Taking Up Space | Fat Liberation, Tattooing, and Heavry Space

I was idly scrolling tiktok one afternoon when a post came up on my feed. I was treated by a warm, smiling face discussing inclusivity in tattooing. It was right up my alley. The creator began to talk about how tattoo spaces are often exclusionary to fat clients, and discrimination they had faced as a client and as an artist. Then, they began to discuss their new project- Heavry Space (a clever wordplay of Heavy and Every, Heavry). A virtual space designed for tattoo clients and piercers to come together and talk about their shared experiences, showcase tattoo work on all bodies, and make a push for change and inclusion in this industry. I knew the moment I finished the video I wanted to learn more about this project, and everything I did just made me more excited about it. It was my pleasure and honor to sit down with Toni, the founder and driving force behind Heavry Space, and talk about this amazing project. 

T: My name is Toni, I go by Toni PNW everywhere and I’m a tattoo artist just north of Portland in Vancouver, Washington. I create bold, traditional inspired designs, with a focus on self-love, healing, and body celebration. I heal wounds of trauma and experiences I’ve had in my own body, and transform that into an art form that feels relatable and honoring. I also just founded Heavry Space, which is a virtual community still in its infancy. The big vision is to be a place where plus-sized tattoo artists, tattoo lovers, and clients can come together virtually, be represented, and can voice their needs for this community. Because fatness is a spectrum, and voices from the small fat community to the super fat community have different needs, I want this to be a space where everyone can share the barriers they face and be listened to. Heavy Space will be a platform that amplifies these needs and raises the standards in tattooing industry-wide to truly include all bodies. 

L: That is so awesome and such necessary work. I feel like, and, I’m a piercer, so I might be biased in this- I feel like piercing has been taking a lot of steps toward inclusivity and tattooing is a bit behind when it comes to fatness. Piercing I think is a little more ahead with inclusivity of body types and awareness of this and having the conversations, but tattooing still seems to be struggling with these conversations. Piercers have been discussing things like inclusivity with anatomy, table weight limits, etc for a few years now, but those conversations seem absent from many tattoo spaces I see.

T: Well I’m pretty new to this, I am just now in my 2nd year of tattooing, but in my experience as a client I’ve been turned away for my body and I’ve been shamed for my body at consultations. It’s super disheartening. People who exist in larger bodies may not even go to tattoo studios. You get to a point of assuming that tattooing or waiting room furniture won’t hold you, that they’ll shame you for your body and judge you, that they’ll do a consultation in the middle of a walkway and tell you you're not good enough to get a tattoo on your body. Tattooing is behind. And those things stop people from going out and getting ink or even inquiring about getting ink. So we do need to shift that perspective and break down the barriers that keep people from exploring the beautiful nature of body modification. It’s so important; every single body deserves to feel like they belong in this space.

L: This is so real. And not to get heavy right off the bad but the table weight thing is….oof. I’ve been piercing for 13 years and in a lot of body modification spaces online and I feel like probably like…8-9 years ago piercing really started having conversations about table weight limits and the importance of higher table weight limits and making sure that is something you provide at your studio and accessible studio furniture and things like that. And there is a particular group on Facebook (that I won’t name) that is primarily tattoo artists but also has some piercers in it but probably like every single month some tattoo artists posts “Somebody broke my table today, so annoying!” And it is the year 2024, what are you doing with a flimsy 200lb weight limit massage table in your studio surprised when someone breaks it? And what are you doing posting online shaming your client for breaking it- you should be shaming yourself for not having proper equipment in your studio!

T: Well, as a fat person who’s broken a chair, I haven’t broken a massage table yet, but I’ve broken a chair, it’s humiliating. Nobody waltzes into any place and hopes that you fall on the ground in, say, the dentist's waiting room. It’s not something that fat people go in and don’t think about. That’s on our minds every time we are sitting down. At every little creak we are paranoid about falling onto our faces. To have someone share that client’s awful experience and be annoyed at our bodies instead of shamed about putting a client in danger, because it is incredibly dangerous not to know the weight limits or have proper weight limits, that’s unacceptable. 

