Bella Wala’s tattoo gun buzzes as she outlines an image of a treasure map stuck in a bottle on a piece of fake skin, working in a room tucked in the bottom floor of the Rosenzweig Arts Center.

The studio and the hot pink tattoo bench are new to the space, but Wala is not. She has fond memories of attending Columbus Arts Council programs as a preteen.

“I went to camp here two years in a row, and it was in this room,” Wala said. “And I went to kid’s church in that main area over there, too.”

But now, at 24-years-old, Wala is preparing to open her own private tattoo studio. On May 11, Whimsy Tattoo will host its grand opening, bringing Wala back to work in the same room she went to camp in so many years ago.

On Tuesday, she told The Dispatch the opening will be a “full circle” in her artwork, which she has been creating “pretty much all (her) life.”

Wala said she has always loved art, drawing constantly since she was a kid, but her skills and obsession grew over time. While she was attending Caledonia High School, she said she became known as one of the “artsy kids” in her school.

“I was very much an ADHD kid, and nothing else could hold my attention like drawing and doing artistic things,” Wala said. “It was just kind of my safe space, going into different worlds, because I hated school. Just trying to get out of a funk, I would just draw and paint.”

After she graduated high school, Wala said, she started attending East Mississippi Community College in 2019, at first for English, and then for social work. But after about three months, she decided college wasn’t for her.

Wala dropped out of classes and pivoted back to art. She started looking for an apprenticeship at a tattoo shop. Relatively quickly, she said, she found a shop that would teach her, before switching shops halfway through to finish her apprenticeship.

While this is not a typical apprenticeship experience, Wala said, she learned a lot from working for the shops, including tattoo safety, as cross contamination is one of the biggest things she learned to avoid, and some tattoo design principles.

“With tattoo designs, your details have to be more simplified and spaced out, because over time, as the skin heals, those details tend to spread apart, and they can get closer together,” Wala said. “So you have to keep in mind the healing process and the design. And aging.”

Since she started, Wala said, she has worked at five tattoo shops, learning different tattoo styles over time. Her favorite style, she said, is black and gray pointillism with stipple shading, though she loves tattooing any whimsical or magical subject matter, like plants, stars or other astrological tattoos.

But just a few months ago, Wala decided to open her own shop after bumping into Columbus Arts Council Executive Director Salem at an art event at Mississippi University for Women. From the beginning, the pair started talking about the possibility of her creating her own studio so she could have more creative freedom and independence in her work.

Wala also had a vision for a tattoo studio that would provide a “safe space” to a different clientele than her previous shops.

“I wanted there to be more variety for women and (LGBTQ+) people to go,” Wala said. “I feel like that’s like 90% of my clientele. … and they usually come to me and say they are scared to go anywhere else.”

Wala said she markets directly to women and LGBTQ+ clients, and she does as much as she can to make those clients feel comfortable all throughout her tattooing process, from consulting to actually tattooing them.

“I feel like I have a more unpopular take on making clientele feel comfortable. I feel like a lot of my clientele are used to artists getting upset at them for little stuff, like wanting to move a stencil, or get more comfortable, or taking breaks or their pain management.”

Gibson said one of the bylaws of the Columbus Arts Council revolves around art for all, and all forms of art. He brought the matter of renting space to the tattoo artist to the Columbus Arts Council board, who approved the request.

“We have so many different things that we do here, so many different art forms,” Gibson said. “From anime/manga night on Mondays to quilting guilds and writers’ groups, it’s just really important that all forms of art are still highlighted.”

Once the new space received approval from the board and the health department, Wala started moving into the new space. Gibson said he has enjoyed having her around the building, as she has already started contributing to the artwork around the council.

In preparation for her studio opening, Wala painted a mural on the wall just outside her doors depicting two koi fish swirling around each other.

“For that one, I wanted something very relaxing and calming, not very overstimulating for the kids to look at,” Wala said. “I thought the koi fish would be really cool. Plus, koi fish are very prominent in tattooing. It’s a very common design in tattooing and Japanese traditional stuff. So I thought that would be a cool crossover.”

Until May 11, Wala said, she is taking clients here and there to build up her experience in the new space. But during her grand opening, the Columbus Arts Council is planning to host a reception upstairs including a grand opening raffle, art vendors and of course, Wala with her tattooing gun at the ready to give out small pre-designed tattoos.

For more information on the reception, visit columbusartscouncil.com/.