changing, the man, the leader, the teacher he was becoming. He has always followed his own path in a way that inspired me and although he’d probably never think it of himself he is a trailblazer and a thought leader to me and to many. I ask many entrepreneurs about who their inspirations are, and many of them cite their families. Mine have been hugely inspirational to me.
In June 1996, aged just fifteen, I got my first tattoo. My first tattoo was not about the artwork or the artist. It wasn’t about collaboration or beauty. It wasn’t because everyone else had them. (They didn’t. No one I knew had tattoos.) It was to mark a time in my life. It was to prove that no one but me had control over my body, it was my way of having a piece of life that was just for me – strange as that might sound. Mostly my tattoos are bookends marking chapters of my life, or they’re totems with a meaning known only to me. As I’ve got older they have also become a celebration of collaboration with an artist, and about beauty for the sake of beauty, but mostly they are about the relationship I have with myself.
That first one wasn’t designed or really thought out, it was just a random design from a flash sheet on the wall, and has since been covered up.6 It hurt. Less than I was expecting, but it still hurt and it bled a lot. I went to the tattoo shop by myself and picked the tattoo by myself then afterwards I went back to the bedsit of the guy I was sort-of dating and stared at the ceiling in pain while he slept after he’d hit me on it because I had my period and wouldn’t have sex with him.
Aged 15
I think it’s fair and accurate to say that I was not doing a great job of looking after myself. I can now see clearly how little I valued myself and how emotionally immature I still was. At the time, though, I genuinely thought I was doing a good job of being an independent and mature woman. I was proud of myself. I was living the dream. I felt that I was more in control of my life than not. I did what I wanted when I wanted, and no one and nothing scared me. I felt that I was doing a great job of projecting an image of someone who was fearless, fierce and unemotional. Nothing could faze me.
Until I got my GCSE results. The day I opened the envelope with my grades in it, I sat on the doorstep of my dad’s rented house and cried. I got an A, four Bs, three Cs and a D. I cried and cried and cried. My dad asked me what I expected if I was going to go out partying every night and not study? He had a point but I was so disappointed in myself. The way I saw it, it was more reinforcement that I couldn’t do anything well enough. It wasn’t about the grades. They’re not even that bad. They were more than I needed to get into sixth form. The point, the thing that triggered the emotion, was that I knew that I could have done better.
In the summer of 1996, after school finished and before I started at college, I worked as much as I could – in clothes shops, in cafés and babysitting – and I used my money to go to festivals. It was the first year I was allowed to go on my own. I loved the independence and freedom. That summer was THE BEST!
I partied hard, met great people, danced a lot and had all sorts of mischievous and marvellous adventures!
That September I started college and I was happy. It was completely different from school and whilst I wasn’t dealing with any of my feelings I loved the autonomy and freedom I was being given. Finally I could wear what I wanted, do the classes I wanted and, because it was in a new town and no one from my school had come to this college, I could be whomever I wanted. I could start again. Reinvent myself. I have always loved reinvention and prided myself on being a chameleon.
1997 – aged 17, just started college
At the very first college party I got off with7 eight guys and ended up on the bouncy castle straddling Kevin. Everyone else had gone inside by this point, and someone thought they’d save some power and turn the generator off. Neither Kevin nor I realised we were about to have a tonne of bouncy castle collapse on us until it was nearly too late. Luckily, someone heard my screams and turned the generator back on. Greeting my new peers topless kinda set the tone for the next two years at college. To be fair on me I was not the worst behaved person at that party by a long way. But, however outwardly proud I was of my behaviour, inside I was miserable. I hated that guy after guy would happily spend the night with me but no one would be my boyfriend. I fixated on what I had decided was the reason for all of my unhappiness: fat. But in my teens I was not fat. I wasn’t skinny, but I was not fat.
What I see now is that I have spent years disassociating from and disrespecting my body. Treating something with disdain doesn’t make you more connected to it. I craved connection, but I never let anyone get close, not intimate, not with the real me. Not even myself. It was safer to scapegoat the fat.
That first year of college I misbehaved and I tried to have as much fun as I could. I smoked a lot of weed and partied hard. I went to a lot of gigs and hung out with bands. I did my college work, but I wasn’t engaged in it. At the end of my first year a wonderful art teacher of mine took me aside and had a word with me.
‘Ebonie, you are so talented, so full of creative potential and so much more capable than the work you are submitting demonstrates. What’s going on?’
‘Nothing’s going on. I’m passing everything, aren’t I?’
‘You are, but this term there has been a big dip in the quality of your work. I don’t want to tell you how to live your life, and I don’t want to be the teacher that gets your parents involved, but if you don’t stop smoking your life away you could end up failing your Art A-level and that would be a huge waste.’
I gave him a daggers look and opened my mouth.
‘Don’t even start,’ His tone was stern but fair, catching me as I was about to interject. ‘Listen kiddo, you and I hang out at all the same gigs, and I’m not saying stop going out and having fun! Just watch yourself.’
‘OK.’
‘You’re bright, I’m not going to patronise you. I’m going to give you a chance to sort yourself out. I’m not going to involve your parents or the college. Yet. OK?’
‘Thank you.’
‘What do you want to do with your life?’
‘I dunno.’
‘OK, what would make you more excited about your art?’
I thought about it.
‘There’s this artist called Yves Kline8 who I think is awesome.’
He nodded at me and so I continued.
‘Laura and I would love to recreate his work.’
I believe that the people we have interactions with in our lifetime can come in for a reason, a season or a lifetime. I was hugely lucky to have that teacher. He came and had that conversation with me at a really important time in my life and he worked hard to get us the permission we needed. He was the right person to talk to me. I respected him. I listened. He believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself and he showed me who I was again. I was doing a project about mermaids; I took black and white photos of fish and topless photos of my friend Laura and weaved them together in the dark room. That teacher then worked magic to get us permission to get naked and covered in paint in