L: It’s incredibly dangerous! And it’s infuriating to me. I mean I’ve broken a chair before, I mean let’s be honest some brands are not really making great products that are not well built and do fall apart within just a year or two of having them. I tried working on an older chair at one of my old studios and the bottom braces just snapped. It should be the bare minimum requirement of safety in the studio that you understand how your equipment works to keep clients safe, which includes understanding the weight limits of your chairs and stools and tables. I personally think weight limits should be posted on studio websites in their FAQ so clients can go online and see ok they have 500lb rated tables and I know they’ll have a table that supports my needs. 

T: I think that’s incredibly accessible. Especially because someone who is fat will likely be looking for that information and instead of having to go to a studio, stand in the waiting room and be told there’s no furniture that can accommodate their body, that information is right there for them to see remotely, and that’s awesome. To touch back on your point of the basics- it should be sanitation, technique basics, and knowing your tattoo furniture. I agree totally and want to add that understanding your furniture means being educated about not only limits but also how it’s designed to be used. A lot of time tattoo furniture is listed as being able to accommodate 300-400lbs, but this is the total working weight capacity. This is misleading because it includes the weight of force that artists take. That means, if I’m tattooing a stomach I’m forcing down my own weight onto that tattoo to get a good enough stretch to pull a nice line. So my weight of force is taking up 50-75% of that table weight limit before I even get a client on the table. 

L: There really needs to be better education in the industry about how you’re supposed to use this equipment, what it’s designed to handle, and just a better understanding of how we apply that with our clients and our client’s bodies. This stuff should be part of an apprenticeship. It’s little things people don’t think about like having mirrors sized and hung in a way that allows people to see their whole body and see how a tattoo will look on them. Not this like fuckin’ 8-inch wide Walmart mirrors where no one but a child can see their whole selves in the mirror. 

T: Accessibility was a huge thing for me and my mentor when we opened our studio last year. Everything is wheelchair accessible, including our bathrooms. We hunted for the perfect mirror and I ended up driving one all the way from Idaho that would fit our needs. 

L: Are there other elements in studios of inclusivity for different bodies that you find are often overlooked? 

T: Being fat, from the minute you walk into a space you are on edge. Your mind is assessing how much someone considered big bodies and what that means for your care, comfort, and ability to feel welcomed. Even placing chairs too close together or closer to a wall makes fat people pause. Will my legs be hitting someone else or another chair if I sit? Body shaming is too common and often unchallenged, especially thanks to tattooing shows. Bodies are referred to as canvases and marginalized bodies are complained about as being “bad canvases”. Things like this do cause harm. You see it and internalize it, and it normalizes discrimination in the industry. Fat people are not just left out of spaces, but often overtly told they don’t belong and aren’t welcome. This hostility starts from childhood, so you can tell when you walk into a space if someone has had even a passing thought about how fat people feel and you appreciate it. I always pay attention to furniture and if it looks flimsy. I also like to look at portfolios, and when people ask me online or in DM’s about what to look for in an artist I always say to look in portfolios for size diverse bodies. Look at the quality of work on fat bodies and if it matches their work on thin bodies. And if you don’t see any fat people on their Instagram or in their portfolio but want to work with them, first reach out and ask if they have examples of work on fat bodies. If they do have experience, ask yourself why they don’t post those images, and why they don’t want to share their work on fat clients. 

L: That is so true. The amount of limited portfolio diversity that you see, especially online, is very disheartening. 

T: It’s awful! And you brought up earlier that our industries are getting more inclusive and more diverse, except with fatness. And in both mainstream tattoo shows/media and social media, they really only show this mentality that tattoos are only for one specific body type. Even modern body modification culture is treated as an aesthetic only for thin, white, Eurocentric bodies. Tattooing has a rich, beautiful history in every corner of the world, somehow it's come to this place where people are being pushed out and told it isn’t for their bodies. And that’s so far from the truth, so exclusionary, and offensive to the history and culture of body modification. Breaking those barriers and seeing it become diverse and celebratory for everyone again is the future. Everyone deserves good, inclusive, and safe tattoos and modifications - every single body. I am excited to see fatness have more presence in tattooing. 

