey moved to Slave Lake to open Lacuna Wild tattoo studio, because she was sick of living in the city.

Lacuna is Latin for lake, she says. It also means “the empty space which can be filled,” which is a good description of a tattoo.

Van Rompaey got interested in tattoos as a teenager at Smith School.

She was acting out and a career counsellor told her to stop by her office then next Monday to pick up something she thought she’d be interested in. It was a pile of tattoo magazines.

However, she didn’t pursue it as a career until 2011.

In 2011, Van Rompaey was evacuated because of the Slave Lake wildfire. She had the clothes on her back and her art supplies.

She started stopping by tattoo studios to try and get a mentor. She was rejected by around 60 shops, but didn’t give up.

At that time, there were very few female tattooists, she says. She also didn’t look like the others. She was young and cute, not either of the stereotypes – idealized goth girl or a woman who’s basically a man, she adds.

To complete her training, she worked with four different mentors. It took her roughly two years. For the last 10 years, she worked at Atomic Zombie in Edmonton.

She has set up her studio and is working on both finding local clients and convincing her Edmonton clients to come on vacation to Slave Lake and get a tattoo.

“It’s a lot of playing it by ear, trouble shooting, trying to find space for self-improvement,” she says about starting her own business. It is “a really good playing ground for experimentation.”

Lacuna Wild’s website is www.lxveink.com or people can call 780-527-9564.