Hungry for art and freedom, the Canadian tattoo artist and owner of ‘The Iron Siren’ has embarked on an incredible and wonderful undertaking: travelling and tattooing in the open sea on her catamaran/tattoo studio.
Hi Liz, where are you answering this interview from? Are you on dry land or at sea?
I’m currently on land!
Tell me more about your background and your artistic dynamics. Do you still tattoo primarily at your studio, ‘The Iron Siren’ on Sylvan Lake in Alberta/Canada, or are you now more committed to tattooing at sea on your studio by water/catamaran?
I’ve been a travelling tattoo artist for a large part of my life, living and travelling all over North, Central, and South America. I have a home base now, but for a long time, by circumstance, I was a nomad.
Can we talk about 50% on land and 50% at sea during a year of work?
Yeah, I spend 6 months out of the year running my shop, ‘The Iron Siren’ (IG: @ ironsirentattooparlour), in Sylvan Lake, Alberta, and 6 months sailing abroad tattooing with my husband and children. Our vessel is currently located in Curaçao, in the ABC Islands. We plan to fly out January 10th to Island hop, dive, sail and tattoo for a few months before embarking on a sail to Panama, where we will pass through the Panama Canal, to sail north on the Pacific coast of Mexico, the United States, and then finally to Vancouver Island area of Canada.
Your style is definitely Realistic, and you often combine influences like New School, American Traditional, Surrealism, Watercolor, Portraits etc. Whether you’re looking to get a boating license or improve your craft, you truly strike us as someone who doesn’t give up on anything…
I’ve always approached life with curiosity. It’s made me a pretty positive person, and sure, it’s led me into a few situations others might call risky. But it’s also the reason my world is full of wonder, adventure, and growth. My style is rooted in Realism, but I never want to stop exploring. I love blending influences with Realism style – New School, American Traditional, Surrealism, Watercolor, Portraits.
Every new challenge reveals a different story worth telling, especially through the art of tattoo.
I think curiosity and resilience are deeply connected. Every time I step outside my comfort zone, whether it’s learning to sail or pushing my craft further, I gain a new perspective, a skill, or a lesson. When my sense of adventure outweighs my need for comfort, I make a decision, commit fully, and see it through. There’s no room for doubt after that and maybe that’s where toughness really lives: in choosing the unknown and trusting yourself to rise to it.
How do you get clients for your catamaran? Are they people who book a “tattoo + deep-sea excursion” package, or are they tourists who come to the ports where you dock to get tattoos as if it were a simple walk-in at a tattoo studio?
So far on my journeys there’s been some interesting ways that clients find their way onto our sailing yacht. I’ve had people hop on and help as deckhands who have gotten work done, port captains, locals in the area, curious folks from other countries, other folks within the sailing community… It’s a big world!
Tell me something about this “big world” that you usually meet…
I’ll kick it off with a funny story. On one of my first blue water crossings through the Caribbean, before I’d had begun actually tattooing much onboard, in my little studio, I spent a lot of time panicking on how to make this work. How was I supposed to find people to fuel work in the middle of the ocean?! It turns out the waterways are a very busy place. It’s full of people! Cruise ships. Oil tankers. Barges. Pirates. Other sailing vessels. You can see almost everyone on your navigation charts. You can also chat with people on VHF radio while underway. So we were at sea, no land in sight, in 5 metre waves getting tossed about in a squall when another sailing vessel roughly 5 nautical miles off from us comes on VHF. “Hey aren’t you that boat that does tattoos?! I need some work. Over.” We ended up lining up paths to meet up and anchor together in a calm bay in Utila to do a colorful calf tattoo. I’ve discovered that it doesn’t matter where you are in the world, you are never truly alone.
“You are never truly alone”. This is a great life lesson, right? One that we sometimes tend to overlook…
Yeah. I find it astounding that things seem to fall into place regardless of circumstance, and nature itself tends to have a rhythm that balances things. That being said. Returning to your question instead – the most common way is having clients pre-book in the off season, plan a trip/tattoo package with us, and fly down for an allotted amount of time. It’s generally a week or two people spend onboard with us. We spend the first part of the trip sailing coastally, exploring inlets, fishing, diving, and even doing some on land excursions (depending on what the client would like to make of the trip).
The last part of the package is dedicated to tattooing onboard, as a keepsake and memory of the experience.
Weather allowing, we can even set up in the cockpit to give a semi outdoor tattoo experience. Clients after doing trips like this with us tend to transcend being clients, and simply become close friends. Each package is different, but everyone comes away far more enriched, and inspired by life. We have several regulars that bring their families with them every year; and they meet up with us in a certain destination.