L: I almost find myself separating tattooing and piercing as an industry, and tattooing and piercing as a cultural practice because the industry has just kind of ruined so much of the cultural practice, and history and the inclusivity that a lot of these practices had previously. We’ve commodified it, we’ve colonized it, and we’ve turned it into this for-profit thing. And body insecurity sells. We love to pretend that because our industry is counter-culture and alternative that we aren’t suffering the same trappings of the same model-esq bodies being sold to us over and over, only this time it’s to sell us an aesthetic on our own bodies. 

T: I think a lot of the time when people think about breaking down barriers they are actually just moving the gate. Society collectively isn't tearing down the barrier of beauty standards, it just loosens up a bit to those still close enough to be ‘acceptable’ to these standards and then calls that inclusivity. It isn’t enough. Instead of being fully accessible to everyone on the spectrum, they are just moving the bounds. In my apprenticeship, I very much financially struggled, so when someone offered me secondhand things I jumped at the chance. My table was a hand-me-down from my mentor, which was hand-me-down from another artist. It was sturdy and sound and I didn’t feel scared of putting my body weight on it - however it wasn’t sturdy enough for bodies much larger than my own. I was excited that it was sturdy enough to hold me, but really I had just moved the barrier so I fit. Larger bodies were still excluded and the movement of the barrier didn’t change that; it wasn’t enough. As soon as I had the funds I invested in a better table that was truly inclusive.

L: I think we get trapped in this mentality of doing the minimum or doing a little bit more, that it's easy to lose sight of the fact that we are just pushing these barriers. And in that sense, I feel like piercing has been having these conversations for a little bit longer. And has been still doing a lot of barrier moving, but I feel like piercing was so queer rooted when it started whereas tattooing was……way more cis het white men. So y’all are the MVP doing the heavy lifting in an industry where it’s a lot harder to fight for that inclusivity and those changes. 

T: And people really don’t want you to fight for inclusivity. I’ve gotten messages that I shouldn’t be a voice for this, that I’m too new to be the voice for this. But it’s not my experience they have a problem with, it’s change. I know that I’m not the end-all-be-all authority of making representation more normalized and bringing awareness to the fat barriers. It’s just that I have this platform and I want to share this work on it. I’m so passionate about this, I have the drive, I make the time, so why not me? Plus, having people tell me they are grateful for finding my work and my content really keeps me motivated. 

L: I’d love to get into a little more of the details of your work. And I’d like to get into one of the topics that a lot of folks, especially smaller-bodied folks, treat as a taboo here. And that is the language and linguists of the word fat. I think a lot of tattoo artists and piercers and anyone in the industry are kind of afraid of the word fat and afraid to use that word as a descriptor and folks dance around the language. So I would love to hear from you about the intentionality of your choice to use the word fat, and how you feel about how we describe our bodies and clients’ bodies. 

T: I personally prefer the word fat. It’s what I was called all through childhood, it’s been ingrained in my identity from day one. On my website, I have this quote in my ‘about me section’ that says “From day one I was two things, I was an artist and I was a fat kid.” Those were the two things I absolutely knew about myself. Those were concrete things for me. So I prefer the word fat, I have a long history with it and I’ve done the work to reclaim it and it doesn’t have any fear from me. There’s a power in it that is freeing and confident. Algorithms are a really hard thing to dance around right now, and I’ve had so many videos taken down for using the word fat or using it in a hashtag. On Instagram if you use the word fat one too many times it’ll say ‘are you sure you want to post this? Similar content tends to get removed.’ So sometimes I switch between saying “plus-sized”, “larger bodied”, and things like that to navigate the algorithm. But if there were no censorship on “fat” I would be using fat all day long. 

