Rhode Island-based tattoo artist Monica Hollow recently went viral when she began posting videos on TikTok in which she shares her process, as well as many of the beautiful designs she’s created for her customers. In an exclusive interview with YourTango, Hollow told us, “I really just casually mentioned [spirit tattoos] a few times and it seemed every time I mentioned it that video would happen to go viral. People were really interested and intrigued.” Hollow’s TikTok account has quickly grown to over 115,000 followers, proving this concept has taken over #witchtok.
What is a spirit tattoo?
A spirit tattoo is a type of bespoke tattoo design Hollow created based on personal medium and tarot readings for her customers. As Hollow explains her website, when you book a spirit tattoo appointment you receive a psychic medium reading and tarot reading, after which she creates a custom tattoo design “inspired from your personal reading.” You can then get it inked onto your body! “There are definitely some people who have a lot of questions about it. And they’re like, ‘Well I’m such a mess, so would my tattoo be like a dumpster fire or something’,” Hollow laughs, “But the tattoo is going to be something beautiful that you love and you resonate with. It’s not going to be the bad remix of your life.” RELATED: Did TikTok Witches Hex The Moon? The Truth Behind This WitchTok Rumor In another of her TikToks, Hollow talks about how and why she created the spirit tattoo ritual when she opened her own tattoo studio, Hollow Moon Tattoos & Sorcery. “I wanted to combine my spiritual practice, witchcraft, holistic health, with the art of tattooing,” she explains, “I had to open my own space and I started offering [spirit tattoos] right away, and it’s kind of evolved into what it is now.” Hollow spoke in more detail about her vision for her practice when we talked with her. “I really wanted to combine the two and working in a regular small-town walk-in tattoo shop didn’t work for that, so I opened my shop about four or five years ago now and I started offering spirit tattoos ever since,” she says. Hollow prefers not to know anything about her clients before they come in so as to not affect the outcome of their readings. “If I didn’t know your question and I answered it for you,” she says, “then I feel that’s way more validating.” Photo: Monica Hollow RELATED: 16 Powerful Tarot Card Tattoo Ideas & Their Meanings
How does getting a spirit tattoo work?
Hollow explained the steps of her process in another video on TikTok. Once you book your appointment and come in, she first cleanses you and explains what is about to happen. She then calls on all “helpful spirits” and both her spirit guides and your own to “come through” before she moves on to begin a full medium reading for you. “Sometimes loved ones come through, or what’s been happening lately is people deities come through which is super fun,” she explains in the TikTok, “sometimes it’s an energy reading.” Hollow says she listens to your spirit guides, and if they want her to know about something that “has been going on lately” they may even suggest she perform reiki on you. She then moves on to pulling cards for a full tarot reading. Finally, as you both are processing the readings together, she channels a tattoo design for you. Photo: Chris Costa media and Ben Tourkantonis The tattoo itself can be symbolic, what your loved ones or spirit guides come through with, “but it always means something for you in the end,” she says. You get to choose the size and perhaps the placement of the spirit tattoo, but other than that, It’s pretty much all up to what your spirits tell Hollow. “I tell everyone to just walk in with an open mind and be open to pretty much anything,” Hollow says in her TikTok. Hollow ends the process by charging the tattoo design with “the energy of what the spirits say you need in that moment.” If you aren’t located near her in Rhode Island, you can still get your own spirit tattoo designed by her. She offers all but the inking of the tattoo itself remotely, so you can take the design she creates for you to a local artist in your area. Photo: Monica Hollow RELATED: Spiritual Meaning Of A Swallow Tattoo
When asked about what the experience is like, Hollow spoke of a recent client of hers. “I just had a follow-up session with a client who got a spirit tattoo in August,” Hollow shares. “She just wanted to tell me how so many things have lined up for her since her spirit tattoo reading and she just told me all about it and it was so lovely and amazing to hear the growth and changes she went through with her experience.” Hollow continued, “For my clients, I find [spirt tattoo rituals] to be very healing, very empowering, very validating.” Knowing her work helps her clients to grow and heal Hollow says, “It just makes it worth it because when I was just a regular tattoo artist just taking walk-in clients I really felt unfulfilled, and I really wanted to help people a lot more.” Asked what she likes most about her spirit tattoos, Hollow says, “I just love meeting other souls, other spirits that are aligned because I feel that if you found me somehow on the internet with tons of information and other artists’ stuff out there, and you found me and got an appointment, you are meant to be in front of me, and we were meant to meet. I find that part about it super cool.” Photo: Monica Hollow
Who is Monica Hollow?
Hollow is a New England-born witch who has been a licensed tattoo artist for more than five years. “I’ve pretty much been a witch my entire life. I was doing magic rituals out in nature since I was like seven or nine years old,” she tells YourTango. “I didn’t know that like… wasn’t the norm. I thought that was normal and that everyone could, and I actually do believe that everyone can, just that some people choose not to or shut that part of themselves off.” Photo: Chris Costa media and Ben Tourkantonis Though Hollow did receive some negative reactions for being involved with witchcraft, she did have a support system. “Luckily my mother was pretty open about that stuff so she didn’t really deter it or make me shut it off or tell me it wasn’t real or anything like that. I had a lot of support there,” Hollow says. “I was always very honest and ‘out of the broom closet’ as they call it now these days,” she continued. “I would straight up tell people that I’m a witch. Definitely got some negative responses for that, but I never hid away. And now it’s very accepted, or at least a lot more accepted I’ve seen these days.” Hollow had some scary experiences with the spirit world as a child, but now she views those experiences in a more positive light. At first, she didn’t know what was going on, but as she grew up and learned more about her craft, she says she developed wisdom of the spirit world and her fear disappeared. “There’s a lot of fear-based information out there, and I make it my objective to really clear up a lot of fears and myths that people have around the spirit world,” Hollow explains. “I feel like a lot of it comes from religious trauma and certain belief systems that are just pushed on us from a very young age. Even horror movies, as much as I love horror movies, they definitely don’t help those fears.” Speaking of her journey from childhood to adulthood while dealing with spirits, Hollow says, “You have so much more control over the spirit world than they have over us. At this point in my life, I am not scared of spirit. I don’t believe in evil spirits. I don’t believe that any entity is all good or all bad. I feel we’re all just neutral spirits in this world and there’s really nothing to be afraid of.” Photo: Chris Costa media and Ben Tourkantonis Hollow is also a certified hypnotherapist, life coach, reiki healer, and wellness practitioner, as well as a professionally trained and self-taught psychic medium who has been practicing tarot for 15 years. Her website ensures potential clients that she has “the background and training to ensure a safe space for magickal healing.” Hollow has this advice for anyone wishing to pursue her fields of work: “Just give yourself time. Give yourself space to learn and just enjoy the process because it doesn’t happen overnight. Half is putting it out there, putting it in your mind, and the other half is work.” “Just don’t get discouraged. Keep working at it,” she says. Photo: Chris Costa media and Ben Tourkantonis Hollow’s studio is currently located in North Kingstown, RI. You can book an appointment on her website, as well as on her Etsy store. RELATED: 19 Different Types Of Witches (And The Meaning Of Each) Deauna Nunes is an assistant editor who covers pop culture, lifestyle, love and relationship topics for YourTango. She’s been published by Emerson College’s literary magazine Generic. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram.