Does your catamaran have a proper name just like any other tattoo studio in the world?
It is officially called ‘The Iron Siren’, but everyone affectionately calls it ‘The Tat-a-Maran’. (laughs)
Are you also equipped for guest spots? Have you already found external tattoo artists willing to follow you around the world or travel with you for short periods of time?
It currently only has space for one artist, but once I’ve taken my family to see and do a bit more sailing and seeing the world, I will make one more of the fore-cabins into a dedicated studio space. From there, first dibs will go to my beloved crew that works in my shop in Canada. After that, I’ll line up with whoever would like to join oaths with us for some fun. I also plan to offer before or after tattoo show excursions for groups of artists at certain shows.
Was it hard to leave the safety and comfort of a tattoo studio to “embark” on such an adventure? During some very challenging and dangerous stretches of navigation did you ever have any minor, natural second thoughts?
It is without a doubt one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. People tend to look to me for leadership and inspiration… So I think I owe it to my community and those who need steering in some form or another to see this through. I think what I’d like to leave behind as a legacy and lesson for others to learn from, is that your dreams can truly be as crazy as you’d like, and with hard work and commitment, you can make those dreams come true. A dream is never as far off as people believe they are. Doing major crossings is not for the faint of heart. It’s gritty, uncomfortable and exhausting. Things have a way of breaking. At 2 am. In the middle of a storm, when you are half asleep in the dark of night. It is a battle of inner will power sometimes, as the conditions that you sail in will test your limits emotionally, mentally and physically at times. Sometimes for weeks, and at times for months on end.
You truly get to know yourself and what you are made of on the water.
Can you tell me about a significant stretch of travel you’ve covered so far? And what subjects have you tattooed during all those nautical miles?
Our last season began in the jungle of Guatemala. We spent three months in Lago Izabal, up a river that runs off of the Caribbean Sea inland, which turns into a fresh water lake. We travelled the country on land and by water for 3 months exploring, and working on some mechanical and electrical components on our vessel. There, I tattooed medium sized tattoos on some of the locals, other fellow sailors, from the ship yard. Tokens that embodied the beauty and life of that country. We sailed out of Guatemala in late February of this year, and sailed to the island of Roatan, where I had several groups of clients fly from Canada to explore the island and surrounding coral reefs with myself, and my family. It lined up so perfectly, that we were able to sit and enjoy the evening on the trampolines at bow, and share drinks while watching the lunar eclipse in the Carribean, listening to stingrays hopping out of the water hunting. It was pure magic, and everyone was just soaking in the magic. My husband taught them basics for diving, and then took them on a 40 foot dive in a beautiful coral reef, after which I began a full color sleeve of a selkie on one client, and a bright and colorful comic book based leg sleeve on another.
Go ahead with your wild adventures, they’re really interesting…
We then sailed a week up to Cayman Islands, where we spent a short time swimming with stingrays, paddle boarding, and hiking, and recovering energy, and composing a sail plan to shoot southeast of the coast of Jamaica, then drop south to the ABC’s. It was a very difficult sail to Curaçao, as we sailed against wind and current. It was, for lack of a better word, violent. The sea ripped parts of our boat off, and it was like spending two weeks on a roller coaster, soaking wet, and vomiting. Those crossings are always hard, no one has fun fighting to reach certain destinations stuck at sea in nasty weather. The ocean humbles you. I’ve also had to do my American Sailing Association certs off the coast of Florida on a broken rib in the North Atlantic. But something about pulling up to a new shore, a new frontier is so special and exciting.
I can’t put it into words. Only a tiny percentage of people in the world get to see and feel this. I’ll do it again and again.
Do you do it just for yourself, to satisfy your desire for adventure and freedom, or do you want to give the global tattoo art community some wake-up call?
I do it for myself, but also for the people who walk beside me and those who are watching from afar. I’m partnered with a man who craves the world even more than I do, and together we choose a life built on adventure, not routine. As parents, we don’t want our kids growing up behind a desk, we want them living life to the fullest. They dive, they surf, they can dock an 18-ton boat, and they face the world with the same courage we do. I also do it for anyone who feels lost and needs proof that you can come from nothing and still live a life that’s extraordinary. And for artists who are tired of the filtered version of tattooing they see on social media. I want to remind them what authenticity feels like. Mastery doesn’t come from trends, it comes from within. Just like setting sail across an ocean, true artistry demands discipline, commitment, and teamwork. It’s not about performing for the world. It’s about living wide awake in it.
And your last famous words are…?
Art finishes nature’s unrealized ends.
