Lucky
This tot can tat.
Maya Lu is just 9 years old, but she’s already proven herself an inking prodigy. The talented kiddo from Tengen in Southern Germany, got hold of her first tattoo gun when she was just 2, and now has her own table at her parent’s tattoo studio, Psyland 25.
“It was just as normal as painting on paper for her,” Maya’s nonbinary parent, Lily Lu, tells Jam Press.
The proud parent was Maya’s first client: When she was a baby, she scribbled on Lu’s feet with a tattoo gun. When she was younger, Lu helped her out, showing her how to use the tools of the trade. Now, Maya is fully capable of tattooing people by herself — when she wants to.
“I always tell her to do whatever she feels like and go for her dreams,” says Lu, who sometimes goes by Little Swastika — a reference to the ancient symbol of good fortune, not the Nazi’s fascist appropriation of it.
The drive doesn’t strike enough to appease Lu’s friends, whom Lu says beg Maya to ink them — but she’s a fickle artist.
“My friends have asked her for a long time to get a tattoo, and I even bribed her with candy and presents, but she never felt like it, and it took years before they finally got a piece,” says Lu, adding that whether Maya is willing to work “depends on her mood.”
One thing’s for sure: The girl isn’t squeamish.
“I love monkeys and to work with the big needle,” says Maya. As for her tattooing goals, “I hope I find people who want get big monkeys done with the big needle.”