Fat does carry such a heavy connotation of bullying, trauma and being abused by society. I mean, “fat” is the word people spit at you to cause harm and being able to break that down and be ok with it is not something that just comes with time on its own. It’s so much mental work, self-love work, being gentle with yourself, and learning to value yourself when society doesn’t value you. So using the word “fat” feels like a trophy for me sometimes. It says “Look at where you’ve come from! Look where they wanted you to be for their own comfort, and look at where you are now!” I’m fat and I love my body. It’s not that “I'm fat but”, it's that I'm “fat and”. I’m fat and I love myself. I’m fat and my voice matters, literally and artistically. I’m fat and I create work people are honored to have on their own bodies. 

In regard to how smaller-bodied piercers, tattoo artists and front-of-house persons should refer to their fat clients, my current take is that while we are still in this societal space where fat people are marginalized, it's okay to use “plus-size” or “larger-bodied”. I usually stay away from “curvy” because it reminds me of like…Torrid peplum-skirt-cold-shoulder and just reinforces that plus size people are only deserving of life’s joys if they have an hourglass figure. “Fat” is not a bad word and I love that it’s gaining neutrality, but it’s really different for everybody. I know a few people that just prefer “plus-size” as their descriptor. I encourage other fat people to weigh in on this conversation, because normalizing and neutralizing the word fat is still relatively new. For example, BMI related terms like “obese” and “overweight” are widely regarded as offensive, but some fat people find power in reclaiming them. For now, smaller-bodied persons can best be allies to fat folks by unpacking their own anti-fatness and biases, being intentional and mindful about fat folk’s comfort/access in their spaces, and following fat activists that are hosting conversations about inclusivity. I look forward to hosting discussions like this on Heavry Space that advocate for inclusive, neutral language and what that looks like inside and outside the community. 

L: I love that! So Heavry Space is a fully digital community for everyone to get together. What platforms are it on? 

T: So it started with an idea for a directory map highlighting fat artists. I’m the one woman show behind Heavry Space, and it took so much planning and research for just that one part. I had to keep my costs down to ensure I could do this all for free for everyone so I tried everything from free but basic software to trying to learn coding on zero sleep. I started this all because I kept getting DM’s that were like ‘omg I’m never gonna be able to travel to you but I love your work and what you do- is there anyone like you near me?’ So I started collecting information from other artists and putting it on this map that lists artists, what they do, who they are, and where they are. And now we have folks all across the states, in Canada and the UK. People want to support fat creators. They know it’s hard and we face so much discouragement so now they can find artists near them that they’re excited to work with and know they’ll be treated with care. And from there, we have a subreddit for all artists and clients to engage in discussions about fatness and tattooing and share artwork on their own bodies, and an artist chat discord that I hope will be like one huge community hub. And then there’s the Instagram where you can find and follow artists, see and share posts about fat activism in tattooing, and submit your tattoos to be shared on the Instagram feed. Representation so people can see what tattoos look like on fat bodies is so needed! I have my neck tattooed and have a big double chin and the amount of people who say, “Oh I didn’t even know I could get my neck tattooed because I have a double chin.” It’s so wild. I want to showcase and normalize fat people getting tattoos on every part of their body. It’s going to be so beautiful and so helpful showing fat people they belong in these spaces! 

L: So it sounds like any fat tattoo artist can contact you to be on the map or be in the discord to have meaningful conversations about what it’s like in the industry for them and how they work with inclusivity and different bodes. And then can clients be in the discord as well or artists only?

T: The Discord is for artists only but the Reddit is for everyone, and the Instagram will feature posts from artists. It’s divided up on the HeavrySpace website (Heavryspace.com) to make it easy to see client resources and artist resources. We also have a blog with some informational posts that are for everyone to read. And in the fall I want to start interviewing artists in Heavry Space about their experiences, barriers they’ve found, and what we as an industry can do to help improve that.

L: I love that! And can clients submit images of their own tattoos for Instagram, to be featured? 

