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Heather Bailey

Gothic Traditional

Private studio, Los Angeles, California (formerly Spider Murphy's, San Rafael)

The American traditional tattooer working in a self-described "Gothic Traditional" idiom, applying classic traditional structure to occult, literary, and subcultural subjects.

Archive Note

Heather Bailey is an American tattoo artist who works in a traditional idiom applied to non-traditional subject matter, a style she and her clients call "Gothic Traditional": classic traditional structure and bold line carried out with heavy black and a muted palette, drawing on the occult, history, fetish and alternative culture, music, and literature. She tattooed for roughly thirteen years across San Diego, the San Francisco Bay Area, and Los Angeles, including about eight years at Spider Murphy's Tattoo in San Rafael, where she contributed to the studio's published flash collection, before relocating to Los Angeles, where she now keeps a private studio.

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