The Darling Collective offers trauma-informed approach to tattooing

Paige Berg, owner and artist behind Ink Shrink Tattoo, takes a different approach to tattooing than most, drawing from her experience as a licensed professional counselor and art therapist to create a space for trauma-informed tattooing.

“Originally, my career path was going to school for art therapy and mental health counseling,” Berg said. “I did that, I did the schooling, and about six months later, I started tattooing and I really started enjoying it. Those two careers — tattooing and counseling — grew parallel to each other and I’m still doing both of those careers. I initially was working at what you would think of as a traditional street shop tattoo environment — very cross and vulgar and unpredictable — and I was marketing myself as a trauma-informed tattoo artist and I would just not feel super comfortable with some of my clients being in that environment, so I ended up going the direction of creating a private studio for myself.”

Two years ago, Berg moved her operation back home from Colorado to Wisconsin and quickly realized there was a greater need for trauma-informed tattooing than what she could provide herself.

“I open my books three times a year for four months at a time and earlier this year, I opened my books and filled four months in 30 minutes,” Berg said. “I realized that there was a need for some other spaces and other providers to be able to tattoo in that kind of controlled, safe, welcoming environment.”
Berg’s solution to that need? The Darling Collective.

“That seed was planted of, ‘How can I build a collective space for people to come tattoo as their own business but under one roof where it’s focused on welcoming, trauma-informed, safe space environments?’” Berg said.

The Darling Collective, located at 233 S Erie Sts, De Pere, features five studios for tattoo artists and one available for another type of provider (esthetician, nail tech, etc.).

Each artists handles their own booking and operates as their own business, but all have been through an intensive trauma-informed training with Berg to ensure that The Darling Collective is a space where clients across all walks of life and identities feel welcomed and respected when bringing in their ideas, stories and experiences.

Berg’s trauma-informed approach to tattooing makes sure that clients feel comfortable, safe and in control throughout their tattooing process.

“We have to assume that people around us are walking in with some sort of trauma — whether that be body-related trauma, environmental trauma or a big traumatic event in their life — and recognize that those experiences shape how we relate to one another and also shape how we feel comfortable being seen by other folks,” Berg said. “There are things in the tattoo industry that can be altered to include a trauma-informed environment. Things like asking for consent when you’re going to be touching somebody, making sure they feel safe in their body and that they can advocate for themselves to change the location or size of their tattoo without feeling like they’re not in control of their body and making sure they have a voice if they need to stop the tattoo or if they’re uncomfortable with something.”

But trauma isn’t always what people might think.

“People think of PTSD and think trauma is only for people who’ve had really, really bad things happen to them,” Berg said. “That’s not necessarily what trauma-informed [tattooing] is only geared towards. Even people who’ve had the most ‘vanilla’ lifestyle have experiences that may have been less than favorable or uncomfortable… Trauma doesn’t always have to be what we call ‘big T’ Trauma. There can be ‘small t’ trauma as well that can be things that happened too fast that we didn’t have the emotional regulation tools to navigate at the time as so they get stored in our body and we just kind of move along with them without addressing them.”

A trauma-informed approach is especially relevant to tattooing, Berg said, because many clients coming in for a tattoo are doing so in relation to a big life event.

“Something that’s popular in the tattooing world is that I end up tattooing a lot of transitions — whether that be life transitions, role transitions, celebrations about these transitions and sometimes it’s grief about these transitions. It can be the loss of someone or something in their life, loss of an identity they once had or coming into a new version of themselves where they’ve healed from something,” Berg said. “Trauma can show up in spaces of different medical diagnoses or trials and tribulations that were set in front of them that they may still be experiencing or maybe they’ve come out on the other side of it in a better place or in a worse place… “Sometimes I’m not even talking to clients about what the tattoo is about. Sometimes I don’t know the backstory and sometimes I know the entire backstory. I think there’s just a lot of inherent healing properties when somebody’s intentionally setting up the space to allow a client to feel seen and connected.”

The Darling Collective will hold a grand opening event on Saturday, Nov. 1, from 11 a.m.-6 p.m. with a variety of local vendors and tattoos available on a first come, first served basis.