T: Absolutely! That’s one of the biggest parts of the Reddit and the Instagram. I want it to be like this Pinterest board of fat bodies with beautiful artwork. 

L: I think that is such an amazing resource for folks to be able to open their phone and see all sorts of bodies, many that look like them, and get that referential material for how these tattoos and placements look like on their bodies. And it sounds like, and I selfishly hope haha, for education for myself, that as these conversations happen and as you collect these options and thoughts, informational content will be coming out to help other artists, piercers, and consultants of all body sizes learn how to better work with fat clients. 

T: The biggest goal is representation; as fat bodies are more represented in media and art spaces the more humanized people get. The more you think of fat people as belonging in these spaces instead of an afterthought or even intruders in it. Instead of, “Oh I might not upgrade my chair because when am I gonna tattoo someone over a standard weight limit?” Like no, you need to think about fat people as part of your regular client base. Fat people ARE going to be in that chair, on that table and in your studio. Will it be safe for them? How are you going to make them feel comfortable and welcome? Do you have the knowledge on how to work with their bodies? Heavry Space will share education, discussion topics, and fat artwork all with a focus of representation and normalization.

L: I think your goals with this project and platform are incredible. I’m so so excited to see it come to fruition and see it become a great resource for clients and artists alike to be able to find that representation, find a space where they can commiserate about their experiences in the industry, and hopefully be some of the change that body modification, tattoo, and piercing really need. 

T: Absolutely. I have the biggest dreams for Heavry Space and I only launched it a couple of months ago. We have a great group of artists on the site already and I’ve gotten so many DM’s from clients who say they were looking for exactly this. It’s so fulfilling. On top of tattooing my own fat-celebrating artwork, I live such a joyful and fat positive life; it’s such fulfilling work for me. I’m grateful to be the one with the time, resources, and energy to make this possible. I hope that it does inspire others to speak about their fat experiences in the community and share where they want to see the inclusivity rise. Share that they feel comfortable going into a studio and felt that they belonged. Fat people are often excluded by default, and that needs to change. I’ve been denied features and submissions for artwork and tattooing and told to my face it’s because I’m fat. It’s unacceptable to treat anyone the way fat people are treated for simply existing. 

We live in this space where social media puts on display only one type of way to be accepted, worthy and beautiful. It pushes beauty standards further and more narrowly than even magazines in the 2000’s did. And navigating that as a fat person is so difficult, and traumatizing… it's hard. Taking time to heal yourself and rejoice in the fat community where you have a place that welcomes you and celebrates you is something I am excited to continue to do.

L: So well said. I’m so excited about where this is headed and to have this as a resource to share with clients to find representation and inclusively. This is such necessary and cool work so please don’t listen to the haters and the old heads, we need this. 

T: And for anyone who has questions about their body and tattooing, just make sure whoever you go to for a tattoo artist or a piercer, or anyone performing a service on your body, make sure you are treated with respect and dignity. The first step to size inclusivity as an ally is to respect all.. It really starts with that. Clients want and deserve an experience where their bodies are safe when they entrust you with them. It’s such a vulnerable time. I just want everyone to feel safe when getting any work done. I want everyone to feel like they deserve to be there and you’re wanted there. People will try everything in their power to exclude you. That is the problem of other’s unhealed and projected trauma, not ever a problem of yours or your body. It’s uncomfortable to start being inclusive, it requires confronting a lot of your own biases and past mistakes. And you don’t have to work that out with an artist, you don’t need to teach them to respect you. They need to work that out on their own. There are spaces right now that will respect and celebrate you. And hopefully, in the future, every space will be inclusive and kind and respectful. But I just want everyone to stay safe and know that you belong here. 

You can learn more about Heavry Space at (https://heavryspace.com/, https://www.instagram.com/heavryspace/ , https://www.reddit.com/r/Heavryspace/ ) and follow Toni PNW at (https://www.tonipnw.com/ , https://www.instagram.com/tonipnw/ ) Go give a follow to both pages and support this amazing cause!