Scarlet roses and watercolor bouquets have been tattooed for centuries. With her new designs, tattooist Carrie Metz-Caporusso is challenging society’s preconceptions about who deserves to be tattooed.

Lavender sprigs, crocuses, and roses adorn the curves and plus-size clients of Metz-Caporusso, who designs “roll flowers” for them. The flowers’ stems are made from the black ink pieces’ natural folds and creases.

To quote Metz-Caporusso, “the rolled flower only exists if you have rolled.”

When clients expressed their desire to get tattoos, but only after losing weight, Metz-Caporusso, who uses they/she pronouns, came up with the idea of rolling flowers.

The tattooist could relate, having once felt pressured to lose weight before getting a stomach tattoo. Metz-Caporusso finally did “what made me happy” and got one, completely changing their relationship with their body. The non-binary tattooist now mostly wears crop tops for a “joyful” experience.

“If only people knew how empowering it was to just tattoo yourself, then maybe they would join me,” says Metz-Caporusso.

In the end, I just sat myself down and said, “You will do something for fat people, you will celebrate fat bodies.”

Roll flowers

Metz-Caporusso has tattooed over ten rolls of flowers since February, but they were initially apprehensive.

“I honestly thought people would laugh me out of tattooing if I said this.” People would have laughed at me because I was crazy. “I was surprised when people signed up,” they said.

Metz-whimsical Caporusso’s fairytale designs were initially unpopular among tattooists. They were rejected from apprenticeships in 2011 because their work was “too cute” or “not tattoo-y enough.”

“A lot of artists told me to draw koi fish and anchors… ‘You’re not going to make it, this is just a trend,'” the tattooist recalled.

A “romantic whirlwind-slash-apprenticeship” ensued after they met their partner — a fellow tattoo artist — at a party. Metz-Caporusso now works at Lucky Monkey Tattoo in Ann Arbor and has over 20,000 Instagram followers.

Abby Devitt, a recent Metz-Caporusso client, fell for the roll flower designs after seeing them on Instagram. Devlin told CNN Style via email that she has “often felt that being plus-sized means I shouldn’t get a tattoo in a certain area because I’m overweight and it won’t look good.”

She finally “went for it.” Metz-Caporusso created a crocus roll flower design using Devitt’s favorite florals. In this way, clients’ tattoos “follow their exact shape.” After Devitt approved the design, Metz-Caporusso began carefully placing stencils along with Devitt’s “top and bottom rolls” to ensure the final tattoo looked seamless.

“A lot of the work is placing the stencils,” Metz-Caporusso joked.

Some more complex designs can take up to seven hours to complete. “I didn’t cry, but I felt like it,” Devitt said. “I was overjoyed with the outcome.” I fell in love with it. “

Her tattoo is still healing, but her body confidence is growing. She used to be self-conscious about her back but now buys open-backed shirts and dresses to show it off.

“I don’t have the best relationship with my body, but I can’t wait to show off one of my least favorite parts,” she said.

Positive changes to the body

Metz-Caporusso has been tattooing for a decade. While artists have always tried to “draw what makes them happy” and stay true to their own style, there is now more opportunity to “do your own thing.”

But tattooing can still be more inclusive. Metz-Caporusso said there was “a lot of fat-shaming” and “turning people down” for being overweight. People with “thin, pale skin” dominate the most popular tattoo artists and Instagram accounts, they claim.

“It adds up. Can a fat person get tattooed? Will I even be picked? Are you sure? “he asked.

In designing the roll flowers, I expected people to ask, ‘But what happens when you lose weight?’ “A fat person isn’t a thin person,” they said. We should treat fat people as well as we treat anyone else. “

Being one of the few tattooists who exclusively tattoo plus-size bodies can be lonely, says Metz-Caporusso. But the artists also told their Instagram followers that they welcome local artists to riff on the roll flowers to increase foot traffic.

It’s a surprising approach given how protective tattoo artists can be of their work. The artist wants “anyone who wants to spread this joy” to get tattooed even if they can’t travel to her Michigan studio. The firm won’t take on new clients until the end of the year.

Then they said, “This is so healing for people, and it would be terribly selfish for me to do it alone.”