Today we’d like to introduce you to Anna Cojocari.
Hi Anna, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
After completing my studies in fine art and architecture, I moved from Chisinau, Moldova, to Atlantic City, NJ. It’s kind of funny- I moved to NJ to be close to the ocean. While I was back home, I imagined it was some cool California-style beach town, but when I saw that reality was very different, I decided to go to “actual” California. I got to LA with a tiny bank account and no real plan. I spent several months trying to show my portfolio of paintings and drawings to over a dozen LA tattoo shops, trying to get an apprenticeship, but no one offered- some shops said I didn’t have enough tattoos to be a serious tattoo artist.
Finally, one guy who managed a tattoo shop in West Hollywood reached out- to see if I wanted to get a drink sometime. We didn’t end up getting that drink, but I was introduced to the shop’s owner, Hailin Fu, one of China’s most respected tattoo artists, who offered me an apprenticeship, and I worked there for a few years before becoming a resident artist at The Warren in summer 2017. Ultimately, my husband’s job brought us to San Diego just in time for the pandemic, and I’m just now getting things going again.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I would imagine that moving from one place to another is rarely a smooth road. Aside from the challenges of coming to a new country with limited language skills and little money, finding one’s way is never easy. I remember how, after rejection after rejection while trying to get an apprenticeship, I decided I would just teach myself by tattooing fruit. I still have pictures of that tattooed citrus: it reminds me that nothing worth having is ever easy.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I am a tattoo artist. I like combining black and gray realism with abstract color; I love the aesthetic of painting expressed in ink. I enjoy creating, for example, the movement of fluids against the capture of a cherished instance in time. I am most proud of having established myself in the US with a dream job in California, something I would never have imagined. I like to think that my clients appreciate my process, how I bring to life exactly the concept they had in their minds but hadn’t quite developed.
Contact Info:
- Website: annatat.com
- Instagram: annatat_md
